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WE ARE FORTY

And

WE DID GET JOBS

CHAPTER I

The New Way to Find Jobs

This is a one purpose book.  In a brand new way, it shows how people who are jobless can get jobs. The method is so simple and yet so true that its success is instantly understandable. It was tried again and again, and it produced jobs—first for the discoverers, then for their friends, and at last for strangers who had heard of its results.  Despite the depression, and with every circumstance against it, the method worked.

Nor was its scope limited. It worked for the young and it worked for the older. It applied to men and it applied to women, for those who were experienced and for those who were not, for persons who had long been jobless and for others who were just now seeing the handwriting on the wall. It proved, in short, the touchstone that had magic. But its magic, as these pages will presently show, was that of hard but directed work.

This book is the story of the birth of the job…

..formula.  It is the frank chronicle of two women past forty who said to themselves Yes when the world said No. In a land without jobs and in the face of their own personal financial disaster, they thought and fought their way back to jobs. Not one job, not two jobs—but many jobs.  And in the fighting they emerged with an almost unbeatable formula for obtaining employment.

We are those women, and this is our story. The plain truth of the matter was that we refused to take defeat lying down. The very hopelessness of the times became at last the challenge that sprang us into action. The press, the radio and unemployment statistics were dinning into our ears the same devastating news: jobs could not be had.  We refused to accept the verdict.

Now, if ever, the time seemed ripe for doing. We would not write letters giving forth our strong convictions. We would not make ringing speeches for all the world to hear. No, we would set ourselves to the task of the good old American way, and prove—if it could be proven—that there still was work and it had to be done.

There was only one course for us to follow. If we believed there were jobs, then we had to get them. And if we were successful, it would be a telling…

..blow against the deadliest superstition of our day: that men and women eager and willing and begging for employment were on the economic scrap heap.

We knew our paths would not be easy. For as serious as the whole filed of unemployment was, our plight was the gravest of all. We were past forty, and for some strange reason a deep and widespread prejudice was covering the land. It hit us directly, and with us, all our generation who were jobless.  Newspaper headlines fairly shouted this forty and past-forty phobia:

“NO JOBS AT FORTY” DEBATE RAGES; CURES OFFERED

“TOO OLD AT FORTY”: WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT? SPEAKERS OUTLINE THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS WHICH FOLLOW REJECTION OF OLDER WORKERS

COURT VOICES SYMPATHY FOR JOB SEEKERS OVER 40

U.S. OPENS DRIVE FOR “OVER 40” JOBS IN FACE OF OWN BAN

MIDDLE-AGED PROBLEM STICKS

And even this!

SCREEN LOVERS FIND CAREERS NEED NOT END AT FORTY

What was the matter with nation that sough to lengthen the years of its citizens only to make more of these years useless?

Was anything ever so absurd! Why, it takes forty years to acquire common sense and to learn the really valuable lessons of life. It take forty years to get your balance, to become clear headed in judgment and tolerant of others. We know for we are forty. And on any impartial count we are worth more to employers this minute than we have ever been in our entire lives before.

But wait! All this flag waving was very spectacular, but what were the actual facts? Could we get jobs? The nation was in the teeth of a major depression, and the unemployment curve was dipping downward like a roller coaster.

Before we took a single step we made up our minds to go into this matter of getting a job with as much science and as much zeal as ever Pasteur applied to the business of isolating a germ. We would…

..sit down and take stock of the employable characteristics of a human being as no one, perhaps, had ever done before. If there were in all this wide world an almost sure way to lad a job, we were determined to find it…We believe that we did.

The whole undertaking was tremendous in its implications from the instant we conceived it. We should have to visit different cities. It would mean assuming fictitious names. For the plan was no more that a moment old before we realized that a wide scope of employment would have to be covered if the test was to have any weight. Merely trying for work in the field in which we ourselves were equipped would say little. We were contending that there were job. Our task, then, was to find all sorts of jobs to match the many qualification of others who, like ourselves, were out of work.

For ten weeks in large cities, in medium-sized cities, in small towns, we put ourselves as far as two persons could in the place of all of our generation who need employment. We went after jobs in credit offices, in department stores, in doctors’ offices, in utility companies; after housekeeping jobs and positions as demonstrators. We ran the gamut of secretarial jobs, selling jobs, service jobs, hotel…

..opportunities. We invaded the field of advertising writing, and did not hesitate to go after careers as style consultants. A few of these openings could have been filled only by women. In several places men would have been given the preference. But the method was always the same. And it can be as readily applied by anyone else who is willing to master it.

Of course, each effort did not produce a job. But on practically every occasion we received a serious hearing, and from nearly seventy per cent of the contacts we won employment. Nor did we have any pull—nor were we some friend of a friend. And the number of jobs we obtained proves that we did not just have lucky breaks.

Here is the place to make one point pre-eminently clear. In gifts and abilities we were but average; we were not superhuman creatures, with a golden endowment of brains and charm. For hunting jobs, we could buy no expensive new clothes. As for background, we each had the foundation of a good education. But that is true of thousands of unemployed persons today. And when it came to personality, we possessed just our share—if by personality was meant an eager interest in others and a willingness to see their point of view. But these…

..qualification are free as the air. Over-forty—and under-forty has them and to spare.

However, there was this one point: We were absolutely sold on the necessity of hard work as the one means to attain any end that had real value. We worked like fiends. We went into this job hunt with our eyes open. We knew the miles we should have to walk, the preparations we should have to make and the wells of courage to be drawn on before each job attempt. But we had health and determination, and a sort of righteous anger against the whole job situation. On all sides was a helpless acceptance of it. Our No might be like a voice crying in the wilderness. But at least its effort was constructive and had some suggestions for the way back.

The question might, quite properly, be asked, were we ourselves destitute when we undertook to go forth and look for jobs? Did we know the hunger and the heartache that so often go hand in hand with joblessness? Did we have the viewpoint of hopelessness with which the unemployed most frequently have to contend?

The answer must be yes, and no. We were not destitute in the sense that we did not know from where our next meal was coming. But the sleepless-…

 ..ness, the worry and the crushed heart were there in full abundance. We had seen our reserves swept away, and with them the results of years of saving and hard work. Obligations piled up. Illness. Op­erations. The death of dearest ones.

But there was one saving grace that had been left to us. Since we had not plumbed the lowest depths of unemployment, we could still think clearly and calmly about our plight. Certainly, men and women who have had nothing but repeated turn-downs and rebuffs and who have come to the very limit of their resources, cannot be blamed if they become panic stricken and are beyond making plans for their own salvation. Our hope is that this orderly method of making a comeback and getting a job, for them may have value.

It was the astonishing results which the formula produced that makes us believe that we have dis­covered something helpful for others. Different in­dividuals will apply it in their own way, and will adapt it to their own needs. But the basic, under­lying facts remain unchanged: The person who is willing to put the same human effort, the dust, the sweat and the shoe leather into getting a job that we did, will see that formula bring him employ­ment.

Equally important can this formula prove to the ambitious employed, who are eager to better them selves. To persons who have been stuck for years in a dead-end job, or who have taken stop-gap jobs, or who want to forge ahead in their own company or their own field, it offers an opportunity to plan and work for advancement while in the safe secu­rity of their present employment.

We were tempted to call this first chapter: We Took Our Own Medicine. For that is literally what we did. The formula that we evolved had a stiff testing in our own lives. It helped us out of a depression that almost wrecked us financially. It brought us back from a defeat that could have made further effort impossible. But best of all, it gave us work to do, so taxing, so exacting that we had neither the time nor the opportunity to think of ourselves.

This story of ours is a simple one. It tells of our jobs and the steps we took to get them. It tells where we looked and whom we saw. It tells what worked and what did not. It is purposely full of detail. Because what he said and what we said, what we did and what they did, may prove helpful reading. At long last, in this faithful chronicle we have the talisman that produced two jobs where…

…but one had grown before, or fashioned from nothing a shining new employment. In its odd fashion this becomes a tale of success—written for those who like ourselves had lost the habit.