Minister of employment No skills, no jobs, no hope
McGowan, Jo
OF SEVERAL MINDS JO McGOWAN MINISTER OF EMPLOYMENT My side job in India My first morning back in India after a trip to the United States, my daughter woke me at 8:00 a.m. to say that a young...
...Her story, when she could collect herself enough to tell it, was aching-ly familiar: father dead, mother uneducated, she the eldest of four, and responsible for everyone's education and marriage...
...When I finally stumbled in to work at 10:30, the young woman was there, patiently waiting for me...
...Considering the vast majority of middle-class Indian students who are mindlessly going through the motions of getting an education and choosing a career-all the while knowing they will most probably end up doing whatever their parents have decided for them- these workshops seem vital, a public service in fact...
...I want to shout...
...Does it really matter if we wear the same outfit twice in one week...
...But the sad truth is that the people who are most desperate to work are the least likely to stand on their dignity...
...Training...
...Do you have the slightest idea what three-quarters of the world would give to have your choices, your problems...
...How many unqualified people can I hire out of pity...
...I'd like to do anything, one young man told me fervently, anything at all...
...It's what you are going to spend most of your life actually doing," we explain to the kids...
...They look at me quizzically...
...She followed me in, sat down, and promptly burst into tears...
...Being a doctor isn't just something you get to tell people at cocktail parties...
...Questions about what they would like to do are met with total blankness...
...Jet-lagged and foggy, I asked my daughter to send her to my office (I am the director of a school for children with speical needs) and promptly went back to sleep...
...No, she didn't have any skills...
...I knew immediately that she needed a job and also that she would have no training, no experience, and nothing but sheer desperation to offer...
...So much in India is like this: life stripped down to its bare essentials, making the things well-to-do people fret over seem totally irrelevant...
...You actually have to look inside people's infected ears...
...Who has money for training...
...And without experience, education, or skills, dignity is really all they've got...
...You have to get up in the middle of the night if you're on call...
...Will the sky fall if we can't buy a second car, or even if we can't pay the rent and have to move into a smaller place...
...Finding the perfect job, refusing to settle for anything less, doing only what one really wants to do: what a luxury...
...So often I want to tell those who come to me for work that if they had more self-respect, they might convince me to give them a chance...
...to say that a young woman wanted to meet me...
...At home the same afternoon, sitting at the table for lunch, we noticed a woman on the road, peering into the window...
...Are you sure that's what you want to do...
...I have a job I love, and part of it involves holding career workshops to encourage high school and college students to consider working in the field of special needs...
...But, as none of us could relax with this stranger in our midst, I cut short our greetings and asked the woman to come to my office...
...Who cares if the curtains match the couch, the room has a view, or which college our children get into...
...Where would I get experience if I don't have a job...
...Demand more of life...
...And no qualms about saying so...
...My staff was quite excited, wanting to tell me all that had happened in my absence...
...But then when I think about the dozens of people who come to my door looking for work-any kind of work-this seems unrealistic...
...Back in the office the next day, the chaprasi (office assistant) begged me to give his sona high-school dropout, no experience, but a good, hard-working boy-a job as a gardener...
...By the end of the week, I had had no fewer than ten requests, all from people with no qualifications, no training, and no experience...
...Save us from a nation of people who don't particularly care what they are doing with their lives as long as they get a paycheck at the end of the month...
...I offered what sympathy I could and promised to think about it and get back to her in the next few days...
...Even though our goal is to recruit more would-be speech therapists and special educators, we go to great lengths to help the participants explore their own personalities and try to find a career that's a good fit...
...Still, there are other times when I feel like shaking the average job-seeker here instead: Raise your expectations...
...But the next few days flew by...
...When I went out to ask what she wanted, she said her brother worked for my school as a driver and she needed a job too...
...There are times when I feel like shaking the average upper-class person into awareness: "Count your blessings...
...Every would-be employee in town seemed to have my address that week...
Vol. 131 • November 2004 • No. 20
