Outside it’s spitting rain, and the number-three buses are crawling in pairs along King Drive. Three stories up, inside a recycled parochial-school classroom, Levon Calhoun is about to hold a dress rehearsal. He’s a training specialist with the small, privately funded STRIVE (Support and Training Result in Valuable Employees, aka Chicago Employment Service). A dozen of his adult trainees–all unemployed, many on welfare, some homeless–stand in a row against the blackboard. He sits across the room in a coat and tie. A blocky, imposing 37-year-old man whose body seems to be composed entirely of rectangles, Calhoun plays personnel director in this next-to-last-day drill, firing job- interview questions at each of his trainees in turn.
“No.”
Calhoun has dropped his interviewer persona and is sawing away at an invisible violin. He asks a friendly but exasperated question. “Why is it you always act like Lincoln?” Calhoun drops his voice an octave. “Ouurrr fathers brooought forth on this continent . . . ” Everybody cracks up, including Jackson.
“How do I deal with that?” Jackson asks.
“At STRIVE I see that all the things I’ve gone through before have prepared me for what I’m doing now–because I’ve been in the participants’ place and have done a lot of the things they’ve done. People see me now in a shirt and tie giving orders. I’m comfortable with that. I’ve also had to be comfortable in rags.
“Afterwards I told Stevenson I wasn’t there to disrespect him. “I want to see your boss–and I don’t mean the head of Public Aid. I mean Jim Edgar. Your boss just punked you out.”‘
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
First priority is to get the hiring authority’s name, so that they can ask for him or her directly next time, when “the gatekeeper won’t know who’s calling.” Once they get the hiring person on the line, they want to set up a face-to-face interview. “DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE INTERVIEWED OVER THE PHONE!!!!” cautions the script. “You get a job from face to face interviews!!!” Adds Calhoun, “If he says yes, then it’s show time. You got to sell yourself.”
