Human Resources

"David" by Michaelangelo

Human Resources

When I returned to the USA from a long stay in Russia and Europe I went looking for work.

I had chosen San Diego as a residence because I had good memories of the city from my childhood.

When I was a boy my family from Albuquerque would visit my Uncle Cal's family in San Diego and I remembered the fun of exploring the tidal flats and wetlands and playing in the sand at La Jolla Beach.

I had not visited San Diego much since—and was I ever surprised when I got there!

The mud flats were gone—dredged and built up into high-class neighborhoods and one big park!

La Jolla Beach was a crowded zoo of hotels, fast food cafes, tee-shirt and “beach wear” shops and people.

LOTS of people.

I had been a teacher long before in Northern California and I had been teaching at a university in Vladivostok so I thought it would be a simple matter to find work teaching.

I took a bus to San Diego State University and went looking for the “Employment Office”.

Someone directed me to the “Human Resources” office.

I had been working in other things than teaching for years in America—little things like fixing leaky roofs and minding horses—and I had never heard the term human resources before.

I thought it was some kind of a joke—so I introduced myself to the secretary in the office as a “human resource”.

No laugh. No smile. No reaction at all.

I was a human resource to her!

I had always thought that humans were some kind of special thinking creature—something with spiritual and social value—but here I was in the very heart of higher learning—The University of California—discovering that human beings like myself—maybe especially like myself—a nobody off the street—were considered “human resources”.

I had always thought “resources” were the materials you used in a factory like coal in a steel mill or trees in a paper mill—but never human beings!

Human beings—even the dumbest of dumbquots—were human beings after all! A little less than angels perhaps but certainly more than sand for cement!

I was disgusted then and I am disgusted now—especially now since there are no jobs for anyone—skilled or unskilled.

I may be unemployed, and just another grain of sand on the beach--but I am not just a “human resource”!

I am a human being.

Tomasito, 2008

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