The Meaning of Work

'My Mother Did Her Best'

His mother's name is Brenda. She is 52 years old, and after 10 years of working as an attendant at a nursing home, a job that paid her $7 an hour when she began and $9.75 an hour when she was let go, she wonders if she will ever work again. "I want a job. I definitely want a job," she said one afternoon, but interviews haven't gone well.

"My ma would have a great chance if she stopped thinking so negative when she go in the door. She's already thinking she isn't getting the job," said Chris, now settled in.

"When I go to an interview, I take my bath, I don't put on a lot of cologne, I put on a nice outfit, I go with a positive attitude," Brenda said. "I walk in, I'll greet people with my handshake, and they give me one of these." She held out her hand limply.

"That's because you're a female," Chris said. "That's how they do it with a female."

"No. I mean come on now. My hand is like a firm grip, and their hand is like this, like they don't want to shake my hand, and I know I ain't got a damn chance," Brenda said. "Once they give me that handshake, I know it's over."

"My mother did her best," Chris said later, away from her, of the woman who dropped out of high school and raised him and an older brother as a single parent. "But she didn't even prepare herself for life, so how could she prepare me?"

As for his father, who has been only a vague neighborhood presence: "I remember one time I asked him to fix my bike," Chris said, thinking back to a day he telephoned his father when he was a little boy, "and he said he would, and he rode past and waved his hand."

Still out of money, no prospects in sight, Chris was headed back to the city-run job placement center on Naylor Road SE, a 10-minute walk from his mother's home. Some parts of Ward 8 are gentrifying with new stores and luxury homes, but this walk took Chris through a dirty parking lot where opportunity was represented by a boarded-up restaurant and a man $50,000 behind in child-support payments who was trying to remedy that by selling socks out of his car.

As usual, Chris was there at opening time to scan listings, use the free phone and meet with his case manager, Alan Morrison, who said of Chris's inability to find work, "He has a good résumé. A good educational background. He interviews well. So I don't know what it is."

The job center was busy, as always. No matter how low unemployment is nationally, or how vibrant the U.S. economy might be, the churn at Naylor Road is constant. So, too, is the racial composition of the clients: Black face after black face filled the lobby, and the computer area where people check job listings, and the conference room where the daily session on job-interview tips was underway for the newest registrants.

"They're going to be taking a look at your total package," an instructor was saying to a dozen people seated around a long table. "The way you enter. Your handshake. Your eye contact. The whole nine yards."

"I don't mean to be rude," a man interrupted. "You got Hispanics coming into this area, they don't have contacts, they don't have resources, but they're getting more jobs than we do, so I'm lost. I don't think Hispanics and Asians are using all these techniques to get jobs."