I had, essentially, a horrible summer.
None of my friends were ever anywhere near me. They were either working, at school, or hanging out with their SOs.
I got a job a couple days after I got back to town, but I found that I was the only worker there who didn’t chain-smoke… at a gas station. I resigned after hearing that I could be fined $500 and fired for selling cigarettes to someone under 18 even if they gave a theoretically perfect fake ID. Two days later, the store was robbed.
Out on the job hunt again, I had an interview at a major auto-parts chain store. I would have made a perfect parts-seller - I’m a lifelong car nut, an engineering student, and someone who knows which parts were shared between every car sold in the US since I was born. The manager who interviewed me said I was hired as soon as the background check came back.
IT NEVER DID. I asked them to resend the form several times. I’m not sure if they did or not, but regardless, they continued to deny me employment based on a lack of a background check. This isn’t a top-security job. This isn’t a job where huge profits could be made via theft. This isn’t a job where one’s background would be important. There’s no way in hell that a background check on me would take longer than an hour. I have never been arrested. I have only lived at four addresses in my entire life.
And to top it all off, the politician who I’ve venerated for years for not taking guff from anyone turns into a pansy all summer long. You know who he is - he’s the guy who if he successfully switches into his come-hell-or-high-water mode will be our next president. It’s painful to see John Kerry up there now. I’ve never seen him in worse form. All he’s got to do to roll Bush is to get his act together - and he hasn’t even shown that he can do that.