by Daniel Davis Clayton

My first official act, once moving to Austin, was acquiring a job. I was a fresh college graduate, full of energy, eager to work and experience the Austinite way of life. My search became two and a half weeks of street-pounding hell.

I applied high. I applied low. I memorized my entire work history due to regurgitating it countless times. "Sorry, we're not hiring." or "We pay minimum wage." Minimum wage in Austin? Yeah, like I can live off that. "We'll call you in a few weeks." A few weeks? Hello, I'm running out of grocery money here, I need employment now! I went to Adecco, Job Finders and considered prostitution. So finally I crafted a sign of cardboard, threw on my old dirty country work clothes and panhandled for a day yielding $7.28 of pure gross income. Uncle Sam gets none of that. Ha!

I measured the amount of money I had remaining by food + gas prices multiplied by my consumption rate of both, divided that by my bank account holdings, and decided to write home to mom and dad. Geez, at 24 I'm writing home to mom and dad.

I struck pay dirt when I happened upon an ad for Toy Testers. Cool, I thought, I need a no-brainer for a while, and applied. The owner asked me to return the following day for an eight-hour interview. A daylong interview? Is this going to be paid? "No, but hey, I'll spring lunch." Ok, I thought, what do I have to lose? At nine a.m. the next morning I sat in a small room with eight other applicants, "the chosen ones, the smartest and the brightest," as we were called, and awaited our day's begin. While waiting I introduced myself to a UT student and asked him, "Have you ever heard of a day long interview? That struck me as a little strange." "Yeah," he said, "I was thinking the same thing. I hope this isn't some sort of scam."

We were quickly separated and whisked away by different "teams" of "crack businessmen" to the "office buildings" in which we were to "work" while employed with the company. After driving for twenty minutes, my "team-members" stopped at some obscure shopping center, popped the trunk and produced their wares. They were solicitors and I had been kidnapped and forced to bother people against my will. As my cousin Harold later explained to me, I had experienced the Austinite rite of passage. "Welcome," he said with a warming smile. So back to the streets and I was running out of steam.

My third week I applied at the local HEB, another rite of passage, and was immediately hired. Yesss! Maybe next week I can have processed cheese with my Ramen Noodles. The training went well; we learned to deal with drunken customers and how to properly sack groceries. I made a few friends and we decided to create some HEB pickup lines, since we'd be working there as cashiers and all.

1. Hey baby! Is that a WIC voucher you got there?
2. Whasup girl? I got a HEB Gift Card and a lunch break.
3. If you're in my line, I got the time.
4. What's up with you, me and H.E. Butt gittin' busy.
Or, just plain old...
5. I'll be your nasty man.

And it's true. The guy's name really is H. E. Butt. The common joke is that his first name is Hair (which it is not) but I choose to call him HeButt. Over the next several weeks, I learned to effectively grope attractive women's hands while handing them their change. Hundreds of unsuspecting women were molested that way as a result. I also learned that one of the most difficult jobs in a grocery store is getting the shopping carts from the parking lot. It's an all day job and very tiring, especially in this heat. So please, respect those guys.

I was sacking groceries the other day and thinking... this is fucking ridiculous. I've got a BA in Art Direction and a minor in Writing and I'm sacking groceries for a company that hired me on as part time just so they didn't have to divvy out benefits. But as luck would have it, I got an internship with Participation 2000, a national political program, and a chance to leave Austin, and Texas, for the next several months. Darn, and I was just getting settled in.

So hello Austin and goodbye Austin. Since a sophomore in college I've wanted to come here, and as soon as I do I'm whipped away in another direction. But I'll be back in the city by the end of the year, and I'll be here every month giving it to you from the road. I've got a lot to learn about Austin, like the music, art, poetry, and political scenes, and I hope you don't mind seeing your city through my eyes.

Oh yeah, I love the place I live. It's an interesting neighborhood. It lies somewhere between the East and the North side, the West and the South. Somewhere between being educated and living on welfare. I like to call it Section Eight.