You Want Me To Do WHAT For Twelve Bucks An Hour?

CELIA: Liz, you have to hear this story.

LIZ: Lay it on me.

CELIA: I'm applying to grad schools, right?

LIZ: Yup.

CELIA: So, it doesn't make sense for me to get a long-term job when I'm leaving in eight or nine months.

LIZ: Okay.

CELIA: I'm looking for jobs that I can do until I start grad school. None of them pay all that well. My target is fourteen bucks an hour but even that is hard to get. I'm burned out on waiting tables.

LIZ: Okay.

CELIA: I saw a job opening on Craigslist for a Receptionist Slash Coordinator. I didn't know what the Coordinator part was and it didn't say in the job ad, but I figured I'd send a resume anyway, so I did.

I wrote a Pain Letter and I sent it to the head of this facility that had a job opening.

LIZ: What kind of facility?

CELIA: It's a senior living facility. It's a huge building full of small apartments where they can check on the senior residents, but it's not assisted living. They don't have any services for the people who live there, just apartments.

LIZ: All right.

CELIA: So I went to the interview and the guy who interviewed me, Paul, said "The hours for this job are four p.m. to midnight."

I said "Great! Those are perfect hours for me."

Paul said "You'll answer the phones and because the phones are very slow at night, you'll handle some other tasks too."

I said "Fantastic! What are the other tasks?"

LIZ: You've already got me in suspense.

CELIA: Just wait.

Paul said "You'll carry a device that will let you know if one of the residents needs help. We're not an assisted living facility but if a resident wanted you to call a cab or something like that, you could do that for them."

I said "That sound great!" I pictured myself chatting away with the folks who live in the building, calling them cabs and getting life advice from them. It sounded like a great job.

Paul said "There are a few other duties, too. You'll work alone in the facility. You'll be the only staff member on duty. The outside cleaning crew will come in and work during your shift. Their hours vary."

I said "How will I interact with the cleaning crew?"

Paul said "There probably won't be a lot of interaction. The cleaning crew members don't speak English. Do you speak any other languages?"

I had to say no, I don't.

He said "The cleaning crew members will clean the residents' rooms, and they'll let you know if a resident has fallen down or something else has happened."

I did a double take. I said "What?"

Paul said "The residents have devices that will ring the front desk if they need help but they might get up without their device and then fall down. Then they would be stuck unless one of the cleaning crew members comes in to clean their room.

"I said "Fall down -- as in they might have broken their hip and need an ambulance?"

Paul said "Yes, that's it exactly."

I said "The cleaning crew is going to notice a resident down on the floor and come get me? What do I do then?"

"You call 911," Paul said.

I said "How do I know when to call 911? I don't have any medical training. If someone falls down and they say "I just need help getting up," do I say "No, I have to call 911 -- stay down?" or do I help them up?

"That's a judgment call," Paul said. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"A judgment call?" I asked.

I didn't care about getting the job any more.

I said "How often does your night receptionist call an ambulance, on average?"

Paul said "Three to four times a week."

I remembered my sophomore year of college, when I was a Resident Adviser. I liked the RA gig but one time I had to call 911 when a girl drank too much and passed out.

It was terrifying. I'm still recovering from that night, no exaggeration. That poor girl hung between life and death.

Thank God, she was fine but it was truly the scariest thing I've ever experienced. That was one incident. Can you imagine making those calls over and over again, three or four times a week?

What would I say to the poor senior citizen who got hurt, while we were waiting for the ambulance? What would I do to help them?

I asked Paul "Is it always the receptionist who makes the decision whether to call an ambulance or not?" I asked.

Paul scoffed!

He said "No, of course not -- in the daytime we have other staff members here. At night, yes, that would be part of your responsibility."

He said "In the daytime we have other staff members here." He didn't say "a nurse" or "staff members with medical training."

I asked Paul "If the cleaning crew regularly walks in on people who have fallen down and need emergency medical services, what about other emergencies? What if someone slips in the tub or cuts themselves, or has diarrhea or they're throwing up? I mean, what else could your receptionist have to deal with? What if someone were choking to death or God forbid, they were already dead?"

Paul said "All of those scenarios have occurred. You have to be ready for anything."

"I don't know CPR," I said, aghast.

"You don't need to know CPR for this job," Paul said.

I was speechless, but Paul wasn't finished.

He said "If the ambulance comes to pick up a resident, you will also clean up any mess that their medical situation left behind, in their room, their bathroom and the hallway. The cleaning crew won't do it -- it's in their contract."

I had not realized I still had room to be stunned.

"You're talking about biohazard-type stuff -- bodily fluids?" I asked him. "Do you have any training for your Receptionist in dealing with that? Do you have supplies -- rubber gloves, etc.?"

"You won't need that," said Paul. "It's not an assisted living facility, just an apartment complex. There's a mop and cleaning supplies under the stairs."

I couldn't help myself. I said "You've got one person here at night and they make life-and-death decisions without any medical training. Why don't you have someone here at night who could help the residents before the ambulance arrives?"

Paul said "When you call 911, they talk you through what to do if someone is in trouble. They give you instructions."

I swear to you Liz, I thought I was being pranked but it was real. Paul looked at me like it was no big deal. He asked me "Have you answered phones before?"

I said "I've answered phones in my office jobs, but I haven't been a receptionist before."

Paul said "In our ad we said we could pay up to thirteen-fifty an hour but with your very light experience I can only pay you twelve dollars an hour to start."

I was so punch-drunk at that moment that I blurted out "Twelve dollars is a fortune!"

Paul gave me the biggest smile. I got up and shook his hand and left.

The next morning I sent Paul an email message to say that I'd accepted another job and had to drop out of the running for the Receptionist Slash Coordinator job. Paul called me the minute he got my message and left me a voice mail message saying "Now that I look at the budget, I can pay you thirteen dollars and ten cents an hour."

Can you imagine?

LIZ: I cannot. How is any of that legal?

CELIA: Paul said it's legal because the facility is only an apartment complex for seniors, not an assisted living facility. I was dying to ask him "On a slow night when no one breaks their hip, maybe the receptionist could also paint the bathrooms and spearhead the company's strategic planning process -- what do you think?"

LIZ: Wow, that is alarming. Do the family members of these poor seniors know the story?

CELIA: I doubt it because Paul said the "clean-up" after somebody is transported to the hospital is a very important part of the job -- even without training or rubber gloves -- because the 'family members' will show up the minute the resident comes back. That was his biggest concern!

LIZ: Unbelievable.

CELIA: A month later I saw the same Craigslist ad only this time it said "Pays up to fifteen dollars an hour." How long do you imagine the average Receptionist Slash Coordinator stays in that job?

LIZ: So what are you doing now?

CELIA: I got a sweet gig house-sitting for a family that travels. The mom is a professor and they're always going somewhere for her research, so I watch the house and the kitty cat, my little sister Amaryllis. We have a blast. Wish me luck getting into graduate school!

LIZ: I wish you luck, but the school you choose will be lucky to have you!

CELIA: Thank you. That weird guy Paul and that horrible interview taught me something amazing. You always say "Be ready to get up and walk out of the interview if your gut tells you to" and I never had that mindset before, but now I understand.

I'm not a cynical person. I go into everything with an open heart, but now I see what you're talking about. I heard the first fifteen percent of the job description and I was like 'Where do I sign?'

It's a good thing I kept asking questions. You can't assume anything on a job interview.

LIZ: That's a great lesson to learn!

Question and Answer

As a job-seeker I don't always feel like I have a choice about whether or not to take a job. It's hard to walk away from a job offer, even if it's horrible.

Almost everyone has felt that way at some point! A job search takes two things these days -- two essential tools that every job-seeker needs.

One of them is a new approach, one that doesn't rely on filling out online job applications and then waiting for months to hear something back.

The other thing a job-seeker needs is a way to grow their mojo -- their fuel source -- throughout their job search and beyond. Liz Ryan's new book Reinvention Roadmap teaches you the new way to job-hunt and also grows your mojo!

Check out Liz Ryan's book Reinvention Roadmap here!