Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

by Barbara Ehrenreich

  The next way God worked in Wise’s life had to do with his wife, Laurie. One day she called him at work and told him she was frightened because there were four gypsies in the backyard, so he got in his car and raced home. “Look,” she said, pointing out the window toward the edge of the woods, and she directed his attention to a gypsy wearing a red hat and another one, a little girl, in a yellow dress. Now he has everyone’s breathless attention. “But you know what?” Wise asks. “There was no one there.”

  It turns out that Laurie was suffering from delirium tremens, consequent on a brief drying out required for some minor surgery. We have already learned that Laurie had been “saved” herself, but she was, our speaker confides, always something of a “free spirit,” which gives me a tiny feeling of identification with her. Anyway, Wise underwent a great deal of “tribulation,” as one might expect, forcing him to pray for God to “enlarge [his] heart and let [him] love the unlovable”—Laurie, that is, who has since been reclaimed by the Lord.

  Finally, God took an interest in real estate. There is a long story about a chance encounter that led Wise to a $131-million sale, which was what propelled him to his present wealth. The opportunity appeared in the form of a distinctly unpromising e-mail from a Hotmail address—which elicits a few snickers from the audience, I suppose because it doesn’t involve a corporate domain. And even worse, the guy’s name was Finkelstein. Wise pauses to let the guffaws die down.

  After Larry comes forward to deliver the final blessing, I leap up and gather my stuff. If self-proclaimed Christian businessmen want to gather for prayer and the exchange of business cards, I have no problem with that. If they want to use such gatherings as occasions to mock people of different religions and sexual or political proclivities—well, that is probably within their rights. But when the gatherings are advertised to job seekers of unknown religion or sexuality—like me, for example—as gateways to successful employment, the enterprise takes on a sinister cast. Two people approach me for cards, but I don’t stay to chat. All I can think of is escaping from this place where the ghost of freedom haunts the backyards in the form of colorfully dressed, dark-skinned strangers. Where “Finkelstein” is a laugh line.

  THIS WAS NOT my first venture into the extensive territory where Christianity, so called, overlaps with the business culture. As it happens, that area of overlap has been expanding rapidly in recent years, to include workplace-based ministries; employee prayer groups, some at major companies like Coca-Cola and Intel; networks of Christian businesspeople and other community leaders; and a growing number of overtly Christian businesses, some of which identify themselves with a tiny fish symbol on the product label. According to the New York Times, there were fifty coalitions of workplace ministries in 1990; today there are thousands.1 Job seekers are likely to encounter the Christian business culture at events like the Norcross Fellowship Lunches—ostensible business meetings that turn out to be worship services. Or they might be drawn to a church-based meeting, advertised as a networking event for the unemployed, that is in fact an occasion for proselytizing. Two months earlier, I had traveled to one of the weekly meetings of the “career ministry” of the McLean Bible Church in northern Virginia, which I had learned about on the web, along with an impressive “success story.”

  As long as I believed that jobs were in short supply, that my skills were rusty and therefore not as good as they could be, I wouldn’t find a job. So I put together an affirmation, describing the perfect job, the environment I wanted to work in, financial security and the type of people I wanted to work for. I then turned the whole thing over to God. Each day I said this affirmation, thanking God for giving me what I had asked for. I asked that it be made known by the end of July and manifest by September. Within 2 weeks, I received an email with a recruiter’s name and phone number from a friend. The rest is a wonderful story of faith and believing. I called this person, went to an open house on July 29 and was hired immediately.

  Join us, was the message, and you will soon be on good enough terms with God to give him a firm deadline.

  On the evening I attended the McLean Bible Church career ministry, the religious aspects were fairly low-key and devoid of sectarian hostility. The meeting was chaired by Mike, whom I had first mistaken for the pastor. He looked amazed at this error, as if I had gone up to a random Manhattanite on the street and inquired as to whether he or she was the mayor—because the MBC is enormous, almost the size of a small city. You drive into a parking lot large enough to serve a medium-sized airport, and enter through an atrium that could easily grace an Omni hotel or a very grand bank, where a man at an information booth directs you to your destination in the three-story maze.2

  Mike opened the meeting by explaining that the “mission of this church is to have an impact on secular D.C. for the Lord Jesus Christ.” But it looked as if secular D.C. had already had quite an impact on the church, because I did not, in my wanderings through the building, which includes a “sanctuary” (the basic pew-filled auditorium and pulpit), a cafeteria, a sports area, and much more, see the least item of religious symbolism—no crosses, no Jesus, no angels, nothing. We began with a prayer: “We know you have a plan for our lives . . . Thank you, Father, for being a great provider.” An odd reason for gratitude, under the circumstances. During the break, when we were free for informal networking, two of my fellow job seekers, both middle-aged women with computer-related skills, confessed to having had to move back in with their parents after several months of futile searching.

  During our half-hour networking time, I had approached a recruiter from Prudential who was cruising the meeting, looking for salespeople, though not, alas, for anyone in PR: “Why aren’t you home poring over Monster.com?” I asked, somewhat teasingly, because it had occurred to me that if the job boards really worked, there’d be no need for all this networking. “Well,” he said, “you’d be taking a risk to hire someone from one of the boards; you wouldn’t know them.” I had persisted, asking him how well he could know someone from a quick face-to-face meeting here. Besides, you’re going to interview them anyway, right? But no clear answer was offered.

  The pitch, at the MBC career ministry, was delivered by another church volunteer, a thin, tense woman named Lisa, in full business dress. Her profile in the handout we were given reads in part:

  I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. My journey to this place of peace and joy was brought about through trials and tribulation. I found myself at the door of the Career Ministry as a seeker and often wondered what I was seeking for—I came looking for a job and found life! . . . I am a Human Resources professional with 11+ years of experience in the service, retail and hospitality industries.

  It didn’t look like a place of peace and joy. All through the proceedings, which consisted mostly of going around the room and announcing our names and occupations, I had been thoroughly distracted by Lisa, who stood near the front, although she was hardly the designated center of attention, trying on one facial expression after another—cocking her head to one side with a droll little moue, for example, then suddenly turning back to the paper on which our names and aspirations were being recorded with a studied frown, which could just as quickly give way to a joyless grin. You might have thought she was an alien, sent to Earth with a repertory of facial expressions but no instructions as to when to apply them. She was, I suppose, just looking for the right corporate mask.

  At the end of the evening, she bustled to center stage, if someone so thin can bustle, and essayed a deeply serious look, lips pursed, which was soon replaced by one of embarrassed humility. The idea was that we should buy CDs containing the pastor’s sermons on getting through hard times, including his well-known sermon on the war in Iraq. It had helped Lisa pray, and two weeks later she had two job offers. There were no takers, as far as I could see, for the CDs.

  Back at the Homestead Suites that night, a stripped-down, generic sort of place near Dulles Airport, I was struck by how much my motel room resem
bled the church. Not literally, but in the sense of some underlying aesthetic—the same economy of line, neutral colors, cheap indestructible furniture, extremely short-haired carpet for easy cleaning. The room was actually cheerier than the church, thanks to the vaguely impressionist print on the wall. In my exhausted state, it seemed to me that this aesthetic permeates all aspects of the world I have entered: narrative-free résumés dominated by bullets; motel-like, side-of-the-highway churches; calculated smiles; sensuality-suppressing wardrobes; precise instruction sheets; numerous slides.

  It works, more or less, this realm of perfect instrumentality; it makes things happen: deadlines are met; reservations are made; orders delivered on time; carpets kept reliably speck-free. But something has also been lost. Weber described the modern condition as one of “disenchantment,” meaning “robbed of the gods,” or lacking any dimension of strangeness and mystery. As Jackson Lears once put it, premodern people looked up and saw heaven; modern, rational people see only the sky. To which we might add that the minions of today’s grimly focused business culture tend not to look up at all. But then what to make of the growing Christianization of business? Will it lead to a kinder, gentler, more reflective business culture? Or is it religion that will have to change, becoming more like the thoroughly utilitarian McLean Bible Church—a realm drained of all transcendence and beauty?

  NOTHING HAD COME OF the McLean Bible Church venture—not a single tip for a “seasoned PR professional,” willing to relocate anywhere. At the end of the event, I had gone up to our leader, Mike, and asked for his advice. He gave me the name of another church volunteer who would be able to help me, but this guy failed to respond to my calls or e-mails. The Norcross Fellowship Lunch had been equally useless. Still, I can’t write off the faith-based approach to job searching on the basis of two bad experiences, and, besides, here in Atlanta, the churches seem to be where the serious networking goes on.

  After the Norcross lunch, my next destination is the Crossroads Jobseekers’ meeting at the Mt. Paran Church of God, another offering from the Godel web site. Like the McLean Bible Church, this one is a vast multiservice center, but on a slightly smaller scale. No information booth awaits me at the entrance, only a series of dimly lit corridors. I am wandering in search of a human guide when three medium-sized, possibly feral children rush shrieking out of the darkness. No, they have no idea of where the Crossroads meeting might be taking place, and continue on their chase. I walk by rooms labeled for ESL meetings, child care, and support groups for mothers, marveling at all the faith-based social services that are evidently filling in for public and secular ones. Finally, I encounter a black man pushing a broom, who is able to direct me. It’s an odd space that I end up at, with a fake house facade at the front, decorated with geranium-filled window boxes, and surrounded by fake potted trees—a permanent stage set, in fact. At the door, a table is laid out with plates of sugar cookies, bottles of soda pop, and a stack of notebooks, which a church volunteer invites me to help myself to.

  I’m a few minutes late, due to my wanderings in the church complex, and a woman identified by her name tag as Anna is already speaking from the podium. Other than the church volunteers, only ten people are present, all of whom seem too wrapped up in the presentation to acknowledge my entry, even with a nod. But listening is unnecessary since Anna is going through the notebook we’ve already been given, on the theme of helpful web sites for job seekers. While she speaks, two monitors on the sides of the stage display the web sites under consideration, so that we are getting the same information from three sources: Anna, the notebook, and the monitors. I concentrate on Anna, noting the carefully put-together earth-toned outfit—could it be that all women of a certain age are assigned to earth tones?

  One of the web sites mentioned catches my attention: something called Jobfiler, which organizes your job search for you—your contacts, interviews, et cetera. What I have learned so far is that job searching is almost a profession, or at least a fulltime occupation, and now comes the information that this profession, too, is facing technological obsolescence. In my experience, and you may take this as an excuse if you want, anything that promises to “organize” your life is going to take more time than simply continuing to wade through the mess. Still, it’s tempting to imagine turning my futile and increasingly messy efforts over to Jobfiler. Or maybe there’s some low-wage person in Bangalore who could be paid to do the searching for me.

  Digressing from the notebook, Anna counsels us not to despair over a perceived lack of skills, since “the average person has between eight and twelve skills,” though she doesn’t mention what they may be. In my growing impatience, I want to ask whether eating with chopsticks counts as a skill, but no one is asking anything. My fellow seekers, insofar as I can see their faces without seeming inattentive to the lecture, wear the same dogged, passive expressions I’ve learned to associate with job seekers everywhere. Maybe the fear is that the slightest sign of impertinence could lead someone in the group to withhold a valuable tip? Anna winds up with an exhortation to always remember what we’re worth: “The most important person who ever lived died for you.” The image on the monitors changes from that of a perky home page to a deep blue pattern bearing the message “Giving the World Hope in Christ.”

  My own hope is that we will move on speedily to the networking phase, where I can meet my fellow seekers, announce my aspirations, and perhaps score a contact or two, which is after all the whole point of being here. But Anna declares that it’s time for a “testimony.” A white-haired man in a turtleneck shirt and jacket launches into a half-hour-long account of his life with the Lord. He had been at IBM for thirty years before moving to a smaller, friskier, dotcom-type company, only to be laid off in 2001. It was a rough time; a lot of his friends didn’t even get an interview for a year. Fortunately, the Lord intervened from time to time, prompting him to take a job at Xerox, although at much reduced pay. No matter, he threw himself into it, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, which was fine until Xerox asked him to take a further pay cut.

  The events so far would have led me to conclude that the Lord was not paying close attention, but our speaker remained firm in his faith. He was praying with a friend one day when he got the feeling that the Lord wanted him to take an engineering job that he had applied for. He knew the Lord was with him at this point because when an occasion for sin arose, he was able to just say no, although this was the kind of thing he wouldn’t have passed up in his less Christian past. Anyway, he got the engineering job that he still holds. So the kicker is: “Never forget that the Lord can do something that can dramatically change your situation.”

  At this point it’s after eight and I am decidedly hungry. I’m considering an escape when a fellow named François takes over and demands that we all come and sit in a circle around him. This must be the point when the networking will take place, and with so few people present, there should be plenty of opportunity for give-and-take. But no, he launches into what I now recognize as Job Search 101: the need for an elevator speech, a polished résumé, and of course the need to net-work, network, network. Networking is so central to life, he confides, that we should be taught how to do it in kindergarten and primary school. And who should be our first networking target? The Lord.

  I’m sorry, this is too much for me. I endured the Norcross Fellowship Lunch as an atheist, but now, at the Mt. Paran Church of God, I discover I am a believer, and what I believe is this: if the Lord exists, if there is some conscious being whose thought the universe is—some great spinner of galaxies, hurler of meteors, creator and extinguisher of species—if some such being should manifest itself, you do not “network” with it any more than you would light a cigarette on the burning bush. François is guilty of blasphemy. He has demeaned the universe as I know it.

  I rise to my feet and gather up my papers, observed with alarm by the three women who are running things: Annie, Judy, and Anna. As I approach the door, Annie scurries over to dem
and, “Is everything OK? Will you come back?” She walks with me to the stairs and even starts down them with me, clutching at my elbow the whole time. “You should go to the Perimeter Mall Jobseekers’ meeting tomorrow morning,” she insists; “Why, there are even recruiters who show up there.” It’s at Fuddruckers, she says, pronouncing that word very slowly, perhaps to forestall any scrambling of the consonants. “It starts at seven thirty, and you can be out of there by ten, when the stores open in the mall.”

  I LEAVE THE church with every intention of skipping the Perimeter Mall meeting, since my Christian-job-search encounters have led so far only to aversion, though “false pride” is probably the correct theological term. No contacts, no tips, no progress at all on the job-search front. But two things push me to the Perimeter Mall: first, Annie mentioned that I can get there by MARTA, the commuter train system (there’s a stop right next to the hotel), and, second, I wake up naturally at the ghastly hour of 4:45 A.M. There is no excuse.