by Calvin Wolf
The Proletarian
1.0
We end Max’s HGH treatment on a hot day in late June, the mercury reaching triple digits before lunchtime. My wife and I decide not to tell him why, or mention anything at all. “Let’s not burden them with what’s going on,” my wife says, referring to the children. Madison wants to know why she can’t go to the same summer camps as last year. How do you tell your daughter that you can’t afford to send her to camp?
I digitally sign the document cancelling the next order of syringes and crack open another beer, letting myself mope through the Saturday.
My job search is going nowhere, and I just don’t understand it. I’ve got a great work history, impeccable credentials, and inside experience. I expected my cell to be ringing off the hook, but it’s been silent for weeks.
“You need anything from the grocery store?” my wife asks, keys to her new compact car in her hand. I shake my head, and she herds the kids out the door. Left alone, I brood. Ignoring the urge to chug the rest of the beer and open a third, I swipe my tablet awake and begin my exhaustive job search anew.
There is a lot of low-level stuff, entry-level jobs for young people. A few low-level management jobs, but nothing substantial. It’s an insider’s game, I finally acknowledge to myself. Angrily, after putting it off for weeks, I grab my phone and dial an old contact in corporate.
“I’ve applied to tons of management positions in Educorp,” I complain as soon as the cautious pleasantries are concluded. “And I haven’t gotten one fucking interview!”
My old buddy is quiet. He eventually talks about the job market being tough.
“I’ve been with Educorp for years,” I hiss. “Years! I know the business, and I’m local! How many local applicants have my resume?!”
He hems and haws about seeking outside talent as well as the excellent resources that already exist within the community. I roll my eyes as I imagine him, looking much the same as when I met him in Educorp’s new employee training seminar, reading off a laminated card of corporate-ese. “We want to make sure we find the optimal fit for each applicant,” he beams.
“I’m not some twenty-three-year-old fresh out of college, you jackass,” I say, intending it as a joke. It comes out harsher than I expect. I doubt I will be friends with this man for much longer. My social capital is crumbling.
“I know that,” he laughs, but the mirth is curt and tired. “Just trying to help you out.”
“Look, let me lay it all out there. I need a higher-paying job. You heard how I got screwed over at the school? Educorp’s got me slingin’ worksheets and PowerPoints in a curriculum job at the downtown office. Half pay, practically. Five months left on a six month contract. I’m a skilled executive, damn it, not a curriculum geek. Why am I not making any headway with the open executive positions?”
My friend does not want to talk over the phone. Instead, he tells me to meet him for lunch.
1.1
“You can’t just work your way up,” he says over a bottle of Corona at the Mexican restaurant. “It ain’t like it used to be in our parents’ day. And if you mess up, you’re shot for life. Everything stays on your record.”
I’m sweating bullets, and it’s not from the spicy salsa.
“So what can I do? I thought Educorp was gonna settle with the insurance guy. How long before that whole thing blows over?”
My friend shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. It could be a while. I asked around and I heard that the case could come back up at any moment as long as criminal charges are still on the table. The father acted a fool and someone called 911, so he could be prosecuted. If he does get prosecuted, he’ll bring up the money stuff. You could be a witness.”
“If I’m a witness, doesn’t it hurt Educorp’s case if they busted me down to private?” I ask, hopeful.
My friend shakes his head and looks around. The restaurant is crowded, it being a Saturday and all, but most of the people around are young and ignoring us middle-age codgers. High school and college kids free for the summer. I suddenly remember an old Demi Lovato song, something about being cool for the summer, something about sex. Being stressed and poor sucks for your sex life.
Seeing no Educorp employees, my friend finally speaks. “They’ll pin it all on you. You would be the fall guy. They would say that all the money stuff and the cost-cutting and the tuition-gouging was your idea.”
“But that’s a fucking lie!” I practically shout, and a few patrons look over. My friend angrily shushes me.
“That’s how they’ll say it, and they’ll say it with a team of high-priced lawyers. And a team of highly-paid tech guys wiping all communications from their end. And a team of witnesses who will say it was you, the head principal, who did this.”
I knew John Gunderson would say whatever they wanted him to say for a mere Christmas bonus.
“So what can I do? I need money. If I try to leave Educorp, I’ve got to provide Educorp references, which won’t work. Is there a way to move up within the company? What if I promise to keep quiet?” My voice is desperate, but I can’t help it.
My friend sits back and thinks while drinking more beer. He’s a smart guy, he really is, and Educorp hired him straight out of business school. Stanford. Hungry, I eat a fajita while waiting for him to process.
“It’s tricky. You could talk to the DA and ask him not to press charges against the insurance guy, the father. That would make this whole thing blow over. Or, if worse comes to worst, you could always sue Educorp.”
I nod, excited at hearing the possibility of a path forward. But sue Educorp? For what? And how? Seeing my hesitation, my friend presses on as he douses a taco with pico de gallo.
“You could sue on the grounds that Educorp ruthlessly presses its employees to break the law to boost revenue, and structures its policies such that the employees are caught in a Catch-22. If the employees fail to break the law and boost revenue, they are fired. If they break the law and are caught, Educorp can always say that they were acting independently. That’s gotta violate a ton of labor laws.”
My head starts to swim and he asks me if I’ve kept all my employment paperwork. I nod. Looking around again, he reaches into his hip pocket and slides a phone across the table to me. It is a prepaid smartphone.
“I have one of these as well. My number’s the only one that’s preset in there. You just text that preset number if you want to go forward against corporate.”
2.0
I see Gunderson through the glass walls of the conference room, smiling with the other head principals as they begin their summer inservice. It’s basically a booze-fest, but the state requires a certain amount of professional development. Since Educorp handles its own pro dev internally, the principals and APs pretty much get to do what they want. Corporate has a wing that offers state-required pro dev to other education companies, and that part they play strictly by the book. Cash bonuses go to principals who help teach it.
Gunderson sees me watching him through the glass and immediately looks away. I’m sweating through my polo shirt because corporate keeps our cubicles in an eighty-degree wing of the building. Walking past the conference room, I can tell that the fat cats are enjoying plenty of air conditioning. Most have kept their blazers on, and they all look crisp and cool.
I make it back to my cube and see my phone, which I left sitting on my desk, all lit up.
My June paycheck has been reported to the Human Capital Market, and my share price is dropping like a stone. A few investors have messaged me directly, wondering what has happened. I read the messages and decide not to reply. Any answer will either be unsatisfactory or be completely disbelieved. My market value is plummeting.
Silently, idly, I check Educorp’s stock. At least my investment in Educorp is up. Four percent this week, to be exact.
“You okay? You look pale.” Raul is there, his new office chair gliding silent
ly across the cheap carpet.
“You get a new chair? It’s quiet.”
Raul laughs and wheels back to his cube. He returns with a can of WD-40. “Jerry-rigged it. It would take months to get a new chair, and it’s not like they’d approve it, anyway.”
We talk about HumCap and I tell him about the collapse of my share price. Despite my anguish, Raul reveals that he’s been at junk status since he was thirty. “Each privatization reform that passed the legislature knocked a full twenty percent off my price,” he says, eyes reminiscing. “I was on the up and up. Now I’m worth about the same as a college junior. Hey, at least I got a sweet car out of my IPO. Sumbitch runs like a beast, so I don’t even mind that investors get twenty-five percent of my take-home. No car payment for me!”
This breaks the tension and we talk about cars for a while. I tell him about getting my Ridgeline and he praises me for trying to live simply. “Having two vehicles was wasteful, man. Especially a Tahoe. Global warming, you know? The Ridgeline’s got a V6, which means less gas.”
I go back to working on charts and graphs about Congress and the differences between the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some are going to teachers, but some are being custom-made for rich kids. I have to take the kid’s old test, find what the kid did wrong, and re-make the notes and handouts to highlight and bold everything that the kid needs to learn for a re-take. If the parents pay an extra fee, I’m supposed to make an audio recording for the student’s convenience. A video costs even more, and extra still if they want an enthusiastic, trained actor to do it. SNL did a funny bit about that a few weeks ago, with porn stars.
2.5
I hit junk status by the time I get home for the day, courtesy of news out of Washington saying that private sector education providers can now hire any and all college graduates as temporary teachers, with state licensing needing to occur only within the first three years of teaching. Three education providers, including Educorp, are now bidding to provide the nationwide teacher proficiency exams to all colleges and universities. At a red light, I briefly allow myself to hope that Educorp will put out a highly-paid job opening for this purpose.
As the light turns green, I get a phone call. I answer it, and it’s my wife. She is sobbing. Test scores for little kids are back, and Madison’s school doesn’t want her any more.
4.0
The man sitting across from me is a former colleague, a head principal from back when I also held the title. The man is bland from head to toe, including his name. Corporate must love this guy. I am in a cold, angry fog as he discusses Madison’s test scores. He wonders if the school is the right place for her, and whether the “pacing” might be better at one of the remaining public schools.
By now, the remaining public schools are basically detention centers for the kids the private schools, including Educorp’s empire, don’t want. I never thought Madison and public schools would ever be in the same sentence together. Dumbfounded, I look at her score reports again and again. My wife sobs silently.
“How did this happen?” I ask for the umpteenth time. The principal, whose name is Galt, talks about emotional maturity and metacognition. Though I have been trained in the buzzwords, and liberally meted them out to many parents when requesting that their children seek learning elsewhere, my mind draws a blank. I knew Madison’s grades weren’t outstanding, but I never figured...
“I would like to leave her in,” I say numbly, wondering if Galt can see the sweat stains under my arms. “She likes this school.”
“Madison is a terrific kid,” Galt says, though he doesn’t know. Or care. “But our classes are under intense pressure from clients to move forward on curriculum, and your daughter needs a little bit more time. The public schools are designed to assist with that.”
Galt pulls out a form from a drawer of his well-polished desk and I realize that he has already done the paperwork. This meeting was a corporate formality, a nicetie. Condescend to the parents. The fine print already lets Educorp do what it wants to do. They want to get rid of my daughter, and no doubt charge me plenty of fees to boot.
I had been on the other side of the desk plenty of times, and now I was sickened by myself.
As Galt talks, I slowly pull a prepaid smartphone from my pocket and send a text to an old acquaintance. I’m going to sue. Help me.