“So today they’re suggesting that I might make a good Asymmetric Warfare/Land Warrior Military Analyst,” I say to my husband yesterday morning.
“That’s our ad,” my husband said. “We need one in our building.”
Prior to last week’s securing of desirable employ, I’d been loosely pursuing career options in popular online forums, which basically amounted to reading listings my husband sent my way, and answering a questionnaire about my career interests.
Do you want a job that requires creativity? Absolutely!
Do you want to work indoors or outside? I’ll do my work outside, thank you.
Do you like routine tasks, or do you prefer challenges? Doing things the same way twice really bores me.
Based, evidently on my questionnaire answers with no regard to the information provided on my attached resume, I receive periodic suggestions via email. If the customized recommendations are a viable indicator, I might have had a bright future as an OB GYN, a cake decorator, a night supervisor, or, impressively, an Asymmetric Warfare/Land Warrior Military Analyst.
“Am I well suited for this position?” I asked my husband.
“No. Not at all,” he responded, a little too quickly for my liking.
“Why not?” I demanded. “What do these people do?”
“They decide what sort of weapons are appropriate in specific warfare situations,” he responded.
“Well, there’s always guns and clubs,” I said.
“Mmmm…see, that’s why you wouldn’t be good at this,” my husband responded with authority.
“Well, I don’t like war anyway,” I said, ready to dismiss the position out of hand, before my own words rendered me suddenly inspired. “Wait! I know exactly what to send,” I triumphed. “A box of joe and a couple dozen donuts! There’s nothing that can’t be solved over coffee. ”
“If coffee and donuts could solve a war, I’d be out of a job,” my husband said, heading for the door.
It was then that I realized that I’d likely be an outstanding Asymmetric Warfare/Land Warrior Military Analyst and my husband knew it and was running scared.
“I’ll bet you were just a minimal match,” he grumbled, referencing the system the referring firm uses to rate the level of compatibility between the job and the seeker.
This was true, but I had an air-tight workaround.
“They say I’m as qualified to analyze asymmetric warfare as I am to teach English,” I responded, because it was also true. They did. “And I have a master’s degree in that.”
So it’s a good thing that I’m already under contract because it’s clear that my husband wasn’t going to put in a good word for me. It’s also clear that, being the superior candidate that I evidently am, I’d have easily landed the job, putting me in the awkward position of being in constant inter-office combat with my own spouse. And I wouldn’t have stood a chance in that battle—my husband hates coffee.
Showing posts with label job hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job hunting. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Second Interview
Spoiler alert! This post contains graphic depictions of sweat. I am obligated to state this at the outset, as my husband hates blogs about sweat.
So the forces of The Big Three failed to thwart my first interview. I forgot they had reinforcements.
I got a second interview, and, buoyed by my apparent invincibility earlier in the week, I was perhaps overly optimistic, I realized, as the comfortable window my way-too-early departure time afforded was dwindled to near panic status after a series of unexpected construction delays. This was particularly troublesome, as another well known nemesis had me frantically scanning the horizon for minute marts.
Last summer, there was a little false alarm here at RWL when I mistakenly thought I invented sweat shields. A particularly violet outbreak at an event caused me to retreat into a rest room and fashion a keep-dry solution with some free maxi pads. Although saddened when internet research revealed that my idea wasn’t novel--indeed the market is flooded with such absorbency products--I decided that my homemade model was more economical (although I now purchase the pads, rather than rely on rest room freebies).
Unfortunately, I decided that my new interview shirt was dark enough to go sans absorbency, which I discovered enroute was faulty assumption. It became clear, however, as construction site dissolved into construction site that I wouldn’t have time to make the purchase even if a store materialized. Frantic, I looked around the car for back up. All I had on hand was a ball cap, which I stuffed under my left pit, and a cloth coffee cozy, which I slid under my right arm. I figured this stop gap measure would at least keep the water damage from expanding.
I pulled into the packing lot with a minute to spare, remembered to pull the cap and cozy from my shirt, tossed both on the seat, clamped my upper arms tight against my torso and plunged in. My seemingly limited range of motion in the upper body did not generate inquiry. The interview went at least as well as the previous one.
This is so meant to be.
So the forces of The Big Three failed to thwart my first interview. I forgot they had reinforcements.
I got a second interview, and, buoyed by my apparent invincibility earlier in the week, I was perhaps overly optimistic, I realized, as the comfortable window my way-too-early departure time afforded was dwindled to near panic status after a series of unexpected construction delays. This was particularly troublesome, as another well known nemesis had me frantically scanning the horizon for minute marts.
Last summer, there was a little false alarm here at RWL when I mistakenly thought I invented sweat shields. A particularly violet outbreak at an event caused me to retreat into a rest room and fashion a keep-dry solution with some free maxi pads. Although saddened when internet research revealed that my idea wasn’t novel--indeed the market is flooded with such absorbency products--I decided that my homemade model was more economical (although I now purchase the pads, rather than rely on rest room freebies).
Unfortunately, I decided that my new interview shirt was dark enough to go sans absorbency, which I discovered enroute was faulty assumption. It became clear, however, as construction site dissolved into construction site that I wouldn’t have time to make the purchase even if a store materialized. Frantic, I looked around the car for back up. All I had on hand was a ball cap, which I stuffed under my left pit, and a cloth coffee cozy, which I slid under my right arm. I figured this stop gap measure would at least keep the water damage from expanding.
I pulled into the packing lot with a minute to spare, remembered to pull the cap and cozy from my shirt, tossed both on the seat, clamped my upper arms tight against my torso and plunged in. My seemingly limited range of motion in the upper body did not generate inquiry. The interview went at least as well as the previous one.
This is so meant to be.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Interview
Some things are just meant to be. Glancing at the sidewalk for no reason and finding that earring you lost six months ago, being home unusually early and getting an unexpected call from an old friend, discovering that forgotten pint of coffee ice cream in the back of the freezer at the end of a long day.Me, getting the job for which I just interviewed.
The reason for my absolute confidence in this fact has nothing to do with how perfectly my qualifications match the job description (although they do, to a “t”) or the compatibility of the hours (fits my schedule like a glove) or the desirability of the work (very), and everything to do with the sudden impotence of the Big Three. You might know them as shoes, coffee, and chocolate—I’m more familiar with them as The reasons I’m Not More Successful.
I don’t think I’ve ever had specific occasion to mention my footwear concerns, but I have them in spades. No matter how many pairs of shoes I acquire, it seems I never have the pair I need; in fact, six or eight pairs of ill-fitting and awkwardly colored shoes in my collection serve no other purpose than to provide the illusion that I could, if pressed, become properly shod. In reality, I never have shoes in the right color, texture, or quantity for the occasion. For instance, I briefly considered wearing navy to the interview (as my favorite professor suggested was appropriate), but I own no shoes that allowed me to seriously entertain the option. So I went off the map and selected a multicolored skirt with a black base and a handful of flats that I tossed in the car.
I was to go to the interview immediately after returning to town from the early morning camp at which I’d been working, facilitating activities like pimping up flip-flops and tie-dying shirts. My plan was to change into interview clothes upon my return to the church parking lot from which we left that morning. I wasn’t until my toe ring caught the hem of my skirt that I realized that I’d brought none of the flats in with me, and that I was still wearing my camp creations. Of course, the hem held, because as I’ve already mentioned, I can’t mess this thing up. I had a good laugh at my reflection, sporting the skirt-and-flips look, and headed back to my car.
Surprised to see that I was running early, I decided that a pick-me-up was in order, considering that I’d been up since sunrise and was beginning to drag. Spotting a Starbucks on the horizon, my car instinctively turned, even as red flags began to wave madly in the periphery of my mind’s eye. I can’t begin to count the days of my life that that have gone off course at the sloshing of a wayward cup of joe, not to mention the equal foibles that have ensued from the taking of unplanned detours.
Ignoring my mental alert system, I headed into the shop. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. Ooops! Not good. I actually made it out in public wearing the fuzzy flips. Undaunted, I bought coffee—a big one. It sloshed. But not beyond the rim. I went back into the car and changed my shoes. I turned out of the parking lot—the wrong way. Ah ha! This is where things go wrong! I said to myself, almost in relief to be back on a normal script. However, I quickly and uneventfully corrected the error and found myself in the parking lot with ten minutes to spare.
I reached into my over-sized bag to double check my folder of important documents. All there. Check. For reasons unknown, I made a detour into a side compartment and—remember what I said about detours? –my hand came up slathered in melted chocolate. Regular Readers already know my position on chocolate in the car. Here, here, is where disaster hits, I acknowledged, stone faced. But there was a tube of wet wipes right within my grasp, and I inexplicably managed to erase all trace of the melted mess. I arrived at the front desk five minutes ahead of schedule, stain free in a cute skirt with matching pumps.
This is so meant to be.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Disqualfied
“It’ll be the first day I’ve had all to myself in at least two years,” I enthused. “Really. At least two years.” Just before bed last night I realized that with my son at a sleepover and my daughter working all day at her new job as a baker, I’d have the house to myself, and no commitments.
“I’ve got a project if you need something to do,” my husband replied nervously.
“A project? Who says I need a project? I’ve got all kinds of things to do. I’ve got some blogging, and some gardening. When I get hungry, I’ve even got a free sandwich,” I said waving aloft a coupon I’d received in a mass distribution at Vacation Bible School earlier in the evening. “It’ll be great!”
Straight out of the box, however, the day took an immediate southward turn when I opened my contact case and discovered that half of them had vanished overnight. I haven’t been to the optometrist in over two years—ironically near the time of my last free day, optometry records would later show. I figure they’ve got the lenses programmed to dissolve when you’ve been AWOL too long from regular eye care, because we’ve got nothing on the whereabouts of the stray lens.
I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough to avoid the headache that always accompanies the wearing of my glasses. From the headache, my mood dissolved into despair over what would later prove to be some unfounded worries I developed over the General State of Things. It was way too hot for gardening. I kicked around on facebook, posting cryptic and decidedly grim comments until I decided it was Free Sandwich time. My spirits could not withstand the disappointing news I received via text message enroute that a planned trip to see some local stray kittens had to be canceled due to the uncertain whereabouts of said kittens. The traffic surrounding the Free Sandwich was practically impenetrable. I took the Sandwich to go, and went right back home to surveyed my sorry state.
My daughter soon came home, took one look at me and gasped, “Oh, no, you’ve been alone all day!”
“It’s that obvious? “
Evidently, my family knows me pretty well, and the consensus is that I "don’t do well” when I’m left alone to my own resources for too long, say, for more than six hours.
Ironically, I was recently recruited as a possible candidate for an online instructor position, and invited to participate in an online conference about the position this afternoon. Although my resume may indicate that I’m a good candidate, but my family doesn’t seem to think I’m qualified.
“I’ve got a project if you need something to do,” my husband replied nervously.
“A project? Who says I need a project? I’ve got all kinds of things to do. I’ve got some blogging, and some gardening. When I get hungry, I’ve even got a free sandwich,” I said waving aloft a coupon I’d received in a mass distribution at Vacation Bible School earlier in the evening. “It’ll be great!”
Straight out of the box, however, the day took an immediate southward turn when I opened my contact case and discovered that half of them had vanished overnight. I haven’t been to the optometrist in over two years—ironically near the time of my last free day, optometry records would later show. I figure they’ve got the lenses programmed to dissolve when you’ve been AWOL too long from regular eye care, because we’ve got nothing on the whereabouts of the stray lens.
I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough to avoid the headache that always accompanies the wearing of my glasses. From the headache, my mood dissolved into despair over what would later prove to be some unfounded worries I developed over the General State of Things. It was way too hot for gardening. I kicked around on facebook, posting cryptic and decidedly grim comments until I decided it was Free Sandwich time. My spirits could not withstand the disappointing news I received via text message enroute that a planned trip to see some local stray kittens had to be canceled due to the uncertain whereabouts of said kittens. The traffic surrounding the Free Sandwich was practically impenetrable. I took the Sandwich to go, and went right back home to surveyed my sorry state.
My daughter soon came home, took one look at me and gasped, “Oh, no, you’ve been alone all day!”
“It’s that obvious? “
Evidently, my family knows me pretty well, and the consensus is that I "don’t do well” when I’m left alone to my own resources for too long, say, for more than six hours.
Ironically, I was recently recruited as a possible candidate for an online instructor position, and invited to participate in an online conference about the position this afternoon. Although my resume may indicate that I’m a good candidate, but my family doesn’t seem to think I’m qualified.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A Little Like Limbo
The dilemma here at Running With Letters for the past couple weeks has been whether or not to lower the bar for the sake of a new post.
I am of the mindset that blog posts should be reasonably well-crafted and at least semi-polished, sort of like pottery with a rustic patina. Of late, I haven’t had time for witty commentary. Writing prose that reads breezily and appears effortless is really a laborious exercise in illusion.
So I’ve let the cobwebs begin to accumulate—a decision that comes with a set of consequences perhaps more lethal to the would-be up-and-coming blogger than slightly off-kilter copy: silence. Whisper-low hit counts, the same screen echoing two-week old commentary. Not good.
Which brings us, real-time, to the current post: hardly groundbreaking, but yet functional; a utilitarian message just to say I’m alive, and that I can still string a few sentences together. But sometimes functional and utilitarian is all you’ve got—and I’m a great believer in working in the tangible medium of the messy present. Even if it is a little rough around the edges.
In Other News:
T-5 days until I drink my morning coffee from the alumni mug.
I’m officially moving the much-desired Art Job to reside among the ranks of Things That Would Have Been Nice, rendering my status as Unemployed and Without Prospects.
Hypochondria is currently at bay, but hovering slightly beneath the surface
I secured my press credentials, and will be covering Creation East June 24-27. I claimed in my official paperwork that I “believe I can reasonably expect to place about half a dozen articles” based on this year’s press conferences. Fulfilling this ambition will require a significant hoisting of said bar to accommodate the raising of my game.
I am of the mindset that blog posts should be reasonably well-crafted and at least semi-polished, sort of like pottery with a rustic patina. Of late, I haven’t had time for witty commentary. Writing prose that reads breezily and appears effortless is really a laborious exercise in illusion.
So I’ve let the cobwebs begin to accumulate—a decision that comes with a set of consequences perhaps more lethal to the would-be up-and-coming blogger than slightly off-kilter copy: silence. Whisper-low hit counts, the same screen echoing two-week old commentary. Not good.
Which brings us, real-time, to the current post: hardly groundbreaking, but yet functional; a utilitarian message just to say I’m alive, and that I can still string a few sentences together. But sometimes functional and utilitarian is all you’ve got—and I’m a great believer in working in the tangible medium of the messy present. Even if it is a little rough around the edges.
In Other News:
T-5 days until I drink my morning coffee from the alumni mug.
I’m officially moving the much-desired Art Job to reside among the ranks of Things That Would Have Been Nice, rendering my status as Unemployed and Without Prospects.
Hypochondria is currently at bay, but hovering slightly beneath the surface
I secured my press credentials, and will be covering Creation East June 24-27. I claimed in my official paperwork that I “believe I can reasonably expect to place about half a dozen articles” based on this year’s press conferences. Fulfilling this ambition will require a significant hoisting of said bar to accommodate the raising of my game.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
A Midterm Report
I'm interrupting the extended awkward silence with a word of explanation. I'm smack in the middle of one last, stiff dose of academia in the form of a month-long pair of summer classes that are as intense as they are swift. I'm holding my own, but suffering some pretty nasty side effects which include an inability to perform intellectually-based tasks outside of class.
In other news:
My recent publishing portfolio is so slim as to have called into question my ability to secure press credentials for an upcoming event I hoped to cover.
No word on the aforementioned art job at the desirable locale. I'm actually starting to think the whole notion was just a vivid dream.
These days, I don't read anything that isn't written in a dry, jargon-esque tone capable of inducing instant slumber.
I signed up for a summer painting class at the local art gallery.
I recently underwent the penultimate procedure in my staged hairstyle reconstruction plan
Summer can't get here soon enough.
In other news:
My recent publishing portfolio is so slim as to have called into question my ability to secure press credentials for an upcoming event I hoped to cover.
No word on the aforementioned art job at the desirable locale. I'm actually starting to think the whole notion was just a vivid dream.
These days, I don't read anything that isn't written in a dry, jargon-esque tone capable of inducing instant slumber.
I signed up for a summer painting class at the local art gallery.
I recently underwent the penultimate procedure in my staged hairstyle reconstruction plan
Summer can't get here soon enough.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
8 to 3
“I’m burned out,” I confided to my husband. “Day in, day out, it just never stops.”
“It’s Wednesday!” my husband exclaimed. “You’ve been at this, what? Three days?”
Last week marked the first full-time work week I’ve logged since 1990. And it’s true: I was ready to call it a week by hump day.
Now, I’m no slouch. I can put in 12 hours on a newspaper article and turn right back around looking for an angle on my next assignment. I love deadlines, quick turn-around pieces, and nailing the closing line—even if it takes all day. I love caring for children and pets, and, hey, I’m even up for teaching a class or two—provided no one’s expecting me show up more than three days a week, and certainly not before noon.
But this all-day-every-day teaching gig? I’m just not wired for it.
In my three days on the job, I learned that the “daily grind” isn’t about sipping those first two cups of coffee over email with the cats. Turns out “punching the clock” isn’t a reference to silencing your spouse’s alarm after he’s hit snooze one too many times. And “working for the weekend” is more about holding on to a distant hope than it is about writing up advance blog posts on a rainy Saturday morning.
I’ve always suspected that I wasn’t quite cut out for the gritty world of the workforce. After my part-time, private school art program fell victim to a round of budget cuts a couple years back, I flirted a bit with the classified section, but lost interest quickly upon learning that a “canvasser” doesn’t deal in art, and that job involving an invigorating “office” in the great outdoors was with the sanitation department. And then there was the firm that bolded their big selling point-- two weeks of annual leave, the implication being that they actually expect you to show all the other weeks —51 of them, by my estimate. I broke into a cold sweat and tossed the paper into the recycling bin.
Frankly, I was relieved to find an opportunity to bolster my skills through academics rather than hard labor—but it seems even academia can’t shield one from the harsh realities of the work-a-day world, as my “culminating experience” requires 10 weeks of actual, on-the-job performance.
My Catholic friends tell me that this sort of thing is really good for the soul; that discomfort and even misery are strict yet wise instructors. I’m buoyed by this thought as I ready myself each morning under the cloak of darkness and wane prematurely each evening. But these thoughts of stalwart strength and fortitude are treasured most at the end of the week as I sadly contemplate the one working man’s maxim of which I still can’t relate: “another day, another dollar.”
I may be burned out from the daily grind, but pay day for this gig is something I’ll never see on anything but my graduate transcripts.
“It’s Wednesday!” my husband exclaimed. “You’ve been at this, what? Three days?”
Last week marked the first full-time work week I’ve logged since 1990. And it’s true: I was ready to call it a week by hump day.
Now, I’m no slouch. I can put in 12 hours on a newspaper article and turn right back around looking for an angle on my next assignment. I love deadlines, quick turn-around pieces, and nailing the closing line—even if it takes all day. I love caring for children and pets, and, hey, I’m even up for teaching a class or two—provided no one’s expecting me show up more than three days a week, and certainly not before noon.
But this all-day-every-day teaching gig? I’m just not wired for it.
In my three days on the job, I learned that the “daily grind” isn’t about sipping those first two cups of coffee over email with the cats. Turns out “punching the clock” isn’t a reference to silencing your spouse’s alarm after he’s hit snooze one too many times. And “working for the weekend” is more about holding on to a distant hope than it is about writing up advance blog posts on a rainy Saturday morning.
I’ve always suspected that I wasn’t quite cut out for the gritty world of the workforce. After my part-time, private school art program fell victim to a round of budget cuts a couple years back, I flirted a bit with the classified section, but lost interest quickly upon learning that a “canvasser” doesn’t deal in art, and that job involving an invigorating “office” in the great outdoors was with the sanitation department. And then there was the firm that bolded their big selling point-- two weeks of annual leave, the implication being that they actually expect you to show all the other weeks —51 of them, by my estimate. I broke into a cold sweat and tossed the paper into the recycling bin.
Frankly, I was relieved to find an opportunity to bolster my skills through academics rather than hard labor—but it seems even academia can’t shield one from the harsh realities of the work-a-day world, as my “culminating experience” requires 10 weeks of actual, on-the-job performance.
My Catholic friends tell me that this sort of thing is really good for the soul; that discomfort and even misery are strict yet wise instructors. I’m buoyed by this thought as I ready myself each morning under the cloak of darkness and wane prematurely each evening. But these thoughts of stalwart strength and fortitude are treasured most at the end of the week as I sadly contemplate the one working man’s maxim of which I still can’t relate: “another day, another dollar.”
I may be burned out from the daily grind, but pay day for this gig is something I’ll never see on anything but my graduate transcripts.
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