I enjoy reading local obituaries. You are transported back to a time when guys took that first job after high school or college – and never left.
Yeah, there’s John, who joined Pratt & Whitney 48 years ago and cranked out airfoils and turbines and stuff, practically forever. There’s Bob, who joined the old Hartford Fire Insurance Co. and processed paper through the years at ITT-Hartford and then, Hartford Financial Services, where he had to learn to deal with guys who peddled annuities and didn’t know nothin’ about no auto insurance.
And there’s Frank, who did brass in Waterbury from the time he was in high school; and there’s Joe, who worked at the same textile mill in eastern Connecticut for 50 years, until it all moved to North Carolina.
And then there’s stupid Cohen, bouncing from job to job, hoping against hope that he will eventually find the perfect gig. Why can’t I find the comforting womb of a job that will last forever?
Because. That’s why. Just because. Research suggests that the average American of my generation will change jobs about 18,000 times. Americans are told to remain “flexible” and stuff, because by the time you line up all the pencils on your new desk, some Human Resources creature will come along, break all the pencil points, and tell you that you’ve been replaced by someone in India who doesn’t need any pencils.
The best job that I ever had was a brief gig as a commissioner on the Connecticut Election Enforcement Commission. Well, it wasn’t really a “job.” You got about $50 per meeting and carfare for performing an invaluable public service. If you were running for First Selectman of Voluntown and you forgot to file the appropriate 15 forms in triplicate, notarized with a drop of your blood, the commission would hold a hearing and someone like me could be your judge and sentence you to be hanged. It would have been a perfect job, if it paid better.
Eulogize Me
There must be a job out there for me – a job in which I could settle down for the rest of my life, assured that it would be the focus of my obituary.
For instance, the State of Florida is about to hire a “Panther Advocate,” with a salary of $37,000 and a $26,000 new car, to wander the state, advocating for, well, you know, panthers. Panthers are a subspecies of the cougar, in case you didn’t know. I know. I could advocate for panthers.
A job that I lobbied very hard for was the Chief Diversity Officer slot at Yale University. This is a new job at Yale and, as I told the Yale president, who could be a more diverse choice for the job than a white boy from the Connecticut suburbs? The job went to a woman named Gonzalez. From Texas.
According to Yale, she will spend her first months at Yale, “understanding its culture.” God, I wanted that job.
Of course, there is a school of thought that suggests to shiftless people such as Cohen that they “work for the state,” on the theory that tenure is reasonably secure and the Swedish health insurance will stave off that business about appearing in the obituary section.
I found the perfect state job. I told Gov. M. Jodi Rell that I wanted that job. She nodded – and gave it to former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, who, by the way, already has federal insurance and pensions that allow him to live like some kind of newspaper publisher or something.
Yes, Simmons is going to be the state’s first Business Advocate, with a salary of $75,000 per year and a budget of $535,000 to fund several “open bars” at receptions designed to advocate for business.
You can see why I wanted that job. How hard can it be? I would advise small manufacturers to open a tiny office, with one secretary and a desk, in Connecticut, so that I could “advocate” for them – but to locate the actual manufacturing facilities somewhere warm and happy, far from the legislative Democrats in Connecticut, who would make their lives a living hell.
That, my friends, is advocacy.
I’m sure Rod Simmons will do just fine. Me? I’m still looking.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
