Job market

Calgary has such a "labour shortage" right now that nearly every place is hiring. We need people in fields from "Sandwich Artist" to nurse. We were out driving yesterday and I saw Help Wanted signs in 5 consecutive windows - and that was the entire mini-mall.

I have been wondering about this for over a year now. How can a city of this size not be able to sustain itself? What are the 1,000,000 people doing? Even in Nakusp, you had someone to run the restaurant, someone to work at the gas station, doctors, mailmen, garbagemen. It was so balanced that I couldn't find a job.

A new point in this discussion occurred to me yesterday. I was dropping off bottles and cans at the recyclers. There were 8-10 men between my age and my dad's who were sorting through everyone's sticky, stinky bags of returnables. I guess I had always assumed that these guys weren't qualified to do anything else. Most of them looked like new immigrants and probably didn't speak English. This bigotted view came crashing down on me when I was served by a guy in his mid thirties. He was in good physical condition, spoke perfect English, was shaven and dressed nicely. And he was sorting through my bag of garbage with his bare hands to count my $4.95 worth of coke cans.

After I left, I began wondering about this guy. Is he married? Does he have boys like I do? Does he like his job? Does he know there are probably hundreds of jobs as far from or closer to his home that don't leave him smelling like beer bottles at the end of the day? Would he hate talking on the phone all day as much as I would doing his job? How much money could he possibly be making?

I don't know what to do about this. I can't offer him a job. I can't bring him applications to work at 7-11 or A&W. I don't have any more cans so I can't even really come back and talk to him about it. Maybe I'll take my inspiration from a poem I learned 25 years ago.
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A Problem
by Marchette Chute

My zipper is stuck.
Now what shall I do?
Give it a tug,
And pull it in two?

Give it a jerk?
And then it will jam.
I think I'll just sit here
The way that I am.

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I'll be thankful for my job and my family. I know there's more I could and probably should do but recognizing my own blessings is the first step.