I went to the local Agrifair here in Abbotsford, mainly because I had read on the BC government job search website that there was going to be a Job Fest held there, and I desperately need to find something less demeaning to do for a living. I assumed that a “Job Fest” was similar to a, “Job Fair.” This was not the case. They had a stage with a live local band playing, inflatable props and a booth with some iPad set up. There were no recruiters, postings, or anything of that ilk, making it worse than attending a high school guidance counsellor’s office. The iPads were set up with an app game that suggested a career path for you based on your likes and dislikes. By pressing all the options that would be associated with an excellent worker, I was given the career option of, “Coach,” nature’s pedophile. It gave me this job, and only this job four times in a row. Then it showed me how bad the job market for a coach was, and how little they made. Basically, it told me to go fuck myself. I honestly don’t know what purpose any of it served. One would assume a Job Fest put out by the B.C. government would be there to highlight job opportunities in B.C., which it didn’t. B.C. has a major problem with talented and young workers shipping off to Alberta, because the money’s good. It looked like they invested a lot of time and money into a project that’s a proverbial Bridge to Nowhere.
This was really the only reason I wanted to go to the fair this year. I even brought fresh resumes to hand out. I felt more or less an idiot, considering I spent $10 to get in. This was the saddest I’ve ever seen a country fair. For starters, all the carnival rides were shut down until 5 p.m., because they were too hot. It was around 12 p.m. when I got there. All the people in attendance were sitting around under shaded trees. To be honest, I didn’t think it was that hot out. How would a carnival function in a place like Texas, I wondered, if they had to worry about things like the seats getting too hot? This was Southern B.C.. People from warmer climates visiting on a sunny day have to bundle up to stay warm. Just as people from the prairies always mock us when we complain about a cold winter, we too would be mocked for complaining about a hot day from just about anyone outside our borders.
I walked through the farming equipment museum which is a hot spot for all the old coots, and they were just completely dead. They were laid back in their chairs like they’d just run a marathon. It was lunchtime, and there were no line up at the food carts. Even the lady selling ice cream looked tired and lonely, which didn’t make much sense considering. Looking through the carnival rides, I felt like either the Joker in his favourite hideout, or Scooby-Doo investigating a mystery. A small child wanted one of the toys being offered at the carnival games, but his father was unable to procure it for him because the game itself was closed.
There were multiple musical acts onstage, with no one watching. Listening to them in the background, they sounded not that bad. Like better than semi-professional to professional acts. No one was really paying any attention to them at all, even with their music blaring across the fields. The band playing at Job Fest had only two spectators that weren’t being employed to be at Job Fest, but a gig is a gig.
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