Carlo walks along the sidewalk to get to the bus stop.
Then, he takes the bus to the area where there are other latino businesses and walks a few blocks down to a staffing agency.
But as he’s making the gruesome walk through the Texas sun, he sees a vision of a vast landscape and a man on a horse ushering him forward, as if unto adventure.
Then the man on a horse disappears and a new image emerges – that of a man before an auditorium full of people, lecturing.
He wonders who that could be and dismisses the idea as just another daydream.
Going into the hiring center, they say, “Hola Carlo, por fin vienes,” a Mexican man with a grayish-black beard and a beer belly waits behind the desk.
Carlo’s mom had known Mr. Gonzalez because he used to be one of their neighbors, until he started up his own business, a staffing firm, and eventually moved away, though not before first getting a new truck (a Hummer). a new boat, and then a brand new house.
Before that, he had been working in the agricultural industry for many years.
“How can I help you today?”
“Well, Mr. Gonzalez, I’m still looking for a job.”
“Que no te han ofrecido nada de te que los mande?”
Carlo looked at him clueless.
“What, they haven’t accepted you for any of the jobs we sent you?” Mr. Gonzalez repeated.
“No, I understood what you meant. It’s just -“
“We emailed you them. Didn’t you get them?” And he began clicking and scrolling on his computer to check if Carlo was in their system.
Just then, Carlo realized he hadn’t checked his email in weeks, ever since graduating high school.
He didn’t feel the need to check, and altogether forgot about such responsibility.
“Ayy. ¡Me olvide que no activé mi email en mi teléfono!”
Mr. Gonzalez sighed. He began looking through what he had available as Carlo kept explaining himself.
“I had to update my email password on my phone, so I couldn’t get any emails sent to me, but then I forgot my password to my email and you need another email to get the password sent to…”
“Ya, no mas. Y’know what, sabes que, we’ll put you on into the back to meet with our only secretary in-house. Mrs. Smithtetter’s office is through the hallway to the left in the back. You’ll see her.”
“Thank you, patron.”
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
There she was. An older woman with gray curly hair and grandma glasses big enough to frame her face.
You would’ve guessed it was her day off and she got called in, because she had her feet up on the desk, looking at a lifestyle magazine.
“Hello?”
She put her glasses down, closed her magazine, and put her feet down to the ground in one swift motion.
“Hello. How are you doing today?”
“Well, I’m looking for a part-time, maybe a full-time job. I really don’t know.”
“Have you signed up on our email list at the front with Mr. Gonzalez?”
“I have, but,” he thought to explain what he had just told patron, but figured it was useless. “The point is, Mr. Gonzalez sent me back to your office to get something more… immediate.”
“Whatever the boss says! Ain’t that right?”
“Surely.”
“Ok, let’s see here. Hmm…”
She scrolled and scrolled, typing. Meanwhile, Carlo looked around her office to see a degree hanging on the wall from 1986.
Certificate of Completion
Bachelor of Arts in Literature
Awarded to Jocelyn Smith-Tetter.
“Ok, I’m seeing here a job for a mechanic. – can you do that?”
Carlo thought back to trying to replace one of the inner components of a wheel with his father previously. That wasn’t really his thing.
“No, thank you. Is there anything else?”
“Well, there’s a trashman at a few local apartment buildings here. You’d go up and down the stairs picking up people’s trash bags from in front of their apartment. What’s good about this one is they pay $19 an hour.”
“19$ an hour?”
“Oh, wait, that’s for managers. Do you have any management experience?”
“No.”
“It says you need at least 2+ years of managerial experience. I’m sorry, we can’t-“
“Ok, what’s the next one?”
“Well, hold on a second. They’ll pay $12 for entry level, which is what you are.”
Carlo looked at her blankly in the face.
“What do you think?”
“Do you have anything else?”
She kept scrolling. Carlo looked at the reflection of the countless jobs he scrolled past, feeling hopeless within. He didn’t want to work. But hey, work’s a natural part of life, huh?
Kids go to school. They grow up. They go to work.
“I think you would be pretty good at that one. Who knows, you may accelerate up the ranks,” she said while chewing gum and scrolling.
“Oh, here’s one! It’s been up for a whole year. Maybe because it’s quite, uh, well, difficult, depending on your skill set.”
“What is it?”
“Graphic design?”
Graphic design? Carlo thought to himself. Why would I want to do that?
He felt sorry for himself that he came in today, went through the trouble of putting on a suit, Googling how to tie a tie, Youtubing how to tie a tie, tying a tie for the first time. Usually, his mother did it for him. He regretted hopping on the bus and disrupting Mrs. Smith-Tetter from her magazine.
“Oh wait, here. There’s one more.” She wrote down four jobs on a sheet of paper, putting hourly wage and details beside each.
Doing her job, y’know.
As she slid the paper over to Carlo, he wondered what it could be, and wondered if the vacuum repair-man was on the list, as he envisioned bringing a vacuum up by the handle, turning it over, and opening it up.
His imagination sometimes went like that. Wild.
There it was, as bright as day. In red ink:
Car repair man
Trash collector
Graphic designer
Network marketing
She handed him a pencil, “pick which one you want.”
Carlo looked at the paper, leaned back into the office chair, and wondered how he’d ever get to do what it was he thought he should be doing.
“What’s this one?”
She took a minute to respond, then said, “I don’t know if you want to do that. It requires talking to a lot of people and bugging them to buy stuff.”
Sales? The word resounded in Carlo’s mind.
“So, it’s like. Sales?”
“It is, but as I said–“
Carlo stood up in a smooth and quick motion that slid the office chair out from behind him until it hit the wall.
“I’ll do that one.”
Walking back home, Carlo imagined what this new opportunity may lead to.
He knew that uncapped commissions were a real thing in sales, which he learned from a reality TV show he used to watch on failing businesses and how one man, a business mogul, came in and fixed them up, instituting systems. He made people want to come do business with him, and Carlo always felt both energized and interested from watching.
“What might this lead to?”
Carlo said with a smile on his face as he walked westward on the sidewalk, towards the sunset.
It was a long day, but at least it led to something. He felt good about himself and what he was able to accomplish by taking a step outside of his comfort zone. Now he could go back home and tell his mom, dad, and sister that he had a job lined up…
As a door-to-door salesperson.
There was only one hoop he had to jump through in getting the work. The temp hiring process.
If the company he was hired to work for liked him and his work, he would get an offer for a long-term job.
But if they didn’t, well.
I don’t want to even think about that, Carlo thought, I’ve got to remain positive.
He walked home the whole way, hoping to God that something good would happen to him in this job. That he would finally find out his destiny.
“I wonder what I’ll be selling.”
Would you like to buy Carlo’s Gap Year on Amazon?
MARK SOTOMAYOR 