Would you like a job?

Everyone knows that it is important to ask a prospective employer questions when you are interviewing. These can be clarifying questions, such as "So, you make widgets here? What exactly is a widget, anyway?" or questions that show you have done your homework on the company and can talk intelligently about any trends you have noticed: "What's up with the higher disciplinary actions here in the last month?" and "Why is Jeffrey Skilling sitting behind the president's desk?"

But the most important questions are the ones you never ask. They just sit in your brain, although at times they threaten to burst out at inappropriate moments. This happened to me recently when I was interviewing for a staff position as an editor.

First they throw out bajillions of facts at me. This particular company has been around for a hundred years, and they proceed to give me a detailed history. After hearing about the various incarnations of their homeschooling curriculum, how many students they have served in the last century, how many different buildings they have occupied, and how many former students have gone on to be contributing members of society by making widgets, I have many questions, particularly...

Where's the bathroom??

They tell me that many of the staff members here are former teachers, so the environment is very warm, caring, supportive, fuzzy, etc. And I wonder...

Do we get milk and cookies at 3:00? And naps afterward?

I am shuffled from one office to another, deposited with the next person or persons to interview with, collecting stuff along the way: a glass of water, a benefits folder from Human Resources, a thick stack of manuscript pages showing what the work would come to me looking like. One interviewer looks at the pages and says, "They gave you work already?"

Yes. It's due yesterday.

I further learn that no one goes by their real name here. Anika is known as Nikki. Michelle, who is straining to talk with a laryngitis-diminished voice, was the third Michelle to be hired, so she goes by Mick. She no more looks like a Mick than I look like a Jeremiah. And it makes me think...

Will I, too, if I am offered employment, be required to take another name? And will I have any say in what this name is? Can I be called Princess, for instance?

Eileen (whose real name, as far as I know, is Eileen, and who may be the only one called by her real name), has been here for 3 months. She is impressed, she says, by the little things the company does. (And at a nonprofit, sometimes the little things are all you have.) Milk in the fridge in case you didn't get a chance to eat your breakfast at home. Hot water for tea. An offsite holiday party. In surprise, I think...

You mean you don't have potluck holiday parties, where all the staff have to contribute something?

This is the kind of party hosted by the kind of company I'm used to working for.

By the time I leave, there is hardly anyone left in the building. I never do get any cookies, a nap, or even a trip to the bathroom, but nevertheless it has been a successful interview. At least everyone called me by my real name.

More Michigan delights

The first morning of our visit to Michigan we were pampered. We got to sleep in, enjoy a nice warm brunch, slowly enter the day. My parents lulled us into relaxation and complacency. Ah, this is the life! we thought. And then they put us to work.

My parents are not above employing enforced labor. Anyone who visits them -- they don't even have to be relatives, my parents are equal opportunity taskmasters -- is likely to be pressed into service of one sort or another. So that morning, one presided over my cleaning of the kitchen while the other kept watch over Joe while he cleaned out my mom's car in preparation for taking it to, as my mother said, the graveyard.

Okay, technically my mom didn't make me clean her kitchen. She didn't even ask me to. But it was definitely NOT Joe's idea to clean out the car.

I cleaned the kitchen because I could not stand the counters anymore. They were begging me to clean them. "Please, please, clean us, we haven't seen a cleanser since -- what's it been, Mack, like 18, 19 years?" "Yeah, I think it was back around '89 or so."..."Please!"

How could I ignore that? When I am 82, like my mother, I will probably be much better at ignoring things like that.

I had been somewhat worried that my mother might take offense at my cleaning initiative, somewhat like my father had done at my insistence that I drive his car. In fact, I told Joe to help keep my mom out of the kitchen while I cleaned it, a request he ultimately could not fulfill owing to his own cleaning assignment.

I needn't have worried. After I had worked halfway around the counter, scrubbing with everything I could find in the cupboard, my mom asked, only half joking, "Would you like to be my housekeep--"

"Only today, Mom, only today. And only the kitchen."

At this point my father came in to report on the cleaning out of the car. My mom continued, "That's going to be cleaner than it's been since--"

"Since you got the car, yeah, it sure will be! We're really clearing it out!" my dad said. (Notice the "we.")

"I was talking about the kitchen," my mom said stoutly. "Not the car. Why do I care how clean my car is now that it's going away?"

Later we showed my parents the book about our historic community that was just published. Our house is in it, and we are even in it ("Behold the Only Residents Who Do Not Recycle!") (Just kidding). It's a beautiful book (not just because we are in it), and we showed it to them in the hopes of enticing them to come visit us and see all the wondrous beauty we live in (by which I do NOT mean our kitchen counters). My mom looked through the book cover to cover, put it down, and said, "Well, now we've seen everything so we don't have to come visit."

So much for psychology.

But my dad told Joe that maybe they would come see us sometime, although of course he said this when my mom was not around. I'm sure she will have something to say about it, and it won't be the same thing he said. Perhaps I should call them, and then they can discuss it between themselves while I wait for someone to have a conversation with me.

And if they do come, boy will I have some assignments for them...

Car scares

The two principals concerned in this blog have often been viewed as having horrendous luck on trips. Well, I would just like everyone to know that we went to Michigan to see my family over Easter, and we had a marvelous time. Everyone got along fine, the flights and luggage arrived at the same time and at the same terminal, and Joe did not poke me too many times while looking at SkyMall.

Now, wasn't that exciting? Of course it wasn't! No one ever wants to hear about the good stuff that happens. Booooring.

There were some tense moments on the airplane due to turbulence from high winds (although the two children seated behind us no doubt added to it), but I am happy to say that no arms of those seated near me were permanently injured. (Joe has taken to wrapping towels around his arms, just in case.)

But far more interesting -- in the sense of terrifying -- than the plane adventures were the car adventures.

Scenario #1: The family is getting ready to drive to Good Friday services, and it has been snowing for the past couple of hours. It is also beginning to get dark. Your 85-year-old father not only insists on driving, he puts on his sunglasses to do so, which he has worn day and night, indoors and out, for seemingly the last two centuries.

You:
(a) Explain, gently but firmly, that you think it best he does not drive under such conditions
(b) Steal his car keys when he is not looking
(c) Warn him that if he insists on driving, no one will get in the car with him
(d) Keep your mouth shut and pray the entire trip

Well, if you are a coward like me, you will choose (d). The only problem with this, other than the possibility of not having your prayers answered, is that

(e) Everyone else in the family is now mad at you for not insisting to Dad that you drive.

So, to avoid family wrath, you attempt to make a different choice on the way home from church. First you choose (a). This brings about the reaction you fully expected from your father, namely, "Pffft." (This is why you chose (d) in the first place.) Next, you try (c). This brings about a rather stronger reaction from Dad. Desperate, you try (b), but you find to your surprise that his reaction times are pretty good for a man his age. Defeated, you retreat to the back seat and commence with (d), leading, inevitably, to (e).

Somehow, something that had nothing to do with you is now all your fault, leading you to stay out of...

Scenario #2, also involving a vehicle and an octogenarian

Mom, who drives a Sherman tank of a car, was planning to get rid of it the day after we left ("It's going to the graveyard," she said sadly). The car emitted toxic fumes whenever it was driven and obviously needed to go to the graveyard, but she was reluctant to let it go for two reasons. First, she had fought long and hard to have her own car, one that she didn't have to share with a husband or any children, and one that was blue (my father hates blue).

The second reason, which was far more important to her, was that she had just filled the tank with gas and was not about to let it go to waste. So she just kept driving it around town, to the grocery store, to the hospital where she volunteers, to the drug store to get one of their 1,783 prescriptions filled, wherever, until the gas was pretty well used up. The car must have left a trail like in the "Family Circus" comic, only of smoke and obnoxious fumes.

Other than issuing a mild warning, based on our limited understanding of fumes and smoke, that the car was probably not safe to drive, there was little we could do about Scenario #2. Happily, Mom did not drive it while we were there, although it did play a part in Scenario #3...

Scenario #3: First octogenarian, second car

On Easter morning, Dad overslept and was not ready to go to church when the rest of us were. No problem! We early birds would go together in Dad's car, Mom explained, and Dad would come later in Mom's car.

Great. Now we have
(a) car of unknown reliability
(b) driver of, um...
(c) (b) alone in (a)

Somehow, probably due to all those prayers, (a) and (b) made it safely to church.

I was almost relieved to get on the plane later that night to come home. I wouldn't even have minded if we'd had a snowstorm on the way.

More on rodent editors

Last week I wrote about conversations with People Who Think Editors Are Some Sort of Rodent. When I have these conversations with visitors at our church, the discussion is a little different owing to the confusing fact, for the visitors, that another woman at church works at a newspaper. When the visitors talk to her and then talk to me, this is usually what transpires:

V: "Oh, you're the one who works for the newspaper!"

M: "No, that's Doreen."

V: "But you're an editor?"

M: "Yes."

V: "You don't work for a newspaper?"

M: "No."

V: "But Doreen does."

M: "Yes."

V: "Is she an editor?"

M: "No."

At this point, most people are wishing they'd never heard of editors or newspapers -- newspapers never carry any positive news anyway, and since "Calvin & Hobbes" left the comics page there's nothing worth reading -- and they change the subject to something they can understand: the weather.

This is fine with me, because this way I don't have to explain what it is I actually do, which even I haven't been able to figure out after nine years.

Great expectations

When I was teaching, and people found out that I was a teacher, the ensuing conversation generally involved one of two responses:

Response #1:
Other person: (in saccharine sweet voice) You're a teacher? Oh, that must be soooo rewarding! (clasps hands in rapturous wonder)

Response #2:
Other person: You're a teacher? (snorts) Must be nice to have the whole summer off! (proceeds to tell everyone within earshot that I am a lowlife scum living off honest taxpayers' money)

So I was rather relieved when I left teaching to become an editor. I thought this would give me some measure of stature when I told people what I did for a living. Instead, what I generally got was this:

Other person: So what do you do?
Me: I'm an editor.
Other person: (stares blankly, possibly believing that editor means "some sort of rodent")

Now that I also do some writing, I find that the response has shifted again. When people hear that you are a writer, they do not automatically think of, say, writing for a newsletter on waste treatment, or writing for the Wilberforce, Ohio, Journal-Star-Free Press. They think New York publishing houses. They think multimillion dollar contracts. They want to know whether you have written any bestsellers. They want to know who your agent is. They want to know whether you can help them get published.

Some are quite adamant that you must be an author someone has heard of, even if they haven't. That you are holding out on them, being modest about your accomplishments. No, no, you say, really, I just write a blog. And an occasional note to my husband to please make sure the back door is locked before he comes to bed.

I run into these people in the oddest places. At the bank one day, I patiently waited while the teller conducted my transaction. She looked at her computer and said, "You're an editor and a writer!"

I stared at her, somewhat frightened. What other information about me was on her little computer screen? That I like chocolate and watching Monk? That I have always wanted to go to Australia? That I really wish the bank would offer a drive-through option so that I could do my banking in my pajamas?

"What's your latest book?" she went on.

I stammered, "Uh, nothing you would recognize. I just, uh, do, you know, educational stuff."

"Oh, you must be working on something exciting. Come on, tell me what's coming out next."

No matter how much I tried to explain that I'm not that kind of writer, she refused to believe it. She was sure that I was holding out on her. The more I declined to reveal any secrets I might be holding about the next bestseller, the more she tried to pry them out of me.

She finally flung my money and receipt at me, clearly disgusted that either 1) I wouldn't confide in her or 2) I had no secrets to confide.

To save myself this grief, the next time someone asks what I do, I'm just going to say that I eat chocolate and watch Monk. Let them make of it what they will.

13,000 miles to nowhere

We amused ourselves on our trip to Indiana a few weeks ago by reading the signs that tell you how much further you have to your destination. If you are traveling in New England and your destination is Dunkin' Donuts, congratulations! You are never more than five miles away from where you are going.

Unfortunately, on this trip we were not traveling in the Northeast, and our destination was not Dunkin' Donuts. Our destination was Indiana, which was 584 miles away. Even more unfortunately, we had to drive across the entire state of Ohio (motto: "Who Would Believe a State Could Be So Boring?"), which alone is 1,953 miles.

But the good transportation people of Ohio, anxious to do their best to get us through their state with no accidents involving cows, put up helpful mileage signs like every 500 feet, telling you how many more miles until, based on their extremely careful calculations, you will go crazy.

They are probably also afraid that if they do not continually remind you how much farther you have on your extremely long trip across their extremely boring state, you will forget where you are headed.

Passenger: We've been driving forever...where are we going again?
Driver: Uh, Maine, isn't it? Wait, there's a sign...no, Dayton! That's right, Dayton!
Passenger: Are you sure it wasn't Dunkin' Donuts?

But what these Ohio transportation people -- who no doubt fly everywhere they want to go -- don't realize is that when you are driving on such a long trip, it is really not very reassuring to watch the number of miles to your destination decrease by only two miles with each successive sign. You might as well be traveling to Russia, because that's what it feels like when you see these signs:

Russia: 173,986 miles (9,694,821,374 km)
Russia: 173,984 miles
Russia: 173,982 miles
Dunkin' Donuts: Next right
Russia: 173,980 miles
Russia: 173,978 miles

No wonder so many people end up at Dunkin' Donuts. They just want to be, finally, at a destination. They don't really care which destination.

This also no doubt explains why it takes 6 days for mail to get from our house to Joe's family in Illinois. The mail truck watches those signs go by, mile by agonizingly slow mile, until it can't take it anymore. It just breaks down, crying. It is towed by a team of mules to a recovery site, where it receives depression counseling ("Now, tell me, when did you first notice this condition coming on?" "I'm not sure...somewhere between mile 9,635 and 9,633! Oh, boo hoo hoo!"). The mail that was being carried by the truck is transferred to several bikes and wagons driven by young boys, which also explains why the price of stamps keeps going up: Those boys are constantly wanting newer models.

When you think about it, those mile signs explain a lot.

But back to our topic. Where was I? Oh, yes, 384 miles east of Wilberforce, Ohio (which is not made up, anymore than its neighboring town of Goes is made up).

Once we were out of Ohio and into Indiana (motto: "Be Glad You're Not in Ohio Anymore!"), the interesting signs shifted from destination miles to clever river names. These were some prize-winning names! The first was Mad River, which inspired Joe (remember, we had just crossed the great expanse of Ohio) to burst into a spontaneous, twisted version of "Moon River," the lyrics of which are probably best not made public.

After this came Big Blue River, the color of which -- surprise! -- was not blue. But we figured maybe it is connected to the Pacific Ocean, because in Hawaii I was once told that the government proudly spends several hundred million a year on Ty-D-Bol to get the water just that shade of blue. Alas, the Big Blue River in Indiana looks nothing like Ty-D-Bol, or the Pacific Ocean for that matter.

But the best, most clever river name was saved for last. The State River Namers, in an attempt to achieve immortality in the Annals of River Naming, christened it "Nameless River."

We bet they came up with that name while crossing Ohio.

What color is your dinosaur?

I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Several career guides counsel people in my situation to concentrate on growing up first. Ha ha! Of course that is not what they say. They say to look for clues about what you like to do in what you enjoyed doing as a kid.

Joe's mom says she did this with her own kids. She watched what they liked to do when they were little, and it sort of correlated with what they ended up doing later in life. Except Joe, whose early interest was dinosaurs. (He also liked to rip things apart to see how they worked, and there is definitely some correlation there with his current hobbies.) I guess if computers hadn't come along, he might be out digging bones or something now instead of working for an investment company. Or maybe doing museum work, ala the movie "Night at the Museum" (which, if you haven't seen it, is hysterical, although my mom said she "didn't see what was so funny about it." I think this is because Dick van Dyke, whom she has always enjoyed watching and holds in high esteem, plays a character whose values are not exactly worthy of his alter egos Bert the chimney sweep or Rob Petrie).

Anyway, back to my interests as a kid and how they might help me figure out what to do now. Here is my list of what I liked to do from roughly ages 4 to 8:

1. Read
2. Swing
3. Read
4. Play with Fisher-Price people, house, and village and make up stories about them
5. Read

Did I mention I liked to read?

So, according to this list and the theory that what you liked as a child can help point you to a satisfying career as an adult, I should make a good city planner and swing set installer who can read instruction booklets.

Or possibly a writer of fiction who holds book readings out on the playground. (Of course, some readers of this blog, including my husband, might say that I am already a fiction writer).

Had I been more computer gifted, like Joe, perhaps I might have been the one to create the Sims, a computer game that lets you create people and whole towns and direct their lives and, generally, be bossy. (They say this game is very popular with female players.) But I came into the computer age rather late, and not exactly willingly (I remember telling my sister at one point that I didn't need a computer, just a word processor. Visionary I am not).

I admit I've always had a secret interest in being something of a career coach, helping other people figure out how to turn their interests into a great career. But I guess until I can do this for myself, no one will want to pay me to help them do it.

Another thing I did when I was young, according to my mother (who, as a Revisionist Historian, cannot always be trusted to tell things exactly the way they occurred -- with five children, she might actually be thinking of another child), was to correct people's grammar. So maybe after all I am in the right career.