I am the manager of a chain store in a black area of Los Angeles. I am white, and under orders from the regional office to be more “diverse” in my hiring, which means “hire more blacks”.

I would LOVE to do that. But of the 300 or so applications I get online every month, most of whom are black, only a handful qualify enough to even get an interview. In order to work for us, you have to have a high school diploma and no criminal record. That literally takes out 75% of the applicants before they even get interviewed. These aren’t my rules – they come from the corporate office.

Those that do make it to the interview usually do pretty well. But then the ones who get offered jobs either fail the drug test on the first day, or quit within a few weeks of starting. The most common reason they give for quitting is because they didn’t know child support payments would be taken directly out of their paychecks like a tax, or they were getting too many hours and making too much money to still qualify for state aide.

So here I am, the “HWIC” (head whitey in charge) at this store, with about 40 white and Hispanic employees, and two black employees that have managed to stay on board, getting criticized for my hiring practices. I’m not the one at fault here. It’s either corporate’s standards are too high, or the local population needs to get its act together.