THE LATEST

NOT QUITE LATEST

THE ARCHIVE

GERN JOURNALS

FAQ U

THE MAILBAG

MIRTH IN YOUR MAILBOX!
Enter your e-mail for weekly Gern!

RANDOM HUMOR

THE ASSORTED LOONIES

OTHER WRITINGS

GERN INC.

CONTESTS

PANTS!

GERN'S JOURNEYS

LINKIE DINKIES

E-MAIL ME!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it worse to be ignorant or apathetic? I don't know and I don't care.

THE NOT-SO LATEST October 17, 1999
GET A JOB

Recently, I was sifting through some old papers when I happened across the very first professional piece of writing that I ever did: an editorial where I calculated that snooze buttons were costing the United States about $31 million in lost productivity per day.

I made $10 for the piece. I was overpaid.

It made me think, though. It seems like I've had the snooze button on my life for quite some time now. And just like non-metaphorical oversleeping, it's hard to finally suck up and get yourself out of bed. The best way to do it, I've found, is to scare myself awake by remembering what I should be doing. So I tabulate my personal lost productivity in these last few months, at which point I black out and wake up sobbing uncontrollably in a fetal position.

"Men! This is the face of your enemy."

So I'm trying to find a job. And hey, guess what: Job hunting sucks.

No, really.

Okay, so it's not that big of a shocker. But given the sheer pleasure with which I get reminded of that prized information, you'd think that these people were passing out insider stock tips from Harvard grads. (Not that Harvard grads know anything about job hunting. Part of the problem with the market these days is that those yuppie weasels have already taken all of the good jobs for themselves and their cardigan-wearing buddies.)

I try to avoid talking about my occupational plight if at all possible, but there is a limit to the amount of time I can deflect the inevitable with discussions about the one time I leave the house each day to go and get the mail.

So the discussion turns to my job search. There are three distinct stages to this conversation:

First, they ask about my degree, forcing me to mention that I was educated in a trade that was apparently only in demand in Colonial times. Someone should really mention this to the schools.

Next, following this revelation, they involuntarily make a noise similar to when you mention that you had to have a pet put to sleep, and then they say something about mine being an "honorable profession" (translated: pays for shit). Sometimes this stage includes consolatory pats on the back.


"It's green. Why do you ask?"

Finally, they spend 45 minutes recycling advice that was already ancient when it appeared in "What Color is Your Parachute?" In fact, the information in that book was derived from tablets found in 3,000 year-old Egyptian tombs, next to mummies in pin-striped bandages. Some archaeologists have even put forth the theory that hieroglyphics may have just been an extremely complicated primitive Dilbert strip about a lowly slave working for a dim-witted Pharaoh.

The most common piece of advice I receive is the need to "creatively phrase" your experiences when applying for employment. If you were a janitor in a munitions factory in 1991, you can say you "served your country during the Gulf War." If you managed to not get fired long enough to actually collect a paycheck, you "received an award" for "distinguished service" (i.e., showing up).

Yes, it's just that simple. My personal favorite truth-stretching is the word "numerous." The dictionary defines "numerous" as "consisting of a number." Well, two is a number. So is one. Even if you put in a fraction of a year, that's still, technically a number. "Yes, sir, I put in numerous years at that company." translated would be: "I showed up one day."

You'd just better hope that they don't call you on it. Still, it's not like the people behind the desks haven't seen those tricks before. Presumably, they would want someone familiar with the tricks filtering through the people using them. I also hope that the human resources people look favorably on this ability to "creatively phrase" things, viewing it as a necessary skill for those times when the boss wants to know what happened to a shipment of air conditioners that disappeared on the way to Alaska.

I guess I would have an easier time in my search if I didn't instinctually shoot myself in the foot at interviews where I don't really want the job. Not such a bad fail-safe to have I suppose, except that right now, to paraphrase Groucho, I don't want to work anywhere that would have me as an employee.

My subconscious is my own worst enemy and my instincts just plain suck.


Would you hire this man?

Take my last interview, for example, with Drake University's marketing department. The interviewers asked me to tell them what my favorite kind of writing was. Business interview textbooks have a very clear and simple policy for questions like this: lie like a sedated rhino.

Unfortunately, I went with the honest answer and said "humor." This caused the interviewers to make a face like I had just sat on their heads and farted. I may as well have said that my hobbies are "strangling small animals, punching nuns and distributing anonymous anti-Drake diatribes on the World Wide Web."


Introducing Alan Greenspan's successor.

The really depressing thing here, I think, isn't that I can't get a job, but that I can't get a job in this expanding-faster-than-Britney-Spears'-measurements, we'll-hire-anyone market. Fortune 500 companies are so desperate that they are recruiting monkeys from the zoo to work middle management jobs. The economy is growing so fast that economists have announced an adjective shortage. And I can't even get the Cinnabon to return my phone calls about the junior assistant icer position.

And so I'm breaking down and calling the temp agency. I've resisted thus far because temp work still makes me think of those kids in the mine in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, only with unpaid lunch breaks. However, a reliable source informs me that temps are no longer required to wear leg irons on both legs.

Besides, I need to get out of the house. I'm about three steps away from the Unabomber profile, two if you don't count the sunglasses.

Ooh... That reminds me: Time to get the mail.

 

 

Patrick Keller is going to be reincarnated as someone with a clue. This article is © 1999 Patrick Keller, Gern Blansten Productions. You may redistribute this piece, provided the text is unaltered and it contains this notice. As always, if you know someone sick and twisted who might like this stuff, let me know. Blah blah blah e-mail me at blansten@iname.com blah blah blah

Also featured in the not-so latest:

All contents of this web site -- even the periods -- are TM & © Patrick Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful distribution, copying or non-educational use is highly frowned upon, and will be prosecuted when I get enough money to hire a lawyer. Violators will be spanked. Shoplifters will be persecuted. Prosecutors will be violated.