Grateful I Escaped the 9–5: I Couldn’t Survive That Life
I recently passed both tests required to become a licensed real estate agent in Oregon. I’m not going to tell you how many attempts it took but I will say that it was more challenging than I imagined. Unable to be deterred - I succeeded, and browsed online to find what the next step was in the process.
Fingerprints.
Cruising out to a nondescript building in East Portland, specifically at 10am on a Tuesday, I wasn’t expecting much. But this dull building was so boring - it was next level. Unkempt, over-grown grass sprouting in every direction met me from the street, and they had the type of shrubs that are put in to a location simply to keep it from being only concrete. No one in their right mind had “chosen” these. The parking lot was full and it was confusing trying to find the entrance.
The sign on the door did not indicate a business or an address, or anything at all. It was the equivalent of a cardboard box that you hadn’t yet printed the Fedex bar code for. Inside, the carpets were dirty, the walls were bare, and it seemed as though it hadn’t been painted since the day before they opened it - I’m assuming sometime during the Reagan administration.
I finally found a sign, that was printed on a white piece of 8.5 x11, and went to the room to get these fingerprints logged. There were three people inside. One younger guy - probably about 30, an older woman around the age of 70, and a man in a separate room that I could not determine the age of, as he was wearing a large Covid-19 mask and thick glasses.
The whole thing was instantly depressing. 🤣
How often do you travel somewhere for a specific reason and realize how much luck you have on your side? That every job you have ever had is exponentially better than this place you are currently residing?
This fingerprint station felt like Communist Russia, where I imagine everything to be varying shades of gray - walls, buildings, clothing, and even food.
This was the most uninteresting business I had seen in many years and I felt simultaneously grateful I didn’t work there and deep pity for the three that did.
The woman was new, and the young man was teaching her how to input my driver’s license information into the Dell computer that a government agency probably purchased in the late 90’s. They asked me to scan a QR code to pay the $62 - then asked me to wait. That was their only job. Enter my information and stare at the wall.
The man with the mask and hypoallergenic latex gloves asked me into the room and spayed clear mist on my fingers and told me to wipe them together for 7 seconds. Then he had to get a scan of each individual finger and thumb, before doing them again for verification. At each step, the mist had worn off, so he had to spray them again. Over and over.
All I could think about is how this was this guy’s job. Wear a mask and stand in an office, where they hadn’t even unloaded the things they needed from a cardboard box on the floor. There were no desks, no chairs, no charming kitty posters on the wall, nothing. This guy spends 8 hours a day spraying mist on people’s fingers. No disrespect. This isn’t meant to be mean. I don’t know how these three people do it though.
I’ve had over 25 jobs and rarely hesitated to quit any of them that truly sucked. I would’ve quit this place 5 times the first day🤣
