Why Can’t I Get a Job? Because Capitalism Sucks and America, Too!
The following is satire.
by Trevor Abrahams,
Ellicott City, MD
Dear America,
I’m going on welfare. I’ve been looking for a job now for over two years, and I have had it. I’m sayin’ screw it! Ya hear me, America? And not just screw looking for a job and keep getting turned down, failing and failing again and again, but screw the whole system, man! To hell with this whole American capitalist bullcrap.
Maybe if I could get hired if I wouldn’t feel this bitter. But I gotta tell you, America, this whole not-being-able-to-find a job crap is really making me doubt your whole “you can make it in America” crap, and the whole “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” crap you feed us from the moment we’re born. So I’m giving up. I’m going on public assistance.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a conservative, upstanding guy. I just have a different way of expressing myself. You can probably guess that my childhood was completely tranquil and that I was raised by responsible parents to be a real go-getter. I’m 26 years old. I’m the perfect guy you’d want your daughter to bring home for dinner. I’m the perfect guy you’d want teaching your 1st grader the laws of arithmetic and about the founding of America and the true meaning of Thanksgiving. You want a competent guy standing in front of your nine-year-old telling them about the true meaning of Christmas and why 2 x 3 equals 6…? Look no further.
But am I recommended for the job? No. Have I been turned down from countless teaching jobs even though I have an education degree from 2008? Yes! And it’s just not fair!
Yeah, America…ungrateful, lying, inconsiderate America, the only job I’ve held since my college graduation and my 22nd of 48 body piercings and hoops has been at Slick Willy’s Adult Video & Novelty store on Route 40 in Ellicott City, Maryland! Why? WHY, AMERICA?
I just can’t understand it: why can’t people just accept me for who I am? Can’t people just accept my own expression of my individuality? Apparently not, which is quite hypocritical for our society. After all, aren’t we all told to “go off and be ourselves;” be our own man or woman? Well, this is how I’ve chosen to express myself. It’s my choice, and I’ve chosen to choose that choice. And if you don’t like it then screw you, America, and all you stand for!
So I’m done with it. I’m done with going into grammar schools with my bachelor’s degree in education and being ordered to leave. I’m done going to the troubled youth centers and being told that I’ll only make the kids wanna do drugs more. I’m sick of going to work at homeless shelters and told I’d scare the residents back out into the streets! I’m even tired of going to apply at tattoo and piercing parlors only to be told that “I’m just too much for customers to bear,” and then asked to leave under police threat. So I’m just sick of all of it – all the lies of this country’s promises, all the while simply expressing my inner self. Screw it! I’m so done!
I was raised to believe this country was founded under “individual freedom.” HA! Whata’ joke! I was raised to think I could be (and look) like anything in this society and yet have a chance. After all, have not so many been denied rights and first class status based on their looks? Well, what’s the difference in my case?! I have all the qualifications, the perfect upbringing and all the degrees, yet I am unable to find any job other than that of a grave hour shift at a damn porn store. WHY?!
Oh, America, you and all your phony “be yourself” bull%$#@. It’s pathetic, America, and all your damned “dreams.” If you can’t see beyond the half-inch rings in my nose and the three-inch rings in my earlobes and my eye, nose, lip, chin, cheek, nipple, naval, and penile studs and countless face, neck and body tattoos and how I’ve basically made myself look like a monster, and see me for who I really am, then the hell with you, America!
I was raised to believe anyone can make it in America, regardless how they look. Well, this is me, Trevor Abrahams, expressing myself, showing the world who I really am inside by showing them what that looks like on the outside. But that isn’t “suitable” for you, CAPITAISTAmerica, with your prejudices and your standards and cultural and class distinctions. I guess I just don’t present the right “class” of person the rest of you wanna deal with.
But hey, that’s your loss, ain’t it, because now I have no recourse but to go on welfare. And by now, I’m proud to be on welfare, living off people who couldn’t accept my individuality.
So I hope you don’t get too angry, America. I hope you don’t get too mad at this bright, shining specimen of virtue and productivity you have shunned. And while I say “screw you all,” I will be saying it while still looking for a job. At least you’ll still find that “acceptable” in your compartmentalized capitalist confines. I think my next application will be to that daycare center down the street.
—Cheers, heartless, capitalist ***holes!
Trevor Abrahams,
Ellicott City, MD
The preceding is satire.
