Sitting at Starbucks Between Two Men Looking for Jobs

Today I ordered my coffee at the Starbucks at 78th and Lexington on my lunch hour from training a new seasonal package helper. It's expensive on the Upper East Side, so each day I'm bringing my lunch, which I eat along with a coffee at Starbucks while I sit and look out the window at the people passing by. Today no seats were available in the store when I ordered—which I'm finding is quite common in Manhattan--but as I walked toward the rear of the store not knowing what to do, a woman with a baby in a stroller got up and left. We made eye contact and smiled, a mutual understanding of my good fortune of being at the right place at the right time. I went right over and took the seat, a nice leather bench against the wall. A job interview was in progress on my right—a twenty-something professional Jamaican man was being interviewed by a twenty-something American woman. He looks like a young Forest Whitaker, whom I had recently seen in the movie The Last King of Scotland. I think he did well in the interview, but he has one huge problem that she may not notice—his socks are hideous! He is wearing a nice, dark pinstripe suit, but his socks have alternating thick dark blue and gray bands around them with a large red band around the top of the sock. If the interviewer sees that, he's toast! Of course, she's wearing UGGs with tan leg warmers and a non-matching skirt, so she may not care. Besides, it looks like his legs are bent at an angle that will prevent her from seeing the socks. He's pretty slick the way he's doing that, I think to myself, and go back to eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, trying to pretend I'm not noticing what is happening next to me. But how can you not listen in on a job interview that is going on right out in the open? Of course, she'll probably hire him, and then he'll show up with his crazy socks on and everyone will wonder, “Who hired this guy?”

On the other side of me a man is typing on a laptop occasionally interspersed with long periods of just sitting and looking around. I can see he is updating his resume. This means I am sitting between two men looking for jobs, so I feel fortunate. But even the moment of gratitude doesn't change the fact that my borrowed brown UPS uniform is a size 36 waist when I'm a 32 and my uniform jacket is large enough to be a tent that sleeps four. I look ridiculous. I know what they are doing. Let's give the IT worker with the cushy job a humongous uniform and see how he makes out! One of the supervisors at the UPS Center laughs every time he sees me in it and is working on a good Native American name for me such as “Chief Big Coat” or a made-up name that means “he of big coat.” This might be a long assignment.

Finally lunch hour ends, so I get up, pull up my pants to my chest, zip up my jacket, and head back for the package car to start delivering packages again on the Upper East Side. Oh yes, while I was on lunch I also wrote this little ditty:

I deliver packages
On the Upper East Side
Designer purses
None made from Naugahyde
I smile at all of the doormen
Yet at the end of the day
My body aches
My mind feels dismay
I'm the UPS man
Wearing UPS brown
Sometimes this gig
Can get a man down
I'm a Teamster in a truck
A blue-collar guy
Delivering the stuff
I could never buy
On the Upper East Side.

My Reflections on My UPS Career on Founders Day

We were given a choice whether or not those of us who were having a milestone service year wanted to speak on Founders Day in our department meeting. Since the one consistent feedback I have gotten during my entire 25-year career at UPS was that I don’t speak up enough in meetings, I thought I would make up for the whole thing here today. No one intends to have a long career at UPS. You come to work at UPS as a temporary thing while you are planning your life. Those plans do not include UPS. We come for the benefits, the tuition assistance, the non-standard hours that don’t interfere with classes or our other real jobs. Parents don’t envision their kids growing up and working for UPS. I think these are just the basic realities of life. I worked the majority of my career in Information Services Learning & Development or Corp HR Learning & Development. I would have never lasted 25 years had I been in Operations. I know exactly how long I would have lasted in Operations had I wo...

My Prayer Life Is Like, "Whack" (-a-Mole)

I’ve been a practicing Christian my entire adult life, and one would think that would result in a certain level of proficiency in certain practices such as what often occurs when one plays golf, tennis, or does various other activities on a regular basis. Prayer is not like this for me though. Prayer is like whack-a-mole. As soon as I knock down a mole that pops up--some sort of obstacle to my praying--another mole rises in its place. "Whack-a-mole" is exactly how I would describe my prayer life, a daily whacking away at things that prevent prayer.

The Power of Public Prayers

“Jewish law prefers that Jews pray communally rather than privately.” Joseph Telushkin, “Minyan,” in Jewish Literacy , 719. I’ve been thinking about this notion for a few days after I read it because I get the impression that most of the Christians I know pray individually and about their own self interests more than anything else. I know this is true of me. But Telushkin, reiterating the teachings of the rabbis in connecting Jewish prayer to the concept of minyan , where the minimum number of males required to conduct a worship service or say certain prayers is ten, says that public prayer prevents such personal expressions of self-interest. He says: " . . . the rabbis apparently felt that public prayers are more apt to be offered for that which benefits the entire community, whereas individuals often pray for that which benefits only themselves, even if it be at the expense of someone else" (719). In Evangelical or Pentecostal services that I've attended, at some...

Rainey Blogs on Some Days

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