At one point in Megan’s book, she writes,
There is a scientific name for people with an especially accurate perception of how talented, attractive, and popular they are–we call them clinically depressed.
And when you fall into that category, Big Pharma will try to sell you pills to fix the situation. What if I am justified in feeling depressed?
I’m going to put a job search tag on this post. It’s all about the job search…
I’ve taken a job.
A job of sorts. It is low paying, but I get the benefit of spending 2 and 1/2 hours a day in the car commuting to work! I am glad to be out of the house though.
I am happy that this work could become better compensated over time, I will have to grow the revenue stream. I’m confident I can do so and will get a share of that stream that will make the effort worthwhile.
At some point I’ll put a link up to the new venture.
The penultimate paragraph of a nice post by TM Lutas:
So why has CEO production not drawn attention of the same people addressing the “IT shortage”? Why doesn’t the CEO grooming process create more candidates that drive costs down? Why is shareholder value being squandered in so many cases in highly compensating a stream of short lived, not very good chief executives, who drive the company into disaster time and again?
Go read the whole thing there.
We, the worker bees of this economy, are faced with the prospect of billionaire CEO’s lobbying congress to admit more workers to this country. More workers will only mean depressed wages for us worker bees. This is especially true for the people with the lower skill sets.
I think we should have a contest, like was done in Million Dollar Arm, only this time we search for CEO talent. My preference would be to find some guy that just didn’t quite make the cut for IIT. You know, someone of the wrong caste, or maybe some poor farmer, one of the types that never gets a break in India. There is only about 500 million people that fit this category. There must be a really hardworking and smart young guy that is capable of being the CEO of Facebook within that group. He’s probably do it for about one quarter of what Zuckerberg takes home.
Who’s in?
I submitted a resume to an online ad last Friday morning. Less than 10 minutes later I received a response asking when I could come in for an interview. After a couple more e-mails back and forth, we settled on 3:00pm Friday afternoon. I spent almost two hours with the guy that afternoon.
I was invited back for an interview with a sales manager on Tuesday morning.
I was invited back again for an interview with the general manager Wednesday morning. In that session I was told that the next step was to meet with the company president. I was told to expect an e-mail containing a link to an online personality profile test. I left the office figuring I had it nailed. I was getting excited about my new position.
I sent my thank you e-mails yesterday just like I have at each step along the way.
After the first two interviews, I received e-mails telling me when my next appointment was almost before I got back home.
Yesterday I never received the link to the online test. I called this afternoon. Typical of today’s corporate environment, I got voice mail.
I got an e-mail a few minutes ago telling me they’ve decided to move on with other candidates. Fuck.
Very depressing.
I continue to look for work. The last few months have been very frustrating. I know there is something people don’t like about my resume. I won’t receive any feedback from any of the companies that have looked at my resume. Those companies that have rejected my application would never tell my why, as they are afraid I would sue them on some spurious grounds.
The job search has gotten so bad/desperate that I’ve even begun looking at craigslist. Check out the text of one listing I just looked at:
We just opened our new office in Dallas, and striving to find the perfect manager to help our company grow. We are looking for someone hard working, talented, and self motivated. We do not want to have to micro-manage anyone to please be a self starter. No prior college education or management experience is necessary, but would be nice. We are willing to train the correct individual for this position. To work for us you will be in charge of training and motivating a team of approximately 6-8 individuals. You will be in charge of their success and keeping them on track! This is a full time position along with benefits available after 90 days of employment. Please send you resume and contact information as soon as possible. I will be contacting people with in the next couple days to set up face to face interviews. Hiring Organization: Director of Operations Hiring Organization: Director of Operations
Why would anyone with a modicum of experience and a reasonable sense of self worth apply for that job? There is no mention of the industry! Now I’m not completely naive, I know this job likely involves hiring a bunch of people to go door to door selling cable tv or some such service. There is nothing wrong with doing such work. It is an honorable way to make a living. You are offering people a service in return for a fee. But why won’t the company that is hiring tell you their name? Why won’t they tell you what the job really entails? Is it because the work environment is really crappy, and they are hoping that they’ll get lucky enough to get a few good people through the initial screening? I think that is it. They’ll get some decent people to apply that otherwise would not. They’ll also get the sharks that make those operations really run without needing to specify the industry. I think that whole ad is a dog whistle for sharks.
I’m not remotely qualified.