Alright Stardust, there’s no need to panic. Sure, your last ditch effort of finding anything in your career field failed, but the job agency’s totally going to be able to set you up with something workable, I thought to myself. Sure it was probably overly optimistic, but hey, a job was a job and at least I wouldn’t have to go run off to some cave with some of the other bats.
Sure, they were good enough company, but a lot of the other bat ponies weren’t as business oriented as I was. They were into the more woodsy and artisanal careers. You know, stuff like hunting, fishing, logging— yes, believe it or not there were quite a few logger bats way up north by the crystal empire. All good careers, but stuff I wasn’t ever going to be able to fit in with. Well, not true, I could have totally made a fishing job work, but that meant basically running back to some far off lagoon or lake and cutting ties with civilization.
So those were all out, leaving me to seek out some professional help. I glanced up at the towering skyscrapers above me and then over toward the small hanging sign that sat above the entrance of one of the smaller buildings nearby.
“Helping Hooves Job Agency,” I read aloud, earning a confused glance from a passing pegasus.
This was definitely the place, but there was no telling what kind help they’d be able to offer. I had only heard a few things about them, and it was split right down the middle. Stuff like they could help any pony get any job, and alternatively that sometimes they had a tendency to misfile or even lose paperwork. I was desperate for a job though, so I was willing to take my chances. Like I said before, I had basically no experience outside my field, except for one janitor job I held for a few months back when I was starting out in Canterlot. It wasn’t a fancy job in the slightest, just a short stint bussing tables at some bat run restaurant in the caves under Canterlot, but at least it was something.
I could live with bussing tables in some cafe, heck, I’d even settle with some janitor job in one of the stuffy office buildings. I didn’t care what it was just as long as it kept the lights on. Taking a probably very unneeded deep breath, I pushed open the door and stepped in, my ears perking up at the bell chimes that rang out, alerting the pink earth pony that was sitting behind the desk.
He looked up at me and smiled, “Welcome to Helping Hooves, how can I help you today?”
“Well uhh,” I cleared my throat, “I’m finding myself in need of a job… and I was kind of hoping that you guys would be able to help.”
He nodded, “Well you came to the right place!” He waved me over to a cubicle in the corner of the room, “Office Job can help you out.”
I nodded and took a seat in front of the older looking pony, “Nice to meet you Mr. Job.”
“Oh just Office is fine,” he smiled, “So, you’re looking for a job eh?”
“Yep!” I cheerfully replied back, “I just got turned away from a bunch of interviews, and had a friend say you guys could get anyone a job.”
He chuckled, “Well we certainly try our best. So what kind of job are you looking for Mr…”
“Oh, Stardust. And to tell you the truth, I just need a job. Any. Job.”
“Mhmm,” he nodded, “and what kind of experience do you have?”
“Well, I’m a graphic designer… or I guess I was, and I bussed tables at the Knight’s Light down in the Canterlot Caverns a while back.”
“Anything else?” He inquired, turning toward the nearby filing cabinet and rummaging around.
“Yeah actually, I can make a pretty mean grilled cheese too.”
“Right…” he dug through the cabinet some more, muttering incomprehensibly to himself. Finally he pulled out two folders and laid them across his well worn wooden work desk.
I was a little worried that he only had two folders out of what seemed like a few dozen or so that were crammed into the cabinet. But these were the professionals. Clearly they didn’t need to grab out all of them, because they were the experts at finding a pony any relevant jobs, and clearly Office Job had narrowed it down to two.
“So, Office, I’m guessing you’ve found the best fitting jobs for me?”
He nodded, “At least based on what you told me about your job history.”
“Right… So what are we looking at, anything exciting?”
He shifted in his seat and glanced between myself and the folders for a few moments, giving me the sense that he was trying to figure out how to break some bad news to me. I braced for the inevitable yeah you’re unhireable but before I had a chance to panic, he spoke up.
“We have two jobs that might work for you.”
“Okay, two’s better than nothing. So what are they? Busser at a restaurant or janitor at the theater?”
He shook his head, “The two jobs we have right now are junior sanitation agent and a butler position at Orange Manor.”
“So janitor somewhere or fancy janitor in an old mansion is what I’m getting?”
“That’s… one way to put it,” he hesitated, “Although I don’t know how interested you’d be in the first one.”
“Oh? Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked as I tried to steal a glance at the job’s folder. It couldn’t be that bad right?
“Well, the junior sanitation agent position requires a fair bit of time spent doing maintenance in the sewers, and I can say that this is a job that rarely gets filled for long.”
I scrunched up my muzzle at the thought of that. He didn’t really give me the full detail, but I could piece together enough. Trotting through raw sewage in a narrow sewer duct— yeah no, I didn’t need to imagine that any further.
“I can guess why,” I looked over to the other folder on his desk, “What about that? The butler job?”
“Ah yes, the butler job. You’re looking at most likely a night shift doing basic tasks around the estate. Making sure the family’s needs are tended to, running errands, that sort of stuff. It’s tiring and boring work, but they pay well enough.”
I didn’t need to even think about this, my choices were trudging through sewage and probably never having a chance at getting that smell out of my coat, or tidying up some dusty old manor. I mean the choice was pretty obvious.
“Well, guess you can call me Graves.”
“You’re interested in the butler job I presume?”
I nodded, “It’s that or dealing with raw sewage and considering that makes me want to throw up just thinking about it, I’m gonna go with the other job.”
He jotted down a few notes and nodded, “I’ll have to send this into the head butler there for approval, but I’m sure they’ll be fine with it.”
“Perfect!” I cheered back, just relieved that I’d be able to make end’s meet, “So any idea when I’ll probably start?”
“You’ll probably be good to go in a few days,” he slid a form over toward me along with a fancy looking quill that must have been older than I was, “I just need you to fill out this form and we’ll be able to send it away.”
I peeked down at the simple paper, taking the quill in my hoof and filing in the basic information. I signed my name, wrote down my address, dropped in my prior job history, and just like that Office Job had trotted off to some back room to send it off. An anxious, but excited feeling welled up inside of me. This had been way easier to deal with than I thought it would be…
Almost too easy…