Published: December 08, 2007 11:52 pm            

STEPHANIE SALTER: When I run the country, everybody who wants a job gets a job

TERRE HAUTE — One of the hardest parts of my work, one of the reasons I reluctantly accepted membership in the ranks of management last year, is the process of hiring a new employee.

I’ve been through the drill four times now in about 16 months. I hate it.

No, scratch that. I love one element of it, the end, enabling some industrious human being to join the team here at the newspaper. But I hate the means to the end.

Part time or full time, benefits or no benefits, day shift or nights and weekends, the response to an ad is always the same. Dozens of qualified and over-qualified women and men send or e-mail me their resumes and heartfelt requests for employment. Many of them telephone to make certain I received their information.

I sift through the growing folder of prospective hires and try to match experience, goals and skills with our specific needs. I narrow down the list of candidates, call them and set up face-to-face interviews.

This is the first juncture at which I wish I could yell, “Stand-in, please!”

This is not because I don’t like meeting people or hearing about their work and a little about their family lives. I like that very much. The Wabash Valley has an amazing collection of folks with varied backgrounds and solid employment records.

What’s difficult is, as I listen, I can’t help but empathize with the person sitting on the other side of my desk. I remember my own job interviews — figuring out the right thing to wear, making certain I arrived on time, trying not to seem too eager (or desperate) yet somehow conveying that I really wanted this job and would work hard if I got it.

When the person sitting in my office visitor’s chair is visibly nervous, I want to come around the desk and put my hands on his or her shoulders and say, “Please, relax. I’m just a regular Joe-ette, not a ‘boss.’ I hate this, too. I’d much rather we’d get out of here and go for a cup of coffee.”

But, of course, I can’t say that. And the truth is, as ill as it suits me, I am a boss (of sorts).

When the interviews are over, the sleepless nights begin. Every single time I’ve done this, including just last month, I grow depressed, surly and agitated. I am not a pleasant person to be around because I am obsessed with what I can’t have and resentful that I can’t have it.

What I want is to hire everybody.

The high school students, trying to get college money while they finish their senior year.

The college students, working to keep their heads above water with tuition, books, dorm fees, loans to pay back.

The young mothers, still reeling a little from a divorce they didn’t want, assuring me they have daycare provisions. The middle-age dads whose list of long employment stints looks like a Who’s-Who of Companies And Factories That Left Terre Haute.

The men and women of my generation, or older, unpleasantly surprised to be needing a supplement to Social Security, a 401(k) or a pension that won’t cover the ever-rising cost of living.

They all deserve to be hired.

One of the lies that gets repeated a lot in this country is that Americans don’t want to do “the little jobs,” the minimum wage or no-benefits work that barely buys groceries and pays utility bills. In my short time as a person who hires men and women for little and medium-sized jobs, I’ve seen nothing but contradictions of that lie.

I am continually impressed by how hard people, especially people in this area, are willing to work or how many concessions they are willing to make in their family and personal lives to pull down a steady paycheck.

Whoever the next mayor turns out to be, I deeply hope he appreciates the surfeit of eager labor we have in Terre Haute, Vigo County and the surrounding counties. And I’d like to see him pledge to do right by this labor pool — bust his butt to draw businesses large and small to the city.

During the pre-election City Council forums, a repeating theme from several of the candidates was the need, not just for jobs in Terre Haute, but decent-paying jobs that will help families stay together and stay here.

So, too, with the young adults who grow up or come here to earn degrees and certificates from Ivy Tech, Indiana State, Rose-Hulman and St. Mary-of-the-Woods — who then have to leave town because no one can offer them a real living wage.

Never do I hate this lack of opportunity more than when I finally have to make a decision about a hire. I get to choose one person from dozens for a job, then contact everyone else whose hopes I have raised to tell them they have to keep searching. More than once, I have listened to an adult I’ve met only once cry at the news.

It’s no consolation to any of these folks, I know — it wouldn’t be to me — but I’ve cried more than once when I got off the phone. Hearing my own voice say, “I’m so sorry,” leaves me feeling impotent and hollow.

Over and over, I sit at my desk and think the same thing:

This is the United States of America. CEOs and Wall Street tycoons are making more money than they can spend in a lifetime. Never in the history of the country have there been so many millionaires and billionaires. The only level of retail sales that haven’t been hurt by the sagging economy is luxury goods.

But in Terre Haute, Indiana, and in hundreds of cities and towns like it, there aren’t nearly enough jobs for good, industrious people who want to work. That’s a national disgrace and I hate it.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.