When I was a younger lad, I knew this girl named Heather Pritchard. She was nothing to write home about it. She was pretty chunky, mean as an ox, and curiously and unbelievably somewhat popular.

I never really understood it. She wasn't even mean in a charismatic way. She was mean in a just plain mean way. She thought she was better than everyone except her friends, but somehow she ran with the "in" crowd and always had a lot of people around her (rarely boys, though).

When I was in high school, there was a girl named Becki Eisenreich. Becki's date to the prom (who was nothing to brag about and beneath the generally affable Becki) was unceremoniously arrested. Though he got out in time to go to prom, she had to scramble for a date at the last minute. I don't know if she succeeded or not.

Then of course, there was my high school friend Oz. Oz was a self-centered, racist, uncharismatic oaf. When it came time for prom, he never did get a date. He ended up watching rentals with his parents that night.

I mention Oz, Becki, and Heather because they all tight in to a particular way I've been feeling lately.

I've been unemployed for nearly five months now. All this time, there's been an employer that I was pretty sure would hire me. "What?" you ask, "You mean you weren't serious about finding work?"

To the contrary. The reason that I am pretty sure that they'd hire me is that they always have a deficit of employees. They always have a deficit of employees because they scare them off like an old lady in a witch hat does preschoolers.

To say that they're anal is an understatement. Though I've not gone in to it, I've worked for odd people before. This is a category unto itself, though. Gattaca monitors just about everything you do. Every four months you have to do an in-depth self-appraisal and if your appraisal is insufficient, you will be canned.

It's as steril as the IMF headquarters in the Mission Impossible movie.

They're somewhat well known in the IT industry. In fact, my roommate, my former roommate, my former roommate's roommate (and I think his other roommate too) have all at least applied for work there (my roommate presently does, my former roommate used to). It single-handedly convinced my roommate to go back to college and my former roommate was aching for something - anything! - else after just a few weeks.

Here's the thing, though: They pay. They pay well. I need something that pays well, if only for a little while.

So I decided to apply for a job with Gattaca. My roommate turned in a referral (to give you an idea of how desperate they are for warm bodies, they give him $1500 if I work there for over four months) and then... nothing. I call them back and ask the status, they say they'll call me and then... nothing.

I don't feel rejected or anything. It took them a whopping 5 interviews and six weeks to hire my roommate. But when I talked to my roommate JD about it, he said that I'd have to pester them.

So I would have to beg for a job I have absolutely no excitement for with a company that will make me miserable.

That's what got me thinking about Becki, Heather, and Oz. The only analogy I could come up with was putting myself in Becki's shoes, where you have high standards (which she did) but because of a certain situation, she had to lower them drastically to find someone. Then I think of Oz, who never lowered his expectation and watched videos on prom night.

Then I think of Heather.

I think of myself in Becki's shoes, scrambling for a date - any date! - and having to lower my expectations and taking back the guy who had a stint in jail or spending the night at home watching videos.

It feels like I've been dumped right before prom, and that I've got to find a date - any date! - to avoid digging into my savings when unemployment runs out. The only people I can get a job with is Gattaca, the only date I can get is the guy that went to jail. It feels like I'm reduced to asking Heather Bitchard, that annoying wench of a girl (and anyone that knows me knows I don't use those words loosely), to go to prom with me to avoid the fate of Oz.

But I did anyway. I applied.

But now I have to beg, which makes me feel like the hypothetical position where I ask a girl I loathe to prom... and she doesn't say yes and doesn't even say no.

"I'll go with you," she says. "But you have to beg."