Thursday, September 16, 2010

Backstory

Ok so here is my backstory for my first blog post.
I was let go from my last job on 07/31/2010 and have since been looking for employment. I have sent out so many applications I have lost track. And have received responses from very few so far. Most of those responses have been standard "We have decided to go in a different direction..." sort of things. Quite depressing.
In addition to this. I have been stuck trying desperately to get Unemployment Benefits to survive. This has been like banging my head against a brick wall over and over again. First you fill out a form, then they send you paper forms, then you send those back, then you don't hear anything. Still don't know if I will be receiving benefits or not. A few days ago I received a notice that I need to go to a "Reemployment Services Orientation" I have not idea what to expect but have a feeling it's going to be dreadful. Notice says to expect to spend "one to three hours". One to Three HOURS!! just to look at my Work Search logs and Resume? Well that happens in about an hour. So if nothing else it will give me something new to blog about.

I miss the days when looking for a job involved walking into a company, shaking the hand of a manager, and making that all important first impression. Now a days you just sit around in front of your computer and put data into text boxes. How does someone know the applicants communication skills? Maybe I am just Old School with this. I don't know.

3 comments:

  1. You are a very charismatic person! Face to face worked for you and I agree. We are told in life never to judge a book by a cover but look at what society is doing now?? Applicants should not be judged based off of keywords and phrases but by appearance, charisma and intelligence. I know that if you were able to apply for just a quarter of the jobs that you have applied online in person, you would have a damn job. You will make it! I promise!

    ~ Michelle ~

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  2. apparently I can not post using your computer!

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  3. Unemployment Island

    So I am doing my homework, reading the August Employment Situation report from the Department of Labor and discovered this little gem that there are currently 14.9 million Americans unemployed. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) I thought that this would be a great opportunity to create one of those obnoxious statistics that people love to throw out. So working in the great tradition of worthless stats such as the number of times the pizzas Americans eat would circle the world, I decided to see what place a nation comprised of nothing but unemployed Americans would earn on a list of world countries by population.

    The answer is 66, right between Malawi and Mali. That a nation comprised of nothing but unemployed Americans would be the world 66th largest is not too terribly interesting, or that there are more jobless people here then there are people in Switzerland. What is interesting to me, is what would a country composed of the unemployed actually look like? This came to me while thinking about the countries in 65th and 67th place, those are lands where Americans donate food and adopt babies so I think we know what lovely places they are.

    I think the answer to what our imaginary unemployment island would look like is of critical to the future of our very real economy here. Are we just waiting for new things to invent, build and buy? Are we just paying out penance for our financial sins, waiting to feel better so we can live to spend again? Or have we become a place that has become so lazy, so dedicated to a lifestyle of doing nothing but what we want that the world has past us by?

    I certainly hope that this nation recovers because the worlds up and coming superpower certainly won't be kind enough to adopt our starving kids or give us sacks of flour. The good news is that there is a ton of dumb people out there that we can still get ahead of by working hard and applying a level of Billy Mayes showmanship to the process.

    Also, I would be willing to suggest that the reason that we can't just walk into an office and get a job from the manager anymore is because of how feminized this country has become. Way too many managers are too afraid of hurting someones feelings, getting sued or being held responsible for a decision they made. Others are just too timid to give a yes or no answer. The result of this lack of a national backbone is the current cluster we find ourselves in today where you can't get a job based on ability, skill or personality. The jack-wagons running these companies have decided its better to play buzzword bingo with our resumes and an obnoxious system make us fill out detailed personality profiles that reward only those who have learned to lie and beat the test. The problem has been amplified by these so called "human resources professionals" that continue to blow there pseudoscience smoke up the collective ass of Corporate America. In the 1980s handwriting analysis was in style, now it is keyword matching. These are all flawed ideas and fall short of a far better model that once existed and worked. Hiring people that you believed to able and willing while firing those that proved to fall short of that standard. Too bad all that requires is a backbone.

    -"The" S

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