A (bitchy? helpful?) Note to Employers

Ok, I think by now we've established that I've been looking for a job for about six months. I've only supplied two stories so far on my actual experiences, but I wanted to break to bring you an important message. I will even break it down into bullet points so that the mentally brain dead people in charge of hiring can follow. Thus I present:

An Employer's Handbook:

• If a potential employee has put up with your ridiculous three hour interview process, call that person with the results of your decision (or risk being rendered impotent)

• A letter would suffice.
  

• If a potential employee calls you to find out about the status of the position since she did participate in said ridiculous three hour interview process, and send you a lovely letter thanking you for the absurd interview, call that person back (or risk having a newspaper run a story about your impotence).

• If after spending all of two minutes with a potential employee you realize that this person is not a good fit, say so. Don't tell them to expect an email that will contain a personality test that you never intend to send.

• Stop with the fucking personality tests. They are stupid and do not work. And by the way, how do you know it's me who's taking it on my home computer and not my nut job neighbor (who just happens to be smarter than me)?

• If you have told a potential employee to expect an email and then don't send it, please return one of the many calls the potential employee makes to your cell phone. She knows you're getting the messages, it's your fucking personal cell phone!

• If you insist on giving math tests, give the potential employee a minimum of five minutes to remember how to do fractions before giving the test. This will result in less potential employees feeling like asshats.

• When you know that your potential employee makes a certain amount a year, DO NOT call the potential employee and offer them a job for $3 less an hour. It makes them feel bad and guilty for turning you down. Hopefully, though, you will feel like an asshat for even offering it at all.

There you go employers. Follow these simple steps and you should be able to avoid impotence and I should be able to keep my dignity.

Accountant, Purchaser, Receptionist... OH MY!

At the beginning of this year I was given the horrible news that I would for sure be losing my job. I was given until the end of the year to get out. I immediately went searching online and looked in newspapers to see what was available. I found an ad for a manufacturing facility that was hiring a customer service position and a receptionist position. I sent my resume and applied for both jobs. I got a call on a Saturday afternoon and went through my second "are you worthy" phone call. Again, I was deemed worthy and not just for the CS or receptionist position, but possibly for the Administrative Assistant to the owner position. I didn't even know that position was available and I was much more interested in that anyway.

I went to the interview at 7:30 in the morning and didn't get out of the interview until after 10. First up was a math test. This consisted of adding and subtracting fractions, long division, and pointing out specific places on a ruler. This may make me sound incredibly stupid, but I have not worked with fractions since I'm in elementry school. I had to think a little bit. The test took me about 23 minutes and I think there were 25 questions.

I then had a microsoft word test. I was handed a piece of paper that was formatted a certain way and I had to format it on the computer. Problem was, I couldn't see much of a difference in what was on the printed page compared to what was on the screen. If they would have asked me to center justify the third paragraph and make the font Courier 8pt. I could have easily followed those directions. Trying to figure out a font out of 16 different fonts can be tough as can telling the difference between 10pt and 8pt on a printed page. That one I know I failed miserably because I couldn't tell any differences from the page to the screen.

Next up was an Excel worksheet. I flew through that and was very confident in myself.

The interview wasn't so bad, except I wasn't really sure for what job I was interviewing. I initially went in for CS or receptionist, then it was changed to Admin Assistant, then during the interview they brought up accounting and purchasing. I tried to talk myself up as a fast learner, but I was having a hard time learning what job they wanted me for!

We then get to my test results. I got all of the math questions right, however she was very curious as to why I took so long with the test. I gave her my "haven't done this since elementary school" reasoning and then we got into a verbal war on whether or not something should be done correctly but somewhat slowly, or super fast and outright wrong. I voted for correct, but maybe a little slow. She thought things should be done fast. "But," I said getting somewhat indignant, "if you do it wrong, then won't you just spend even more time fixing the problem, thereby spending even more time on it than if you just would have concentrated and gone slowly getting it right?" Apparantly, she wanted to disagree, but instead just seethed. Point 1 for me.

I also did something wrong with Excel in that I didn't use a "function" key that I could have used. I had to figure out if row one was less than or greater than row 2 and pick the lesser. I just eyeballed it and put in the answer. I was supposed to use a function. My argument to that was it would have taken me longer to do the function than just figure it out myself. I didn't say that, but I'm sure it was all over my face.

Surprisingly, I didn't get the job(s).

Are you worthy phone calls

Back in October (before I realized my job was unstable), I went to interview with a national company for their customer service department. I saw their ad in our local paper and it hit two big things that I thought would be great: a salary of $30,000-$32,000 per year, and FREE in home services. Considering I use their in home services daily and they normally cost an arm and a leg monthly, I figured this would be a good gig. I knew the hours may be different because they had a first and second shift, but I was willing to work until 9PM if I was going to make that kind of money and save on a big monthly bill.

I followed their online instructions and then made a phone call to the recruiter (I've learned a lot since starting my job search, such as Human Resources has been over taken by these things called "recruiters"). She put me through a phone interview, which I am now calling the "are you worthy" (or AYW for short) phone calls. It seems not only has the term "recruiter" crept into the job system, but also "are you worthy" phone calls are also a staple for any job you are trying to get.

Her call lasted about a half hour (typical in AYW call) and during this call she mostly talked about the job and asked if I thought I would like it. Here and there she asked me things about what I did, but mostly it was her blabbering on about this wonderful job. It was then that I found out that the salary for this job was $11/ hour. Now, I didn't have a calculator with me, but I knew that I already made more than $11 per hour, and I wasn't making a salary of $30,000 per year. Just in case you don't have a calculator handy $11/hour is $22,880 per year. This is a $10,000 discrepancy between what was listed in the paper and what I was told by the recruiter. The way you make it up is by products sold and your weekly commissions. We'll get to that later.

I was deemed worthy to move on to their job fair hosted at a local hotel. I decided to go because I figured I could at least get another dollar an hour out of them because I am VERY experienced. I have been doing Customer Service and phone sales for years.

The interview lasted 2 and a half hours. Now, not to be rude, but this was not a job for a brain surgeon. I had to take a skills test on the computer and then go through three rounds of interviews with different people. As the day wore on and I realized I wanted nothing to do with this job, my answers became more an more outrageous. I didn't give a shit about what I said and I really told them what I thought. For example: if someone called about a problem with their bill, I was not supposed to transfer them. No, because that would make sense. I was supposed to try to get additional sales with this person. Really? Someone was overcharged by $50 on their bill, and I'm supposed to ask them if they would like to add another product which would add another $20 to their bill. Riiiiiight. I was then asked how I would respond to someone who got angry about trying to refer them products. I told the "recruiter" that I would thank them for their time and let us know if they change their mind. Wrong Answer! I was supposed to browbeat them until they bought something. I said "hold the phone! As a company would you rather people start hanging up on me because I've pissed them off, and then rethink whether or not they want to even bother with your service because you have some pushy broad constantly trying to sell them products? Or would you rather your company take the high road and keep your customers happy?" I could not belive that they didn't care if they pissed off their customers. I told them I was not comfortable with doing that and I thought I finally would be let go and told I was not a good fit.

Not so.

I ended up with another lady who wanted to go over benefits. She told me it was $11/hour and I asked if that was negotiable. It wasn't. I pointed out that I'm very experienced. She didn't care. I told her the paper made it look like $30,000 is what the salary is and they should be more careful when putting an ad in the paper. She said they make it up with commissions and typically the dollar amount that was listed in the paper is what people make. I also told her that I was not happy that their "quotas" were daily and there was always someone breathing down your back to see if you fulfilled them. She offered me the job.

I was literally like WTF????? I just put down your business practices and made a fool out of whoever listed the job in the paper and you people want me? I know it was only because I heard one of the other interviews going on and the girl was only talking about Grey's Anatomy. Their other choice was a 600 pound woman who had breasts the size of beach balls. Everyone's interview stopped the minute she walked in.

I turned down the job and four months later was told I'd be losing mine.

Backstory

I was informed a couple of months ago that my job is going to be eliminated at the end of the year. I know what most people think: well, at least you know ahead of time that you're losing your job. Yeah, because that makes it so much better. If anything it may be worse. Worse because I have no idea what I'm doing. I was offered a job but turned it down because if I want to pay my electricity from month to month I would have needed four jobs on top of that one to manage my bills. Did I make the right choice? Did I just mess up the only opportunity I may have? Did I jinx myself because I told the guy that I actually had opportunities that really didn't exist?

These are the questions that plague me everyday. I've already been on a bunch of interviews, each of which were either weird.... or well, actually they were all just weird. I'll be blogging about my experiences in upcoming entries. What I will say right now is that I have taken math tests, personality tests, and word/excel tests that all meant jack shit. The one place that did offer me a job did not test me at all and my interview was about 15 minutes long. I'm an idiot. I should have taken that job. If only I had ESP or a crystal ball or even a Magic 8 ball to tell me my future.

Since I don't have any of those things, you're stuck reading this until I get my shit together and find a job. Have fun reading all about my hopeless life.

Oh... and if you know of anything I'm totally up for any kind of job except garbage person or welder (since I'd probably burn myself and anyone around me).