A Piece of Work

I’ve developed the unfortunate habit of looking for jobs. The lack of response makes it seem much more like a hobby than a serious pursuit. Nonetheless, I muddle on.

One job I applied for was as a volunteer coordinator, a position which involved recruiting, training, supervising and mentoring people to be hospice visitors. A tough context maybe, but I’m reflexively empathic, and strong as an ox. I could handle it.

And what do you know, pigs must have been flying, because the company emailed back. They liked my resume and wanted to proceed. Could I come for an interview Thursday at 1:00?

I had plans to get together with some writing friends on Thursday afternoon. But saying no from the get-go wouldn’t exactly endear me to a potential employer. Of course I could come.

And would I fill out the following additional form and return it?

No problem!

Then I read the form.

What intrigues you about this position and this company? I have never in my whole life been intrigued by a company, but I imagined I could drum up something if I studied their website.

Why are you leaving your current job, and why did you leave each of your previous jobs? Oh, come on! I’m an aging boomer, living in a job-hopping era. Why did I leave? Let’s see – because when I started my first job, I was too young to know any better, and thereafter too wise to believe that perfect jobs exist? Because no job is ever as good as it’s cracked up to be? I’d just have to use some of my fiction writing skills for that one.

Where do you see yourself five years from now? In an NPR studio being interviewed by Marty Moss-Coane regarding the amazing success of my latest book? No, guess not. Having a great time over lunch with friends? More realistic, but not impressive to a potential employer. Working at something I find to be incredibly thrilling and life-enhancing, so much so that I never want to retire? Yeah, that could do, provided I could keep a straight face if it should come up during the interview.

I filled out the form, and sent it back.

Their next email said my responses were great, and they’d send further information later.

Then another email telling me I would be meeting with, oh, let’s call him Justin Doe.

On Wednesday, just before I went out to a salon for my pre-interview haircut, I got an email informing me that since there were several openings, this would be a group interview.

What? If we were applying for different positions, why would someone interview us together? Maybe to give everyone background on the company, and then we’d move to individual meetings? Hell, I thought, if I’d known it would be a group interview, I might have told them sorry, I can’t do Thursday, I have plans with my friends.

On interview day, it was raining, sometimes pouring. Of course there was no parking space close to the door of Impressive Office Building, where we were to meet. I dashed from the car, uphill through myriad puddles, arriving slightly damp. When I opened the door to Deluxe Suite XYZ. I almost collided with a fellow in chinos and a button-down shirt, wearing a name tag which read Justin Doe. “Here for an interview?” he asked.

I said yes. He led me to the meeting room, then disappeared.

I entered a small, ugly conference room with a conference table too big for the space. All the chairs were backed up to the pale yellow walls, and there was absolutely no art work of any sort in sight. Six women were squeezed in around the table. Other than a place at the head, only one seat was empty, and I had to work my way around half of the women to get to it. As I sat, one woman, arms crossed over her chest, spoke up. “We’ve already introduced ourselves, so you should too.”

I told them my name, and asked, “How much information are we sharing?”

Amid some laughs, she answered sharply, “Just our names!”

Then each woman in turn said her name, nothing else. The woman who started it demanded, “Now, how many of those names can you remember?”

I managed to get three, including that of the cross-armed woman. She nodded. “”Pretty good.”

The group settled into uncomfortable silence.

“Where’s everyone from?” I asked.

The answers came – various suburbs, plus one woman from Philadelphia.

“I love Philadelphia,” I said. “When I first moved to Pennsylvania, that’s where I lived. What a great city!”

“Crowded,” someone said.

“I’m hoping to move out soon,” the Philadelphia woman answered.

Ah, so we’re a down-on-Philadelphia crowd, I thought. “There’s a lot going on in Philadelphia,” I said, “and it can be a pretty interesting place, but you do have to breathe a lot of bus fumes.”

Laughter, although brief, and then, more uneasy silence. I was wondering which jobs the others were applying for when Justin returned. He squeezed himself between chairs and the wall, edging toward the front of the room, and took the seat at the head of the table.

“Now as you all know, we’re doing a group interview today,” he said, “and you’re all applying for the same job.” (Wait a minute! That wasn’t what the email said!) “Everyone here is a good candidate for the position. But, you know, sometimes you read someone’s resume, seems like a perfect fit, but when you meet the person, you realize, for one reason or another, it’s not the right person. I had all these great resumes, and I got the idea, why not get everyone together at once! So, what we’ll do, I’ll tell you some things about us, and then we can have a discussion.”

Everyone smiled pleasantly as if delighted, although I imagine we were all feeling more like Scar in The Lion King.

Justin asked if we knew how hospice services became so common. I immediately thought of the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, her work on stages of grief, and acceptance of death and dying. Not even close! Justin launched into a history of legislation from the 1980s which authorized Medicare payment for hospice services. From the get-go, the bill required that at least five percent of the work of any company providing hospice services must be done by volunteers. In other words, the legislation that got Medicare involved in paying for hospice became law because it guaranteed using volunteer labor which would save the government money. Since saving money necessitated all that volunteer work, it also led to the need for paid volunteer coordinators, to make sure the money-saving labor was performing as planned.

My cynicism thus primed, I listened to Justin’s cursory run-down of some of the functions of a volunteer coordinator – recruiting and training new volunteers, providing support, introducing volunteers to clients, team meetings, and documenting things; especially documenting things. “Over half your time is going to be spent documenting,” he said, “and we have to be up to date. You don’t know who may come in tomorrow to look at your records – the federal government, the state, insurance companies. We’re only as good as our records, so everything has to be kept up to date at all times. Two mistakes and we’re non-compliant, and if we don’t comply with the law, we don’t get paid.”

“We also fall under the federal requirement that the work force needs to resemble the client population being served,” he continued. Justin had said the average age of their client population was somewhere in the eighties. So they may want older employees, I thought. And what about gender? Hospice workers are much more likely to be women. So maybe the government wants to get more men working in hospice, since many clients are likely to men?

“I became well acquainted with this regulation when I was working with teens in another city – I also have a Divinity degree, you see,” Justin continued. “So when we’re hiring, the racial and ethnic mix is something we need to be aware of.” What did Divinity have to do with it? And whose race and ethnicity should employees match? Justin didn’t say.

But he did explain that their client population is defined by geographic area. “We’re strictly County A,” he said, despite the fact that we were all sitting in a conference room in County B. “Well, and the northern and western parts of County B. Oh, and the southern areas of County B, where it gets near the state border. Well, I guess along the interstate, east to west.” With those added areas, I wondered if there were any parts of County B he didn’t cover.

“Luckily, all the places we serve are within a half hour drive from here.”

One woman said her drive starting within target area County A had taken almost an hour, and it wasn’t a peak traffic time. “Okay,” Justin said. “Maybe it depends on time of day and traffic, but about a half hour.”

Next he told us about the teams. “Team meetings are on Wednesday afternoons, so Wednesday is definitely a workday, and everyone has to attend, because that’s how the physician on the team learns about what’s going on, so he can make appropriate orders. Nothing happens without a physician’s order. No volunteer visits unless the physician says they are needed. If he says two visits a week, it has to be two per week, or else we’re out of compliance, and if we’re out of compliance, we don’t get paid. That’s why the documentation is so important.”

I was still waiting for the part when we talked about people, but Justin didn’t say anything about the people. Finally, he let go of the compliance issue and asked us what we thought.

Some of us thought about days of the week, and if any day, other than Wednesday afternoon, is specifically required, or is there some flexibility. Justin responded without providing an answer, but no one seemed to mind.

Crossed-arms lady wondered about hours, “I’m a full-time volunteer coordinator for a hospice now,” she said, “So I’m already doing all the things you mentioned. I’d like to have more free time, which is why I want to go part-time.”

“Well, then you know,” Justin said.

She nodded, knowingly, and asked, “Does the job take the current part-time volunteer coordinator more than twenty-five hours?”

“Oh,” Justin said, “well, I don’t know. Our current volunteer coordinator is full-time. But that’s because she’s also the occupational therapist. We’re looking for a part-time occupational therapist too, so if anyone knows someone?”

No one knew someone.

“But is she able to do the coordinator job in the twenty to twenty-five hour range?” Crossed-arms persisted.

“Well, it depends,” Justin said. “You know how it goes.”

Apparently, Crossed-arms did know how it goes, because she nodded again.

Another woman, whose shoes made me wonder if she was a nun, spoke up. “I’m a part-time volunteer coordinator for a hospice, and it’s a great job, but I’d like to work closer to home. In your organization, does the volunteer coordinator have any contact with clients?”

Ah! At last we were going to talk about people!

“Definitely,” Justin said. “The volunteer coordinator goes out with the volunteer on the first visit and introduces them.”

“So the volunteer coordinator meets with the client before the volunteer does,” Nun-shoes said.

“No,” Justin said. “The coordinator represents our organization, and makes the introduction, but generally that’s the first time the coordinator meets the client too.”

“How often does the coordinator need to meet with the client?” Nun-shoes asked.

“Just once, usually,” Justin said. “For the introduction. But the volunteer makes twice weekly visits, and that all needs to be documented. I can’t overstress how important the records are.”

A thin, shy-looking woman spoke up. “I’m a volunteer coordinator too, but not for a hospice. We do a lot of our work with groups. Do you have groups?”

Groups, I thought happily, is a strength for me.

“We have team meetings on Wednesday afternoons, and we get everyone together so we have input from the whole group of people working with each client,” Justin said.

“Where I work,” Shy lady said, “we have support groups for the client, and the facilitator has to be a person who has experienced the same issue as the clients. That’s how I got involved to begin with.”

“So your groups are run by volunteers?” Justin asked.

“Yes,” Shy lady answered. “We train them as group facilitators. Do you have support groups?”

“We work with individuals. Well, with the family too, in support of the client,” Justin said. “But we don’t do support groups.”

“I’m also a volunteer coordinator, for a different kind of organization, not a hospice,” said the woman who wanted to move out of Philadelphia. “Does that count against me?”

“No, no,” Justin answered. “Not necessarily.”

The conversation thudded along. Someone would introduce a topic, almost going somewhere with it, but then it would quickly fizzle out. I broached the subject of client needs, which to me was the central concern, but it was a fruitless effort. Justin cheerfully brought any conversation back to his chief focus: the need to document, so that funding would continue.

At last, he began to wind things up. “I didn’t know how the group interview would work out, but you’ve all been great! So much talent! I’m going to have to call every one of you back for an individual interview.”

“I didn’t know how it would be to begin with,” Nun-shoes said, “but I really liked it.”

Justin beamed. “You enjoyed it?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was very informative.”

“It would be great if we could all keep in touch,” Flee-Philly said.

“We could do that through email,” Shy lady pointed out.

“How about this?” Justin said. “I’ll send you all an email with everyone else’s email, and then we can all keep the conversation going!”

“Is everyone here okay with having your email sent out?” Crossed-arms asked. “Anyone who doesn’t want to be included? Speak up now!”

No one spoke up.

“All right, then we’re all in,” she announced.

Amid promises to keep in touch, we left the conference room.

I stopped in the ladies room before leaving and found four of the group talking about keeping in contact with each other. “We may not get the job,” Shy lady said, “but what a great networking opportunity!”

When I got home, I sent Justin an inspired, obligatory thank you note for the interview, giving several suggestions for attracting more volunteers, although I didn’t mention documentation.

I waited. No email list sent. No scheduling of further interviews. Not even the tiniest word of acknowledgment from Justin.

I imagine it was Crossed-arms lady who got the job. She is probably, even now, documenting something.

And me? Looking for jobs is getting old. I’ve got to find a new hobby.

     ~ Kate Lydon Varley