My (Unfortunately) Short-Lived Government Job

Not long ago, I was driving home from a Starbucks, having just finished rewriting one of my pilots. “What am I doing with my life?” I wondered. Yes, I was finally feeling truly productive as a writer, but I was still unemployed, taking to a coffee shop every day to grind away without making any money. That’s when it happened. I got home and checked the mail and right there was a bright red and white envelope saying that I had been summoned. The California Judicial system wanted to bring me in to interview for a highly sought after government job.

This was my ticket to job security!

I was instructed to call in every day that week to schedule my interview. Just my luck, it was Memorial Day weekend, so I’d only have 4 chances to schedule an interview rather than the full 5. The days went by. Tuesday, they didn’t need me. Wednesday, nope. By Thursday, I was starting to get worried. When I found out that they wouldn’t want me that day, I’d all but given up hope. Then, by sheer luck, I was told that Friday would be the big day. It was my chance for a big interview and I wasn't going to let this one slip.

Now, I’m a nervous guy, but I was feeling pretty optimistic this time around. I've had a lot of interviews that ended up not going anywhere, but I could really feel it this time. When I got to the Courthouse that Friday, I looked around at the other 40 or so potential employees. I knew that only 12 of us would get the job. “I've got this,” I thought to myself. They called me up to the interview box along with 15 others and that’s when the interview started. I answered the questions like a pro. Place of residence? Check. Marital status? Bingo. Know any cops? I wasn’t going to let anything throw me and at the end of the day, I was still standing. I couldn’t say the same for the poor shmucks who had to go home. It wasn’t over yet, though. My future boss told me that we’d need to be back on Monday for second round interviews.

Would this be my new place of work? I was just another day from finding out.

I was nervous coming back on Monday. I knew that this visit to the Courthouse might be my last. My hands were shaking as my boss announced the final names of potential employees who would be cut. My name wasn’t called! I’d made it! I’d just landed a new job as a government worker!

Something that I didn’t expect was how fast the government moves! As soon as we were told that we’d been hired, we were already getting our first assignment: deciding whether or not a young man was innocent or guilty of the charge of burglarizing a home. They expected me to hit the ground running and I was ready for it. A workplace that finally saw my full potential. Can you ask for anything more?

Day 2 on the job. I took a moment to really just take it all in. How lucky was I to get to park at the Walt Disney Concert Hall every day for the rest of my life? Downtown was beautiful and I was just starting to get a feel for everything. In fact, Day 2 was the first day that I got to eat lunch at my new favorite spot, the Grand Central Market, with my 2 favorite new work buddies, Bud and Carmine. Before working for the government, one of them used to train horses and the other one used to write movies. We all come from such diverse backgrounds, but those dreams were long behind us, now that we’d been blessed with such secure government jobs. It’s funny how the world seemed to just push us together. Those 2 hour lunch breaks with them were some of the most cherished moments of my life.

Day 3. I was still blown away by how lucky I was. Showing up for work at 11:00 AM, eating lunch from 12:00 - 1:30 with the two coolest government co-workers in the world, sitting in a big room while listening to people ask other people a series of complicated questions in order to evoke a simple answer before packing it all up and going home at 4:00 PM. I’d gotten to the point where I was so used to this life that I couldn’t even imagine a life outside of it. Honestly, what could be better?

And that's when they showed us. My boss sent the 12 of us into a beautiful private conference room with stunning views of the city. Here was where we had our discussions. It got pretty heated, but it was all in the name of good government work. When we finally finished our assignment, we exited the conference room and re-entered the courtroom. “A job well done,” I thought to myself. “This is something I think we’ll be doing together for a long time.”

Simply stunning. This is where I want to work for the rest of my life. 

It was not to be. When we told our boss our decision, she told us that we’d done a good job and fired us all. I couldn’t believe it. We were overqualified. We were too good. I was too good and it came back to bite me. That job was the dream job that I never knew I wanted, yet I found myself taking the elevator down to the 11th floor to collect my $45 of severance pay. I was never in this for the money, but I took it because I had to. I took it and walked out of the building knowing that this would be the last time.

Was it easy? No, but we all landed on our feet eventually. Bud went back to training horses and Carmine went back to writing movies. In fact, his movie, Reclaim, is coming to theaters in November. Poor guys, being forced to return to a life outside of government work. They'd tasted more than just lunch on those lunch breaks. They'd tasted pure happiness and now there was nothing.

As for me? The very next day, I started a brand new job in a fast-talking Newsroom. It wasn’t the same as the government job, but it was something. As I took a moment to reflect, I glanced out of my new office window and what did I see?

You're kidding me.

That's right. Staring me right in the face was the very government building that had rejected me just one day prior. At first, it hurt, but then I realized that maybe that wasn’t it for me. Maybe that government job wasn’t the dream job I'd always hoped for. Maybe my real dream job is still out there, waiting to be discovered.