I ran for UPS three peaks running and despite being #1 on record each day (oh yes, I have it on paper) I still didn't get the permanent insider position. I'd actually been pulled into the management office at the end of my first run and guaranteed that job, shook hands and everything, but then next year rolled around... and the next... and then they didn't call for the fourth peak or the fifth (put in my applications anyway but nothing), this last peak they even went so far as to move orientation out of that hub to another hub in a different city JUST to avoid me (I am not kidding, they'd never done that before and it was a last minute thing because they'd had the interviews there which I did get too). All for no other reason than the fact they suspected me of being gay and it would be a liability and blah blah blah, or so that got back to me from the grapevine (well, they're way off the mark on that one aren't they? But apparently that reservation doesn't hold true to management personnel, because the route coordinator was flaming... but yeah). I mean I literally worked so hard for them that all I could do at the end of the day was sleep and sleep and sleep then do it again. Destroyed my back and knees for them. Bled for it. And that's what I got for my efforts: nothing. Not even usable work-experience, apparently.
You know what, that wasn't the only incident. I'd applied for the same position I'd been told I'd be called back to start in the previous year, and I accidentally got sent the email from the HR manager (to the seasonal coordinator manager) saying he didn't "want to hire [her] with all those new eyes watching". Probably should have taken action on that but, foolish me, I thought I still stood a chance some other time. Wrong.
Then in December of 2011 the manager of the Vons down the street that me and my mom have been going to together since I was 12 actually chased US down to ask if I was still looking for work. It was an unusually cold morning the day of the interview so I decided to wear my thicker flannel (dark green and black, all I had) shirt under my thin and only jacket at the time (we're not well off and my wardrobe is seriously lacking so I don't have fancy 'wow-factor' stuff for these situations, but which are business-casual stuff). Well, come to find out from a checker my mom's friendly with, she said I didn't get it because of my clothes......... I was wearing exactly the same black slacks and black tennis shoes that everyone who works there wears, barring their tan Oxford (uniform, you know – so my clothes really shouldn't have had piss-all to do with it). And, instead, they hired some kid with EXTREMELY stretched our earlobes! I mean, you can see straight through them. Oh, and then some really "I own the place" manager's daughter (which I know because she was practically yelling it out at the top of her lungs while strutting around the isles). So that was the final straw for me.
I pretty much have given up after five years of this crap. I've put thousands of applications out there, everywhere within 50 miles, I've also physically gone around to everywhere I could think of as well and all I'm told is "there's the door" or else "online only, here's the kiosk". I just can't catch a break, even if I destroy myself trying. Really sucks.
My grandmother swears it's not just because of my trans situation, but also because I'm a bit fat (and I mean only a bit, I'm far from huge and unhealthy looking - not that I personally think that should really matter either but you know). She seems to be laboring under the delusion that becoming a stick-figure will help. I say she's wrong. Either way, it's been extremely difficult for me to lose any fat the conventional ways. It really is because of endocrine and metabolic disorder in my case. Even when I was eating as healthy as possible, I still couldn't lose anything (hell, not even when I was pretty sick over my condition and couldn't eat I STILL couldn't lose anything. It's pretty bad when you're gaining weight while completely fasting for two days!). That's changing on T but even then, I still will never be that 'sexy' anorexic-thin kind of shape she seems to think will get me a job, despite my tans thing. Riiiiiiiiiight.
I'm just totally screwed, though. And I thought the big-brown shark tank on my resume thee consistent Peaks running (80% don't even make it the first week in our area) would help me at LEAST get a little part time "any moron could do this" job but I guess being trans screwed that up. Don't know what else to do anymore.
Short of showing up in drag... well, I can't do it. I don't even know the first thing about being feminine. I couldn't play it up to save my very life. I'm just absolutely positively not feminine at all. I don't even have any ingrained feminine 'tells' at all either so I *really* couldn't do it even long enough to get through an interview and to get hired. Ugh.
Anyway, yes... discrimination is definitely around in droves, still. And it is only going to be worse the farther and longer this depression (because I say hogwash to 'recession') goes. We're just about surpassing the 1920's conditions here with this and as such, all the employers want the very, very, very cream of the absolute top of the crop. Employer's market conditions, not employee's now and that's not going to change any time in the foreseeable future. So getting a job while being trans, and not having documents reflecting everything as the same (gendermaker, name etc.) will be like hitting the lottery and hitting it big. Or so that's my experience, because it sure isn't happening for me.
'Equal-opportunity' need not and does not apply anymore. I know that much.
