More Jobs

Over the next twenty-five years, I had a few more projection jobs, one in Albuquerque, and the others far, far, far away from Albuquerque. I had learned my lesson. Whenever possible — and it was usually possible — I insisted on inspecting the prints I was scheduled to run. If someone had inspected the prints already, I inspected them again. I could not trust anyone else with that job. Projectionists, for the most part, upon receiving a film, just slap the reels onto the machines without a second thought, assuming, contrary to all experience, that the film will run just fine. It never does. If a print has been projected even one time before, the previous projectionist damaged it, 100% guarantee, and the damage, if unrepaired, will cause further damage still. Always. I tried to ensure that prints under my charge were perfectly ready to project when I returned them. I know of no other projectionist at a commercial cinema who had such an ideal.

Did I enjoy my subsequent projection jobs? Not really. I wanted to. I tried to. There were too many problems, though. Not only were the machines not up to snuff, not only were most of the movies depressingly rotten, not only were many coworkers scheming S.O.B.’s, not only were there countless successful ways of shortchanging employees, not only were many of the managers ultrajerks, not only was the morale somewhere below zero, but some of those places were downright dangerous.

Before you judge me – and yes, you will definitely judge me, harshly – please understand that it is next to IMPOSSIBLE to get a job in Albuquerque unless you have a good connection or unless you are a Certified Public Accountant or a nuclear physicist. Other jobs are garbage, and New Mexico is vehemently anti-union. Jobs pay almost nothing, and sometimes they pay nothing at all. They last a few days. There is no stability. I spent literally more than a year marching myself, by bus and on foot, putting in applications at every job agency, at every temp agency, at every business I could find. Nobody wanted to see me. Applications were trashed, I am sure. I remember applying at a bank, and the gal who saw me was ready to kill me. “See that pile of papers there?” she shouted at me. I looked at the pile, stacked on the floor, about three feet high. “Those are all applications that came in just THIS WEEK!!! What makes YOU think you have any qualifications that would make you so special that you would be better than any of THEM?” That was one of the very few interviews I could even get. After more than a year of filing applications everywhere I could think to file them, with my father screaming at me more and more every day for being so lazy as not to get a job and mooching off of his hard-earned income all the time, the phone would suddenly ring, and there would be a nasty, angry voice at the other end: “Get over here right now. You start today.” I would take the job, and I would be fired, sometimes within days, sometimes without pay. That was job hunting in Albuquerque. Romantic, yes?