It took me by surprise last week the way the phone kept ringing. I’d go down the hall for a meeting. Come back an hour later. Six messages. Go to lunch. Come back. Nine messages.
To be honest, I’m not normally that sought-after. A couple of cranky circulation calls, Special Olympics scratching up money, my daughter looking for a ride. That might make an afternoon’s calls.
Soon realized why I was on the receiving end of dozens of calls. My name was listed as the contact for a job we had advertised in the paper and on our Web site: a part-time job at our front desk. Less than 20 hours. No health insurance. And while I’m confident this is a good place to work, I wouldn’t have expected this intense interest, or the top-notch quality of the people applying.
As I talked to people through the week, I learned that, in an economy that shredded 524,000 jobs in December alone, many people who’d like to be working full-time are patching together two and three jobs to get by.
A food service person who works evenings and weekends was eager for set daytime hours. A real estate agent trying to keep her options open saw our front desk as a steady, if modest, income in a tough market for selling homes. There was the ESL teacher, the woman with the career in radio and magazines.
Then there were the retirees. It was clear from talking to a couple of newly retired women that they really hadn’t planned to go job hunting in January 2009. These were not hobbyists looking to fill quiet hours. These were people whose financial plans had taken a body blow and were looking for replacement income.
The job is now filled. You can stop calling. Please. And good luck to every one of you.
One place not to look for a reception job these days is Oak Park’s village hall. The village government has gone the “Your call is very important to us” route and rooted the long-time receptionist from her perch at the top of the front steps. (She is now working nights issuing overnight parking permits.)
You like irony? Well three years ago, in a spasm of customer service, the village built a gigantic desk for the receptionist. It is either 23 feet in diameter or it cost $23,000 to construct. Can’t remember which. But you get the point: This was a major initiative aimed at warming up and personalizing the citizen experience at village hall.
Turns out that only worked when Marilyn was actually sitting there. It wasn’t the desk, you see; it was the person! Well, blow me down.
The desk itself, though, with its sweeping lines and woody tones, looks like a cross between the bridge on Star Trek and a mid-market TV anchor desk. Here at the Journal, our reception desk is also wooden, with a nice sheet of cracked glass topping it. Looks like a desk that belonged to a lieutenant in an episode of The Untouchables. And it might just be – we picked it up used somewhere along the way.
But there is a real person sitting behind our reception desk awaiting your call. Want to buy an ad? Talk to a reporter? Kvetch at the publisher? Give the Journal a call. 524-8300.
