A carburetor mixes air and fuel in a car engine in order to provide just the right mix to make the fuel ignitable so that the engine can work. It’s a very important part of the whole internal combustion thing. But in newer cars, the carburetor has been replaced by the fuel injection system; in fact, these days, the fuel injection system is mostly universal. Even my cheap old Geo Metro had a fuel injection system.

Now imagine the guy who has discovered that he has a talent for building and repairing carburetors and decides to make a career out of it; unfortunately for him, his talents come at the time when the carburetor is on its way out. One day he loses his job as a carburetor mechanic and finds that there simply aren’t any jobs for his talents anymore. The world has moved on, and the language of fuel injection systems is simply alien to him. He can pick it up just fine, of course, but service departments don’t want someone who knows a lot about carburetors and a little about fuel injection systems. They want people who know everything about fuel injection systems.

So last week, I got this call from a recruiter:

Recruiter: I’ve got a contract web development job that would be great for you. It’s working for <insert Big Prestigious Company Name here>, only about six months, pays quite a bit. I was wondering if I could send your resume in.

Richard: Sounds good. Would you like me to send you an updated resume?

Recruiter: Well, let’s see what I have here.

She rattles off my resume… I know it’s the most current one, and I tell her.

Recruiter: Perfect. The job involves quite a bit of HTML and some SQL. How are your skills at those?

Richard (feeling more optimistic): Pretty good. I used those skills extensively at my last job.

Recruiter: That was at <insert last company here>, right? And you were there for a year?

Richard: That’s right.

Recruiter: Hm, they’re looking for someone with more experience than that, but I’ll send this in anyway. How’s your Java programming skill? They want someone with two years’ worth of Java.

I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don’t like to lie about my job qualifications, but sometimes you have to stretch the truth a bit.

Richard: I’ve got about six months’ worth. Richard doesn’t mention that it was a six-month class in Java, not a six-month long period of time spent programming in Java.

Recruiter (already sounding distant and unimpressed now): I see. Well, I’ll send your resume in anyway. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Mr. Crawford.

The recruiter hangs up the phone quickly. And, of course, the Big Prestigious Company never calls.

It’s quite a familiar dialogue for me. I’ve played it out something like three times over the past four or five months. It would be a bit more encouraging if this kind of dialogue were being played out with actual employers, instead of corporate recruiters; but I suppose the actual employers have a better sense of who’s employable and who isn’t.

Cue awkward segue.

Two weeks ago, classes started. I sat in the General Chemistry class I was taking, listened as the instructor explained that pre-calculus was a prerequisite for the class. For a moment I was nervous, because I knew that without the right prerequisites, I’d be dropped from the class. Then she explained that it was okay to take pre-calculus concurrently with the chemistry class; and since that’s what I was doing, I knew I was fine.

The next day my pre-calculus class started. The teacher explained the prerequisites for that class, and I only half-listened, because the counselor I’d spoken to at the college office had told me that my high school transcript from 1986 was sufficient for getting into pre-calculus. But when the teacher explained that high-school diplomas were not sufficient for prerequisites, my ears perked up. I discovered, through conversations with the teacher and a staff member at the college, that I’d gotten some bad information. Not only was my high school diploma not sufficient for meeting the prerequisite for pre-calculus, there was no other way of meeting the prerequisite for me without taking an assessment test… and the counselor I’d spoken to had told me, beyond any doubt, that no assessment test was required.

I hope that counselor has been fired. I don’t usually wish ill for other people who make mistakes, but this was a pretty bad one.

So, that day I drove out to Sacramento to take the math placement test; annoying, because I’d hoped to work out that afternoon. So there I was, merrily taking the test, breezing through answers I knew, guessing on answers I didn’t. I finished the test, and sat down to await the results.

And when the exam room administrator called me forward, she explained that my results placed me in Intermediate Algebra.

Yep. Intermediate Algebra. After that comes geometry, then trigonometry, and, finally, pre-calculus after that. When I could take chemistry as well.

So I went to the counseling office again, noted that the counselor I’d spoken to before wasn’t there that day, which was a good thing, and filled out a slip for a drop-in appointment. An hour later I spoke with another counselor, who explained to me the following:

• I’d have to drop pre-calculus
• I’d also have to drop chemistry
• I’d have to enroll in intermediate algebra in fall, which is the next time that they offer it
• I could look forward to taking pre-calculus and chemistry in fall of 2004.

Ugh.

So I went ahead and dropped all of my classes, got a refund for the registration fee, and sold back my textbooks. I wasn’t able to get the full price back, of course, because I’d opened the books on the silly assumption that I’d have a chance to study them. I’ve taken a loss on the books.

Any possible entry into graduate school for me has been effectively pushed back a year or two, and it was already pretty far in the future anyway. After all, in addition to catching up on things academically, I still need to figure out how to get the proper letters of recommendation, study for and take the GRE, figure out financing, and so on. None of the professors I worked with before are at the University anymore, which is fine since they would probably remember very little of my academic career anyway. So my letters of recommendation would have to come from professors who would get to know me through my participation in various research projects and that sort of thing over the next couple of years.

I don’t know; perhaps ecosystem engineering was just a pipe dream anyway. I could, given luck, get a master’s in the field by the time I’m 40, but the job market is very uncertain for the field. It’s a major commitment of time and money, and may not have any payback at all.

So. There it is.

There are plenty of things I would have enjoyed doing with my life. There is a program in Wales which is building massive "arks", domes which recreate various ecosystems from around the world. That feels right up my alley. There are organizations which send IT volunteers around the world to help develop IT infrastructure, in order to reduce the "digital divide". The most important of these, in my opinion, is SatelLife, which builds and maintains global networks and communications for doctors in developing countries. Alas, I’m just not qualified to do any of those things; their representatives that I’ve spoken with always end our conversations with, "Well, perhaps you have some money that you can donate?" I at one time considered teaching English in Japan, but found that I didn’t have the skills necessary to do that.

In other words: I’ve always been starting at square one. Just once, I’d like to be able stick with something long enough to build up some expertise, to have someone else interested in what I’ve done because they know I’ve done it well.

So, that’s it. At this point, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I’m reluctant to re-join the Temporary Employment Pool at the University — there’s a part of me which thinks, "I’m 34 — I ought to be established in some sort of career by now" — but putting it off seems like delaying the inevitable.

While I was waiting in line at the college to drop my classes, I overheard a pair of students behind me talking about their future plans. Neither of them really had any idea what they wanted to do, but they felt comfortable with that. It was all I could do to avoid spinning around and saying something like, "Figure out when you’re young what you want to do, and start working for it; if you wait too long, you’re just going to be screwed."

I guess the ultimate question, then, is how to make up for the 34 years I’ve wasted so far, when I really don’t have anything to start with?

There’s no point in brooding on these issues, I know. Next time I update this journal, I’ll have something positive to say.