Qualified
by
Jeffrey-Michael Kane
The recruiter says I'm overqualified, which sounds like praise until you learn the translation: your PhD makes white people uncomfortable when you're cleaning their buildings at night.
I don't correct her. Don't mention that in Addis Ababa, I taught engineering. That my credentials didn't transfer the way I did—intact on paper, worthless at customs.
"Have you considered going back to school?" she asks. "Starting fresh?"
Fresh means: erase thirty years and begin again at the bottom, because your expertise only counts in languages we've decided not to hear.
The application has a box for education. I leave it blank now. Learned that lesson after the office manager asked if I was "really" a doctor, accent turning the word into an accusation.
Last week, a man I'm cleaning for left his dissertation on the desk. Chapter three. I could've marked every error.
Instead, I just emptied his trash.
I don't correct her. Don't mention that in Addis Ababa, I taught engineering. That my credentials didn't transfer the way I did—intact on paper, worthless at customs.
"Have you considered going back to school?" she asks. "Starting fresh?"
Fresh means: erase thirty years and begin again at the bottom, because your expertise only counts in languages we've decided not to hear.
The application has a box for education. I leave it blank now. Learned that lesson after the office manager asked if I was "really" a doctor, accent turning the word into an accusation.
Last week, a man I'm cleaning for left his dissertation on the desk. Chapter three. I could've marked every error.
Instead, I just emptied his trash.