Learning How to Interview for a Job

Doug Wallace, an attorney and author of the memoir Everything Will Be All Right was the third oldest of eight children born into an impoverished Tennessee family. In his memoir, Wallace tells the story of how the stranglehold of poverty enchains its victims into an endless cycle.

Says Wallace, "Growing up in poor communities, my oral communication was the same as my parents, siblings, friends and neighbors. I was twenty-two years old before I realized that bad grammar and use of slang isolated me from the mainstream society that I was desperately seeking to join." Says Wallace, "What I do know now is that it got me kicked out of job interviews faster than Donald Trump can say, you're fired."

Until he learned how to communicate using the language of the middle class, he had no idea why people from the outside treated him differently. To him, it appeared they thought highly of themselves while looking down upon his family. As far as he was concerned, they were "putting on airs," though he never gave up trying to learn their ways.

One of the hallmark traits of the generationally poor is the importance of personality in relationships. Use of humor, body language, gestures, and slang was the normal way of communicating in the Wallace household. Loud voices and big laughter were part of the usual noises in his house, like the television always blasting in the background. The family could either listen to their own noise, or that of their neighbors behind the thin walls of the housing projects. That's another mistake Wallace was making in the interviews. His humor and personality wasn't middle class enough for employers.

"There was no such thing as personal space in our family," say Wallace. With ten people, including the eight children, living in a tiny three bedroom apartment, they couldn't afford the luxury of personal space. It was normal to have family members, even neighbors, get close, both in conversation and when standing in groups. When Wallace shook hands during a job interview, he says "my behavior was definitely less than professional."

In generationally impoverished families, men are supposed to be "real men." At least that's the way Wallace was brought up. Above all things, a man is never a coward. In a job interview Wallace did his best to impress the bosses with his manly ways. Says Wallace, "I'm sure that didn't earn any points either."

The thing about the poverty culture is that most people don't know they are part of it. Like a fish out of water, Wallace didn't find out there was another world, until he ventured outside his neighborhood culture. Isolating the generationally poor virtually guarantees that their children will find it nearly impossible to survive outside their own culture. Without appropriate role models, impoverished children have no way of learning the rules for functioning, and therefore surviving, in the mainstream society.

Doug Wallace is an attorney, a successful entrepreneur and a published author. His book Everything Will Be All Right is scheduled for nationwide launch on October 1, 2009. Doug chose to write his story of growing up in poverty as a way to call attention to the unimaginable hardships for the generationally impoverished. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders Kindle, Sony Reader, and retail book stores everywhere beginning fall 2009.