Who The Hell Is Hoolia?

So after three months out of work I finally rejoined the workforce about two months ago. I gotta say when I tell people I was out of work for three months and they say, “Oh, well that’s not really a lot time to be off” it really bugs me. Three months of worrying how you’re going to pay your mortgage, car note, various credit cards, medical insurance (which ain’t cheap) food, telephone and gas & electricity is a very long time. In fact if I had not had the vacation and personal time saved, which my last employer had to pay me, I may not have survived. I really don’t understand how anyone lives off of unemployment. Even if you receive the maximum benefit, it’s not that much.

It goes without saying that things have changed a lot in the last 30 years or so since I first entered the work force. To begin with everything involved in your job search is now done online. No more perusing through the classifieds and calling up the HR Director to make an appointment…they won’t take your calls. No, instead you submit your resume through an ad online and if you’re lucky you may make direct contact with an employer. Otherwise you must shuffle through the countless ads from recruiting agencies (back in the day we called them Headhunters) and submit to a series of insulting interviews where they ask you those fresh out of college questions like where do you see yourself in five years or what kind of job are you looking for…how about one that pays and will keep me employed for the next five years dumb ass. Unless you fit the profile of exactly what they are looking for at that moment, you won’t hear back from them. Persistence is the key. You have to call constantly so that your name is embedded in their minds and they either find you a job or stop taking your calls…I ended up leaving a lot of voice messages. Somehow I got lucky and answered an ad that got me directly to the employer. After a series of interviews I landed the position of Controller, which is a step up in both position and salary…woo hoo!!

I remember when I first became a manager, at the time my goal was to make the company I worked for as Black as possible. By that I mean my goal was to hire and promote as many qualified African-American candidates as I could. This was to be my contribution to the cause. But a funny thing has happened in those thirty years, the work landscape has changed dramatically. I began noticing a shift about ten years ago where the office workforce was becoming more & more Latino to the point where now every one of my subordinates in my new position are Latino. Even the service tech who comes in to do maintenance on the copiers is Latino. My assistant, who is Native American, and I are the only non-Spanish speaking two in the entire finance department of nine and these folks are not shy about slipping into Spanish in the middle of a conversation. Seriously, why the need for so much Spanish? Are you talking about me and if not what are you saying that you don’t want me to know? I worked here for over a month and listened to everyone refer to someone named Hoolia in inventory control while thinking to myself who the hell is this person. Finally I received an email from Julia the warehouse supervisor and realized I had spoken to her on almost a daily basis.

So what happened to the up and coming African-American office pool? Has our contribution to the number of college graduates decreased or has that of the Latino population increased? And let me be clear I’m not putting down Latinos, more power to them and I don’t want to get into a debate about the weight placed on our economy due to the influx of illegal immigrants. I’m just questioning the obvious absence of young African-Americans in the workforce. Has anyone else noticed this trend or is this maybe a California thing. Oh and does anybody know where can I get my hands on a fresh copy of Rosetta Stone for Spanish?