No Laughing Matter!

Today a couple of ladies at the Texas Workforce Commission--now called Workforce Solutions--helped me hold my mouth just right to finally change some of the entries on some job applications. One lady seemed to think that it helped to hold one foot up in the air while attempting to get the right selection of forms and codes for same. If artists need the correct techniques to get beautiful results on canvas, in music, or in dance, these folks need more than practice in techniques. They need a magic wand!

Three of the women at TWC this afternoon seemed to be about on their last leg with fatigue, but they were still pleasant and very patient. To still have a sense of humor after a very busy day has to be an art form--or the outgrowth of empathy. Whichever, as difficult as it can be to have to search for employment, these people are there to make the attempts less stressful. Apparently they are mirrored all over the state of Texas--and all over the nation. Unemployment is not a laughing matter.

Saying that something is not a laughing matter always makes me smile and think the opposite. Nearly everything we take seriously has been made into a joke of some kind. For instance, the hijacking of that huge ship full of oil makes me want to suggest that we dress up a garbage ship off the East Coast to look as if it were valuable and send it to Somalia. Fix their wagons!

Here in WF we have a principal of a grade school who took the trouble to insist that repairs were much more sensible than new construction--to insist that a local small school was better for the students. Common sense! Hooray for common sense and American do-it-yourself enterprise! Those studies concerning the impact of new buildings or search committees for a new superintendent are more expensive than remodeling or running a job search with TWC. Local companies around here can do the construction work created by remodeling our buildings--especially since these are the days of fix it and make it do. And it wouldn't hurt to trust TWC to find a good man or woman for the superintendent's job! We have a good school board; let our school board interview a few folks sent to them by TWC. It looks like we can trust our school board's judgment of people.

No, TWC doesn't have a magic wand to replace lost jobs, and Wichita Falls doesn't have a fairy godmother; and even holding one foot up and grinning might not be very helpful. So what can we do for ourselves? We don't need to waste money on studies just because that is the way it has always been done (and it has NOT), and we can help create local jobs for those who are able to work. And no, despite helping to remodel this house as Fang's right-hand woman, I don't do construction work. But I admire those who can step outside the normal pattern to refuse to accept the closing of a school or who can have common sense enough to look for an employee who is qualified without having to hire a search team.

Patience and good humor--that's what the folks at TWC had today! Maybe it is because they are Wichitans. Wichitans always have to find a little bit of humor in life just to live here. Never can tell--maybe the next high wind will blow in a fairy godmother!