BY RANDY HINES

I recently got a job. Yay.

It's been a long time coming. I've been through "work convalescence" before, but this one was tougher than most. I'm older. I'm also more experienced…in a lot of things. It's easy to scapegoat my situation and blame Drumpf L'Orange and his minions. Don't get me wrong—if I felt there was 100% causality between their Project 2025 nonsense and my employment situation, I'd say so. And it may, indeed, be a contributing factor. To wit: from a macroeconomic perspective, tariffs are a losing proposition. I've known this since 5th grade. What's more troubling is AI. What's more troubling still is the current administration's stance on it, which amounts to letting insipid Tech Bros run roughshod over everything without a single regulatory constraint against harmful actions. That's a more direct contributor, possibly, to my situation and to everyone else's in the job market. What college graduate is going to land a meaningful internship or entry-level job if that position can be done by freaking Claude or Base44 in minutes?

And let's not forget the scams. The first one played on my desperation, hitting me with a long battery of questions.

I haven't been subjected to anything racially blatant. Oh, sure, I may not have gotten a position because I'm Black. But I also may have gotten a position because I'm Black. Either way, I can't prove it, so I'm not going to worry about it. I've never seen anything overt. My personal experience being interviewed by white men and women, Indian men, even Black men, has yielded jobs multiple times. Strangely, I've only once landed a position when there was a Black woman in the room of interviewers—and in that instance, I'd already accepted another job I chose instead.

And let's not forget the scams. The first one played on my desperation, hitting me with a long battery of questions. In short order, they emailed to say I'd gotten the job, emailed me a list of computers and equipment I could use remotely, and ultimately wanted my direct deposit information so they could send the equipment to me. All of this without ever talking to anyone on the phone. The second one did something similar. I called the company to verify they were actually staffing for the role, and they immediately said it was a scam. My ingrown skepticism kept me from handing over anything. Still—the nerve of some people, the sheer sophistication of screwing people over this way. If I see any of them in a dark alley, their ass is mine…and not in a good way.

So, today's job market is tough. I was forced to drive for Lyft on more than one occasion. For a good while, it was soul-crushing, hauling strangers around like a glorified taxi driver. Folks, I don't really like people, so the notion of them in my space, trusting me to get them anywhere safely, struck me as absurd. I felt better seeing late-model SUVs like mine with neon Lyft and Uber signs glowing in the windshield—like I wasn't alone in this particular indignity.

Unemployment only goes so far, and for so long. As it ran out and my savings went red, I was forced, on top of rideshare, to become a security guard. I'd considered it before, in tough times, but never had any luck. I guess I got "lucky" this time.

Back in the day, I remember my sisters bitching about being left out on account of racial issues. I reiterate: I'm Black. A negro. Whatever the opposite of melanin-challenged is. It was my sisters' contention that, as Black women, they were last in line for jobs. As their much younger brother, I didn't have the words to ask them why they'd seemingly given up and settled for living under my aging parents' roof…for free. No one was keeping them there. That was on them, even in an environment that might have had real racial or gender headwinds. You can't win it if you've given up. Bitching about it from their lowly perch seemed pointless. It was.

As for racism, I can only speak for me. I know full well that others similarly situated have had legitimate cause to question the good-ol'-boy network. It's alive and well, and getting worse on account of the orange man and his MAGA acolytes. But there's nuance in the suck that is the American job market.

Suck it, scammers.