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February 14, 2006
Snelling Ave's own Statue of Liberty
Amy Cook is 31 years old with a 13-year-old daughter and got the job on a whim because the temps before her jilted the business and were fired shortly before. She’d just applied at the Midway Motel down the avenue; they never called her back. Her current employment comes after a year-long hiatus of holding a steady job, all the while applying for a lot of work, including what she termed a “last resort” at McDonalds, which still fell through. The employment agencies she went to consistently turned her away with no place to send her. For some of the businesses she tried, “I know a lot of derelicts work at those places,” she said.
There’s an internal fear of static living, or the fear of appearing in limbo, and subsequently, ungrateful. Not sticking in there, overriding someone’s zest for fancy get-togethers, or maybe not being able to enjoy kitschy Polaroids of your pals.
The feeling of not getting enough credit where the credit is due makes for a compassion that can’t deluge; and when you’re seeing Cook in your local residential setting, that may be the someone to give those little moments of your spare time for your thoughts of the social injustice in the routine of another person. An example of how they’ve alarmingly felt “the pinch.”
That unemployment in the city is rhetorically/naturally falling into “talking heads” place with a frictional, cyclical culture of unemployment, and the opportunities riding the wave of unemployment, the temp, the assistant, sojourner, depending on what your camp is being called adjustment, laziness, hard luck or advantageous.
Cook works advertisement as a statue of liberty mascot until tax season ends April, walking up and down Snelling Ave. four days to the day, the╩employee of a husband- and-wife team running a localized tax-filing service.
The job runs eight to five, with a one hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks. A lot of drivers honk and some give her the finger. Some guy stares her down from her truck.
Most nights for Cook end with her falling asleep after watching only ten minutes of television. “Amazing how worn out you get working in the open air,” she said.
Cook holds a Human Resources degree from St. Paul Tech and a diploma from Bartending School from when she was 18. She also has a score of references, including a lot of small business owners she knows through her dad, who owns a toupee shop, and a lengthy employment history including advocacy group canvasser and carnie (she got into that on account of being noticed by a carnie at the Minnesota State Fair as having “snap”). Regarding applications, she said, “I don't know sometimes if I'm putting too much in there or holding back, you know?”
Posted by dwright at February 14, 2006 12:17 PM
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