Rant #2,508: Happy and Me

Let’s talk about some happier things …
 
My son had an actual job interview yesterday, made out an application for another job at another venue, and has a job fair to attend on Friday morning.
 
He also is still missed by his former employer … or is it “kind of” still current employer?
 
I don’t really know at this point.
 
A few days back, when we first learned that my son’s furlough had officially become unemployment, due to my pushing the matter with his “former” employer, I tried everything I knew to get a leg up for him about getting a job.
 
I contacted a few agencies that are supposed to help him—worthless years ago, still worthless now—and I also put up a message on the Neighborhood message board about his situation, grasping for straws and looking for some direction.
 
On that local neighborhood board, I received numerous suggestions, prayers and the like, and I appreciated everything that people contributed.
 
Like the situation on Facebook, posts generally generated activity for a day, maybe two days, and then they fade into the mist, and that is what happened to my post … until late morning.
 
I received another message, and dutifully looked at it, thinking it was going to be another well wish or another suggestion.
 
But it was weird, and I mean, really weird.
 
“My firm hires special needs people all the time … please call xxx at xxx-xxx-xxxx for more information.”
 
That is the paraphrased message, and it was from a name that I knew … a name that I knew because it was from my son’s supposedly former/current employer.
 
Yes, the same employer that put him on furlough, the same employer where my son has been sitting here nearly seven months waiting for a call from to come back to work, the same employer who, when I pressed them, told me that they currently had no place for my son in their workforce … .
 
This makes no sense, and when I read this message, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
 
So what did I do? I called the number, and asked for the person who placed the message on the neighborhood board.
 
I waited, and then a woman got on the phone … not the woman I called, but another company employee who my son worked under during this year or so at the company.
 
She said that she was as bewildered as I was about the message, but the person who placed it was “at a meeting,” so she could not ask her about it directly.
 
The woman I spoke to picked up my call because she knew my name, and wanted to find out herself what was happening.
 
She explained to me that she had no idea why the message was placed, but it could be a simple mistake—because things have not changed, there is still no place for my son doing what he did with the company right now—or perhaps “there is something in  the works for my son to return in some capacity.”
 
I happen to think that it is the former—a genuine mistake—but in this coronavirus world, where everything is topsy turvy, who knows?
 
The woman I spoke to reiterated that my son and several more employees are in the same boat, without a job because they simply cannot open up their offices to anything but a very skeleton crew at this time. Others employed by them are working fully at home, but my son’s job cannot be done that way, so he, and several others, are without positions right now, and might be without positions for if not the foreseeable future, than perhaps forever.
 
The woman I spoke with said that they would love to have my son back, and she would check up on exactly what the message meant and get back to me.
 
I am still waiting, but honestly, I think the message was an honest mistake from somebody whose heart might have been in the right place, but whose head might have been slightly out of whack.
 
Look, I have been out of work for nearly a year, and I know that the world is completely upside down now when it comes to employment.
 
We are being told that there are many jobs to be had out there, but based on my experience, I know that that is all nothing more than cheap talk, folderol to soothe the masses into believing that everything is getting back to normal and everything will be OK.
 
Baloney, and now, it’s bad enough that I have my own personal experience to shove into the faces of those who actually believe this nonsense, but I now have my son’s experience to add grist to my mill.
 
A happy story, isn’t it?
 
Happier than talking about death, but in today’s world, we have to ask ourselves the following question:
 
“What is happy?”