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The Meaning of Work
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And what about his first job, as one of the red-hatted guides in downtown Washington? "The best job I had," he said. It was $12.52 an hour, 40 hours a week. He had a bank account that got up to $700 -- and then, after 18 months of giving the same directions, helping the same homeless people, making the same money, he quit.
"I wanted more," he explained. "It wasn't no career. I wanted something better."
And maybe that's when the tailspin began, he said, because he didn't have another job lined up, and there went his savings, and there went his car soon after, and now, two years later, tie on, résumé in hand, wondering why "I waste opportunities or don't see opportunities," he was down to this one option. It was an interview for a job with Jiffy Lube, arranged by a government-funded job-placement service whose clients are mostly black men.
"God, help me out," he prayed before going in.
A week later, at a Virginia Jiffy Lube that was a 43-minute subway ride from Ward 8, Chris began his new job. Eight dollars an hour, 40 hours a week, $16,640 a year. "Looks like it's gonna work out," he said.
That night, his girlfriend told him their relationship was over.
The next day, he moved in with his mother.
Two days later: "I don't know what happened. I haven't heard from him," said Wally Kenner, his boss at Jiffy Lube. "If he doesn't call me or show up tomorrow, we'll probably have to let him go.' "
The next day: "He no longer works here," Kenner said.
The next day: "I don't know, man. Stuff happens," Chris said, sitting in his mother's home, head down, lights off, voice barely audible, trying to explain.
"If I had the answer, I'd tell you, but I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."
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