Mini-Fail #2: The You're-So-Wrong-I-Want-to-Strangle-You

The following occurred while I was sitting in the staffing agency's reception area, waiting for my "interview prep" to begin.

At the reception desk there were three receptionists. Two, a woman and man, were clearly senior secretaries and joked around with each other in between paging their colleagues and conveying assorted bits of information. A third was clearly a junior secretary, being sent to fetch coffee and having to inquire again and again about what she should be doing, and beyond that, how to do anything that was assigned to her.

At one point, the male secretary left, and the front desk got a call from a reporter who wanted some quotes for a story concerning college graduates and the job market. The junior secretary fielded the call, and then instantly panicked: "It's a reporter of some sort, and he wants to speak to someone that knows about recent college graduates... what do I do?!" Her partner was busy doing whatever it is that secretaries do, mumbled something akin to, "Give it to Casey... wait, she's busy, I don't know..." This led to the poor reporter being put on hold for a while as the two talked it over. Then, the senior secretary got a gleam in her eye and went, "Hey, listen. You've been here long enough. I think you're ready. You can give him the interview yourself!" The other reacted nervously, mulled it over for a bit, perhaps stalling in the hopes that someone more qualified would announce themselves present and available to take the call, but then caved and picked up the phone. After engaging in a brief yet awkward discussion about whether now was a good time for an interview, they began. (The following is a combination of what I overheard, paraphrased due to memory, with the reporter's lines fabricated by me from context.)

"What would you like to know?"
"Your agency does see a lot of recent college graduates as candidates, yes?"
"Absolutely. A large proportion of our applicants have recently graduated from college."
"And would you say that they are having a tough time in the job market? How would you say the economy is affecting them?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say it's been very tough on them at all. Lots are coming in every day."
"Would it be possible for you to pull someone's file and maybe tell me their story, or at least provide a contact number so I can talk to them myself."
(Insert a brief interlude where the reporter was put on hold and privacy issues were debated. Eventually it was determined that it would not be a breach of privacy to put the reporter in contact with the client, but the person in charge of that information was unavailable, so it would have to be done later.)
"Actually, we can't get that to you right now. If you'd like, you can call back later. But, wait, I'm a recent college graduate, can I talk about myself?"
"Sure, I guess."
"So, I graduated from Tufts University last year, and now I have this job, and it's pretty great. So no, I wouldn't say the job market has been causing problems for recent grads at all!"

Let's play "Name the Things in this Conversation that Make Me Want to Die!"

1) So, if more recent grads are coming to a staffing agency, that's somehow a sign of a bearable job market? Bearable for a staffing agency, maybe, but not for the grads themselves.
2) You went to a good school, and it took you about 11 months after graduation to find a job, and that's a sign of a good job market for recent grads? I mean, sure, maybe a bad job market has unemployed people being poisoned and their organs harvested for the greater good in your world, but what about in the real one?
3) Your job consists of fetching coffee, not knowing how to do anything, and waffling on whether or not you should talk to reporters. How is that a good job, and how did you come to the conclusion that getting this job after 11 months is better than mediocre in terms of career possibilities?
4) Not that the secretaries or the reporter could have known this, but I was sitting right there. I would have gladly volunteered to tell the reporter what I thought of the whole situation, and he could've turned it into some neo-Dickensian piece that would've been buried on the sixteenth page, amidst some "coverage" yanked directly from Brett Favre's Twitter. But at least I would have felt better about myself.

As it is, instead I just silently stewed. It's one thing if you're satisfied with the way things are going for you. But don't presume to speak on behalf of everyone else, including those worse off than yourself. It doesn't make sense to sugarcoat an issue that should be highlighted, that should be illuminated so people can get angry about it. Because if people don't get angry, then there's no one to oppose those that don't care. And if no one cares, that apathy is how human beings start to slide down the salience slope to "irrelevant husks." Worst of all, don't draw incorrect conclusions from the facts to justify your irreverence, as that makes simple obliviousness just all the more wrong in the end.

Employer Fail #26, and something I find myself wondering more and more with every passing day: How do people like that have a job while I don't?