Zombification

So part of why I am so grumpy all the livelong day is because I haven’t had a real vacay in just about forever, and have a sort of job that much like a gas, expands to fit whatever container (i.e., my waking hours) it’s put into.

And to abruptly change metaphors, work is also like a toxin that builds up in your system. I think of it like gout: there are these work crystals building up under my skin and eventually I get so sensitive I cannot bear the weight of a sheet on my toe/phone call from innocent candidate.

BUT…although there is apparently a war on Xmas or something that people like me are somehow perpetrating by sending out cards that say “Happy Holidays” because we know/like some Jewish people and atheists and are too lazy/indifferent to send out different cards to every person based on what holiday they may or may not be celebrating, Xmas has nevertheless retained the strength to get me a (paid) day fricking off in a week and a half. (Thank you, Xmas!)

And I am going to finagle a few other days off in there and I am going to have five – count ‘em FIVE FIVE FIVE – days where I do not have to ask anyone to describe their current job duties or what their target salary is or how soon they would be available to begin if a position is offered. Five whole days in a row where I can spend all day talking with people about something other than their experience with SOX 404 or their skill level with Excel!

And THAT, Reader, is my Thursday’s Installment of Some Shit that I Am Happy About.

Until then, I am switching into Recruiter Zombie mode. I am still physically here, I am still carrying out my duties, but my brain/soul has already left my body and won’t return until Jan 1, 2007. Posts until then may consist of grunts and or zombie-typing which looks like this:

Ury swrt5giAE GIsrwgeghtu4tg9wtg4qgt wsrhgtegftwisgy gtwesi gts wrgtSWGtw5gthed5r hsuer huaqygtue5uijr4wtytg g yrdrtgtxqt4g5rgtswrwst8wt5ait6h4 GFV8swrG89OA5Y3JNER GIKUHDFGIURWTKIUJSETUHAERUIGHDKSJFNK.ISETHO8LEHT RWHTGKJLRNO;8TH4T.

Job security feels a lot...

...like hot boiling agony.

I'm apparently on this project for the foreseeable future, folks, so...

Yeah.

I had a little escape route planned but the Ringwraiths of Upper Management sniffed it out and cut me off.

So, Hi, Reader! I'm here all night! All week! For-effing-ever!

(Placeholder for image to be added later of me disappearing into a hypno-swirl-thingy, with my tiny hand pitifully reached out towards the light! The LIGHT!!!!!)

How Not to Leave a Voicemail Message

(Preamble: I am 100% certain that this entire post and entire complaint has probably already been bloggified verbatim by some other primate with a keyboard, but I got nothing else for you today, Reader.)

How Not to Leave a Voicemail Message

Don't leave this:

"HithisisStacey[or Daisy or Tracey or Macy or possibly even Ashley]andigotyouremailandiamcallingyoubackmynumberisfivefivefive[unintelligible]fivefivefiveandmycellnumberis[completely, totally unintelligible after several replays of the message, although, in the interest of full disclosure, the last listening was somewhat drowned out by the sound of my own anguished yelp of frustration]."

How Not to Leave Three Voicemail Messages

Do not leave the above three times in one day.

***

For those of you only recently waking up in the late Oughts, may I alert you to a handy feature on many voicemails these days, which is that you can take a listen to the message you just left to determine if, in fact, someone without access to FBI-style audio clean-up tools will be able to understand what you are saying prior to actually sending the message. If there’s any doubt, re-record.

Of course, that expectation is a bit of a double-edged sword and it’s inevitable the one time that you like drop your phone on your foot and swear like a stevedore mid-message will be the time that you called someone with the cruel voicemail that will not allow you to re-record. So be careful, Rip!

Potentially Useful Information

Now you really cannot say I never gave you anything, Reader, because with this post, I have given you at least two pieces of actual information instead of just the usual complaints. (Here's the other and I am dead serious: it is crazy tasty.)

Deborah Ng, who, as I have mentioned, runs a helpful blog for freelance writers, posted that she was interviewed on Salary Stories, which alerted me to the fact that there is something called Salary Stories.

Even if I were not in recruiting, I would still be nosy, so I find the info on here quite interesting in an up-in-your-business kind of way. If you are actively considering a career change, there might be some useful stuff on here to check out. If you are not actively considering a career change, but tend to look in people's medicine cabinets when you are in their bathrooms, you will probably also find it of interest.

Still Chiming My One Note

I am clearly playing the triangle in the giant orchestra that is blogging, because seriously, it's all the same stuff lately, ain't it? It's all some variation on my original post, namely, you are looking for employment. An exchange of skills and time for money. Not friendship, not a relationship, not a date.

I know I keep saying the same thing and every few days I get all Ram Dass on my own ass think, "You know what? I don't want to do the blog anymore because it's just more like, negativity, man, out in the world and there's so much of it out there and like I just want to be happy."

And it will go quiet in the recruiting world, candidates will be dutifully submitting cover letters and resumes that exhibit common sense and restraint, and they will not have "Smack That" as their ringback tone, and I will think I am safe.

But then someone slips up and I enter a Wormhole of Questionable Judgment and I cannot restrain myself from commenting upon it. I can't. To let this kind of thing go unremarked upon would like...like a tacit approval! How could I sleep at night?

So, once again, my advice:

• If you are a 51-year old man, do not put your myspace address on your resume.
• If you are a 51-year old man, who has misguidedly put his myspace address on his resume, do not start off your "About Me" section talking about how you are the most talked-about person within your geographic locale and "nope! [you're] not schizoid, paranoid or psycho!"
• If you are a 51-year old man who has misguidedly put his myspace address on his resume, and DID start off your "About Me" section talking about how you are the most talked-about person within your geographic locale and "nope! [you're] not schizoid, paranoid or psycho!", then you might want to go scrub it of all references to NaughtyGirls, Penthouse, etc.
• If you are a 51-year old man who has misguidedly put his myspace address on his resume, and DID start off your "About Me" section talking about how you are the most talked-about person within your geographic locale and "nope! [you're] not schizoid, paranoid or psycho!", and you neglected to scrub it of all references to NaughtyGirls, Penthouse, etc., then you might want to dial back the more rabidly divisive political stuff.
  

If you are a 51-year old man who could bring yourself to do none of the above because, dammit, even during the job search every little thing in your life is a Song of Yourself and why SHOULDN'T you express your likes and dislikes as this is AMERICA, and what am I, some kind of commie?

Well, then, at the very least, can I beg you to edit down the like 2000 words of all cap screaming in your "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" section?

And might I also remark that just in the spirit of efficiency, you don't reallly NEED 2000 words, period, in your "Who I'd Like to Meet" section because you started it off with a somewhat naughty picture of a naughty girl, and I think that picture is actually worth your 2000 words.

New Feature!

Although I am loathe to go off-topic because then, really, it's just a slippery slope to Online Diary, and the world doesn't need another one of those.

Nevertheless, I'm starting to be mildy disturbed by my own candidate-hating misanthropy as cataloged through this blog. It's awfully one-note.

So I think that once a week (let's say Thursdays because that's usually when I am really losing it) I should post something that is not a fatigued and despairing entry about yet another "Stupid Thing Somebody Stupid Stupidly Did (Aggrieved Sigh)." Instead I will try to post "Things that Remind Me It's Not So Bad to Be a Human."

I am going to keep an eye out for recruiting-related hope-inducing items, but honestly, this week, I don't have any (aggrieved sigh).

BUT! There is this off-topic hope-inducing item!


I can't wait!!!!!

That's right, unbridled enthusiasm + multiple exclamation points. Kitten pics and poems about Jesus or friendship sure TK.

I'm sure it's just an ESL typo...

...but when a candidate sends me a message that says - or, crucially, asks:

"Thanks you for your nice message?"

I can't help but look around myself nervously, like...is my simmering resentment showing?

Time Zones 101

Candidate, if I ask you if you are available at - specifically - "1:00 PM Pacific Time" for a phone interview, but you happen to be on the East Coast this week, then what you need to do is add three hours to 1:00 PM, which, voila! = 4:00 PM EST.

What you should NOT do is assume that if I am available at 1:00 PM Pacific Time, that I would also be available at 1:00 PM Eastern Time (10:00 AM Pacific Time). And then get mad because I didn't call you at that time, even though I made it clear when I was available.

1) I do not have you tagged with GPS and plot out your whereabouts on a Google map. I do not know where you are this week or any other week for that matter.
2) 1:00 PM Pacific Time and 1:00 PM Eastern Time ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TIMES. It makes no sense to assume that if I am available for one I am available for the other.

And there were three mattresses, one of which had blood-stains on the side.

I spent last night in a crappy motel with a cat that (who?) decided at 4:45AM that he didn't like it anymore and spent the next hour crying and pooping.

So I am not prepared for your near-cryptic e-mails that sound vaguely like foreign spam this morning, Candidate. Please try again.


"Hello Ill-Suit,

Thank you very much for the email.

Yes, I am interested for the position. Please, see attached my resume file.

you can process a brief, 10-minute phone screen with me tomorrow at 10:00 am as December 6. If the schedule is not inconvenient for you, please let me know for any time."

In Praise of Formality

From cover letter:

"Before I began raising children, I had a brain and I had ambition, drive, and verve."

I know this candidate is trying to be chummy, but no. No. Just don't do it. Resist the urge to be cute.

Ow.

From resume (emphasis added for leg-cross-inspiring misspelling):

"Duties: Pulling Charts putting the right documents in the chart taking Vital Signs screening Patients getting them ready for the Dr. Giving Injections doing EKG Test. Weighing Patients setting up tray for Pap Simmer, Assisting Dr. with Pap Simmer. Assisting Dr. with I&D minor Surgery."

Not even going to comment on the worrying possibility that this individual is helping with ANY surgery, minor or not.

Apologies

To Reader(s):

I was all set to post every weekday in earnest this week, but then I totally forgot to post yesterday. But I figure that the what? third day in a row of Britney flashing the photogs is like the blogging equivalent of a snow day: why bother posting when you know you cannot compete with that trainwreck?

To Candidates:

This week, it’s totally not you, it’s me, and in this particular case, I actually do mean me. No matter how many cups of coffee I drink this week, I cannot wake up. It’s like my synaptic clefts got exponentially bigger over the holiday weekend and my little neurotransmitters are pumping at the same volume and so cannot make the jump. Like they just disappear off a cliff. And I wind up just sitting here staring off into space for ten minutes before I realize: I’ve been staring off into space for ten minutes.

(Aside: when reading about how neurons and the brain works, does anyone else GET COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT like, is that IT? Like somehow you throw enough of those things together and all of a sudden I can read and/or write a sentence, have a personality, prefer cats to dogs, sing in harmony? That just wigs me out.)

But anyway, Candidate, so I am giving you a total pass for the rest of the week because, quite frankly, I can barely tie my own shoes, much less make a measured assessment of your abilities against the job description. As long as you don’t make any egregious missteps during the phone screen, you are probably getting through! (Streamers! Party hats! Confetti!)

To the Dude Who Wrote this Letter on Salon (you might have to watch a brief ad to read):

You are right. And I am sorry. And I'm being completely sincere. We do kinda suck.

Why are you telling me this?

I know I'm flogging (blogging?) a dead horse here as this is at least my third post on this topic, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I see something like this, I'm 100% the same amount of incredulous and outraged. It's always like the first time.

From resume for A FINANCIAL ANALYST candidate:

"Professional caliber artist specializing in portraits and pencil sketches."

Why? Why is this on your resume when the jobs you are applying for have NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS? Why would I care? WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CARE?

What am I missing? I'm now cycling past incredulity/outrage to like, is it me? Am I the one who doesn't get it? I have forever claimed that I was absent one day in third grade and missed an all-school assembly that Explained It All and the reason why I am constantly befuddled by humanity is because I had a stomachache that day. That, or the fact that we were the only family without cable in my neighborhood doomed me to just never ever getting it.

But I don't get it.

Reader(s?...are there still at least two?), do you? Can someone please explain this to me? I try and try to imagine what on this planet could inspire me to think that some potential employer would be slightly swayed to hire me because I like to bicycle or make really tasty biscotti but I just can't. Can't imagine.

I'm glad Ginuwine wants to sex you up...

...but do I need to hear about it when I am calling for a job?

(If you follow this link and click on "Listen" for Track 2, you will hear what I am referencing. No actual bad words are used but would use caution if you are in a cubicle environment and/or hyper-sensitive to rico-sauve talk.)

(Aside: I'm also glad that Ginuwine is exploring some alternate income streams here, because really, what's he been up to?)

If you have something like this, one of those ringback tone things you kids are all about nowadays, might I suggest you disable the feature during your job search. Or use a different phone.

If you insist on using it, try to avoid a song with lyrics containing the word that just got Michael Richards in trouble or ones that refer to humans with ovaries as "bitches." Because you never really know what the person calling you for a gig might think of those words. Or, as in my case, there might be things equally or more offensive on her iPod, but she will hang up just because it's so effing stupid and unprofessional that she can't be bothered to talk to you.

The question marks are the best part.

This Sunday's New York Times had an article about "Child-Led Learning" which is apparently a form of home-schooling that allows kids to set the pace and pick what they want to learn about each day and follow their curiousity, etc.

I was immediately stricken with horror, imagining 50 years from now when I am in a nursing home being cared for by the generation raised this way. "I just don't FEEL like giving Ms. Ill-Suit her insulin right now."

Anyhoodle, the reason I am thinking of that is that I saw this on a resume, and sort of suspect maybe this person had her own fair share of "Child-Led Learning" as well:

"My current schedule for the rest of this year is this:
Sunday: 1:00 PM- ?
Monday: 11:30 AM- ?
Tuesday: 1:30 PM- ?
Wednesday: 11:30 AM- 6:30 PM
Thursday: 1:30 PM- ?
Friday: 11:30 AM- ?
Saturday: All day "


In the interest of full disclosure, I totally hate The Man and think we all should be wrestling back as much of our lives as possible from the Scourge that is Work. Nevertheless, come on now. This is not, sweetheart, how the world currently runs.

CORRECTION

It was NOT Tofurky Day, as I previously indicated below. It was To-Quorn Day or Quornkey Day or whatever. Actually not an un-tasty fake meat, although the facts from this Slate article I read months before were still sort of hazily floating around in my head as I ate it, making me feel slightly on edge throughout the dinner. Still on the fence about it.

Anyway, just wanted to be sure that all three Readers had a completely accurate understanding of what my Thanksgiving entailed. The cornbread pudding KILLED.

Don't say I never gave you anything, Reader.

In the spirit of the holiday or whatever, please follow below link if you would like a recipe for the most heavenly of cheesy-bready goodness in the form of Seattle restaurant guru Tom Douglas’s Etta’s Cornbread Pudding.

But be forewarned: just looking at the ingredient list will clog at least one (1) artery.

I will be making it for the Tofurky Day festivities tomorrow and while it’s not likely to be quite as transcendent as the stuff at the restaurant, I don't see how anything with that quantity of full-fat dairy products could possibly turn out bad.

(Also…not that I would know anything about this particular part of the country because I certainly wouldn’t be foolish enough to put any personal/distinguishing characteristics out here on this grounds-for-termination blog, but I have heard tell that if you are ever around Seattle way, you really cannot go too wrong with any of Tom Douglas’s places. The shrimpy thing at Lola’s? Nothing bad about that.)

While I do have to work on Black Friday, I will likely be both hungover and carbed-out-sluggish, so either no posts or if there are posts, I’m just going to apologize in advance now for their even more phoning-it-in than usual quality.

Sorry.

Everything I Need to Know that I Apparently Didn't Learn in Kindergarten...

...somebody with an MBA wants to try to teach me as an adult. From a meeting (of adults! in the workplace!) agenda about "Building Trust" for today:

"•Talk straight. Be honest and tell the truth.
•Demonstrate respect. Treat everyone with respect, especially those who can't do anything for you.
•Right wrongs. Apologize quickly. Don't let pride get in the way of doing the right thing.
•Show loyalty. Acknowledge others' contributions. Speak about others as if they were present.
•Practice accountability. Don't blame others when things go wrong.
•Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
•Sharing is caring."

OK, two of those are fake.

I am so bummed that this isn't a face-to-face meeting, because if it were, I would totally start eating paste about twelve minutes in.

Also Too Good to Leave in Comment Trail: Totally Fortunate Name!

So I don't know if it's like way blog-dorky to keep pulling comments from the comments to make posts out of them, but so what if it is? You're not the boss of me!

Anyway, Deborah Ng, who has a really great free writing job posting blog/service for freelance writers (I should alert the candidate from the below post) left me the below comment (thanks, Deborah!) in response to an Unfortunate Name post:

"When I worked in retail there was a gentleman who used to come in on occasion to sell antiques. His name? 'Mighty Dreamstreet.' At first I thought it was a joke or street cred adding nickname such as Mr T or LL Cool J, but the gentleman informed me that it was, indeed, his name."

Like on the one hand, I have my usual why-on-earth-would-anyone-do-that? reaction. But then again...Mighty Dreamstreet. I would completely be a superhero by now if that were my name.

FYI: TMI

From a resume of a candidate looking for an accounting position:

"I wrote four novels, 13 short stories, and translated 2/3 of a classic story s youth version from Mandarin to English. (All unpublished for now.)"

So many levels...where to start?

1) You're applying for an accounting position. All this tells me is that you are possibly going to be even more miserable in that job than I am in mine.
2) Why only 2/3?
3) "All unpublished for now." Actually, that one speaks for itself.