The COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing “shelter in place” order in Illinois has forced every Schwem family member to either learn new skills or revisit old ones.
My oldest daughter assembles timeworn Disney puzzles while she waits to start a job she had secured just prior to the outbreak but may no longer exist.
My youngest embraces Zoom technology to stay in touch with her volleyball team, whose season was cut short and is unlikely to resume.
Every so often I catch my wife staring at an overflowing closet, which I interpret as a sign that maybe, just maybe, she might remove most of its contents and toss them on the curb. It hasn’t happened yet, but I remain hopeful.
As for me, the virus has upended the meetings and conference industries, bringing my occupation — humor speaker at corporate events — to a screeching halt. For the moment, I have reentered the job market, performing a task I have not encountered in over 30 years:
Filling out a job application.
At 57, doing anything you haven’t done in more than a quarter of a century is, initially, laughable. But I’m sure that’s true for any age. Imagine telling a 35-year-old man that, because of current circumstances, he must go to his backyard and build a fort out of couch cushions and empty cardboard boxes.
Of course, the employment process has changed markedly over the past 30 years. From what I am gathering, there are now two ways to secure employment:
1. Search online job boards, find the position that, in your opinion, you and you alone are qualified for, upload a resume, hit “send” and spend the rest of the day falsely convincing yourself that somebody is reading it.
2. Text a relative who owns a successful company, explain your situation and start work the following Monday.
Most of my successful relatives have either retired or passed on, which means I am diving, rather belly flopping, into the first method. I’ve always had an updated resume saved in the depths of my computer, just in case, but never had to actually share it.
The last person who read my resume did so in 1987, and it was all I needed to land a job in the television news business. Now, the resume appears to be a supporting document and one that won’t be necessary if I am not able to truthfully answer the following questions:
Am I male, female or did I “prefer not to say?” I chose male, figuring that information would come out eventually.
Am I a veteran? Am I a native Hawaiian or other Pacific islander that wasn’t Hispanic or Latino? Am I missing limbs or partial limbs? I answered “no” to all three but will admit to crawling out of bed most mornings and checking to ensure my knees are still in place.
Then came the chance to attach “any supporting documentation” that would help me land the position. ANY supporting documentation? That’s almost a dare. I thought about all the creative methods I could employ to help me secure employment. Should I aim my iPhone at my face, hit “record” and upload a song parody with catchy lyrics? How about a parody of Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen?
COVID-19. But we can work together. Or we won’t talk at all.
My wife talked me out of adding a meme featuring Liam Neeson uttering his memorable line from Taken.
“What I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career.”
I thought it was perfect.
“Seems a little over the top,” my wife said. “Think of something else.”
“How about superimposing the head of a male model onto my body and using that as my profile picture,” I asked
“I wouldn’t do that,” she replied.
“Why not? People do it all the time on Tinder.”
Eventually I elected to send just a resume, a carefully crafted cover letter and links to my website and YouTube channel. Now, like millions of Americans, I await a response.
I wonder if Liam Neeson is hiring.
