One Of Those "The Shoe Is On The Other Foot" Experiences.

Ever had one of those pieces of good news that you've been wanting to tell everybody about, but you can't because one or two things haven't been confirmed yet?  Well, that's kind of been my situation for the last three weeks.  I knew I had the job, was told I'd for sure be getting an offer, it was just a matter of someone being back in the office long enough to do something about it, so hold tight and don't take any other offers.  Well, I wasn't going to, because they came looking for me and not the other way around, but anyway, everything finally fell together so I can now tell y'all that I have a new job.  Yay!  

I'm very excited.  It's a good job with a very good firm, their reputation is excellent, I got to spend about 20 minutes with my future boss and I think we will work together very well, and all the positive signs are where they should be.  The downside was having to tell my current boss, whom I like a lot, that I'm leaving.  Fortunately, he took it pretty well, though he was obviously less than thrilled.

The other downside has been that I'm mostly in charge of hiring my replacement.  We placed an ad, and after a few hours of getting just one resume, then another and then another, we suddenly got something like 85 all at once.  I'm not sure where they were hiding, but they're here now, and so over the last couple of days I've had the joy of reading 120-odd resumes.  And some of them were very odd indeed.  

People, I have mailed resumes and I have mailed resumes.  I have drafted clever cover letters and I have filled out online forms.  I have, in other words, done my share of job searching, but I've never been on the other side of the desk before and I had no idea how utterly weird it could be.  How weird?  Well, here's just a smattering of the things I've come across.

• Quite a few resumes had really obvious spelling and grammatical errors.  If you're applying for a "legal assistant" position, you might wanna know how to spell "assistant." 
• And then there was the guy who misspelled the name of a FORMER EMPLOYER.  Let me get this straight; you worked there three years and never learned how to spell the name of the company? 
• There were also resumes that addressed the wrong law firm, referenced the wrong position, or addressed to "Dear Mr. Smothers" when there was no "Mr. Smothers" in the job ad.  I mean, that's just not paying attention, people.  
• And speaking of not paying attention, try not to apply for the same job twice on two consecutive days.  You ARE keeping a record of all this, aren't you?
• It's nice that you're looking for an evening/weekend position, but, uh, that's NOT WHAT WE'RE HIRING FOR.  
• And then there were the creative email addresses.  Like "Fairywings@whatever.com" and one very memorable "studhorse56@p0rnapal00za.com."  People, no potential employer is going to reply to an email address like that.  Please, for the love of God, get a Gmail or Yahoo address that's just your "lastname.firstname@..." 
• I'm glad you were born again in Christ on July 2, 2012, but it doesn't need to be on your resume.  Honest.
• Nor do I care that you've been sober for 12 years.  In fact, I'd rather not know that.  
• And I just love getting your resume not from you, but from your academic advisor.  Because that's classy. 
• Odd statements: "I prefer a salary that reflects my ability, experience & commitment.  Of course, I am willing to address that as necessary."  Well, I would hope so? 
• "My present job is not a legal assistant job, but it pays the bills."  Um. Okay? 
• "I am a fast learner and will be able to transfer fundamental skills like organization (spelled wrong), customer service, negotiation (spelled wrong) and case preparation to your office." Great, but I suspect that's your way of telling me you don't have any litigation experience and...hey, I'm right.

I'll admit I went to business school a long time ago, but for the love of God, have things changed that much?  I mean, I hope this is just a case of not knowing any better, because honestly, I'm becoming depressed about the fate of future generations and all that.  Of the 120-odd resumes, we got exactly nine that we're considering.  Nine.  I mean that's about 10%.  Which, I discovered after a couple of quick Google searches, was about average.  That's even more depressing. 

Look, people, it's your resume.  It will get you, or not get you, a job interview.  It needs to be perfect.  If you aren't good at noticing misspellings and typos, get someone else to look at it for you.  Get more than one someone else, if you have to, and listen to what they say.  You probably know someone who has occasion to look at resumes once in a while.  Even if you don't, you probably know someone whose education went further than yours, who works in a higher position than you do, who majored in English or literature or something and can at least tell you if your resume is written in the right language.  Even if you end up having to pay someone, just do it.  Again, it's your resume.  You deserve to have a good one.  Or at least one that won't embarrass you in public.  

I know of what I speak. Back when I first got out of college, I was writing resumes for all my friends and getting paid in pounds of coffee. (All my friends worked at Starbucks.)  I still do it from time to time, sometimes for actual cash money.  And if I had to sum up the elements that make a great resume, the list would look something like this:

•  Put the most important information first.  The average hiring manager is going to glance at your resume for about ten seconds, so make sure your most critical skills are on top.  If you've had a few jobs and been in the workforce for a while, put your job experience first. If you're brand-new to the job market and just graduated from someplace, put your educational experience first.  If neither of those apply, you might want to lead off with your most important job skills--which tend to be computer skills these days, but it depends on what job you're applying for.  Talk to somebody in the field to get a better idea of what should go where.
• Don't be afraid to vary your resume according to the job you're applying for.  A lot of companies use screening software to look for specific words, and if those words aren't in your resume, you'll get skipped.  The best way to avoid this is to read the job ad carefully and look for terms of art like "civil litigation" and "appellate filings" (because I'm in the legal field; your mileage may vary).  Make sure those terms appear somewhere in your resume.
• Don't go over two pages.  Even if you've been in the field for 30 years, nobody's going to read more than two pages.  It's okay to sum up the first ten years of your career in a sentence or two, and then provide details for the last ten years (which is primarily what a hiring manager wants to know about). Things change very quickly these days.  A "legal secretary" when I first started working was using a typewriter and carbon paper.  Obviously that's no longer the case, so a "legal secretary" job from 20 years ago is going to be pretty meaningless to your current job skills.  Or I hope so, anyway.
• Use bullet lists and keep the format consistent.  This makes it easier for the hiring manager to pick out the important stuff in a hurry.  And they're always in a hurry.
• Use a nice, clean readable font, like Times Roman, Arial or Bookman Old Style.  If you want to vary the look of certain areas, try bolding and underlining, or changing the text size.  Don't use more than one font; it looks sloppy and like you forgot to read it over before you submitted it.  And please, please don't use script fonts.  Yes, I know they're pretty, but they're very hard to read.  Save them for party invitations.  Please. 

Finally, here are a couple of tips for job hunting in general:

• Apply fast.  I got 120 resumes in one day; if you're applying three days out from the day the ad appeared, you're probably too late.  Focus on the current day's ads, then go back a day or two days if you have time. 
• Most job ads appear on Friday or Monday, because that's when people tend to give notice.  So try to set aside extra time for job hunting on those days, because you'll need it.
• If you haven't been there lately, your local library has a ton of resources for job hunters, from books about how to put together a good resume to computers you can use to apply for jobs if you happen not to have one at home.  A lot of libraries even have programs like "job hunter's boot camp" available for free or for a nominal fee.  Be sure to ask.  Remember, your librarian is your friend.
• Talk to people. Tell everyone you know that you're looking for work.  Keep a couple of resumes in your car with you, because you never know when you might run into someone who knows someone who is looking for someone.  
• Above all, take good care of yourself. Get plenty of sleep, exercise regularly, eat a good diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, and try to have a little fun every day.  Job hunting is hard work.  It's physically draining and mentally grueling.  You'll be more up to the challenge if you're feeling physically well.  

Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now.  I'll resume commentary on Buddhism, writing, things legal and the sorry state of the planet with my next post.  Meantime, soldier on. And remember, you can't get Ebola without doing something that's pretty gross.  Cheers!

Talk Thursday: Coffee!!

Let me just take a moment to say that TALK THURSDAY IS BACK!! WHOO HOO!! HAPPY DANCE!! CELE IS AWESOME!! YAY!!

That over, it is time to consider the cultural and ideological ramifications of coffee. You may not know this, but coffee has a long and dark history of price fixing, exploitation of native peoples, land grabbing, clear cutting, and other things that are bad for human beings, bad for the environment, bad for the rain forests, bad for democracy and just generally bad all the way around. You think the mere eating of meat has bad side effects? Or the snorting of cocaine? My friend, you don't know from bad until you consider coffee. In fact, coffee has such a bad side to it that a real environmentalist, a true defender of the planet, an honest hater of slavery and exploitative labor practices would simply cast it aside, never to drink it again, before contributing another dime to the ghastly underworld that produces this bitter brown liquid.

Luckily, I'm neither a real environmentalist nor a true defender of the planet. What I am is a solid four-cups-a-day adventurer, to put a not-too-fine point upon it. Once upon a camping trip (yes, I have been known to go camping, though it's generally of the lodge-in-the-woods variety), one of my jolly fellow travelers couldn't find the coffee and suggested we take this weekend to break our caffeine addiction. I told her I liked my caffeine addiction just fine and I was going into town for a Starbucks, back in 45 minutes. (Six other women placed orders.) Because, seriously, I may be a Buddhist but I grew up in a Lutheran household. Anyone who did, knows that Scandinavian blood does not start to flow in the morning until it's at least 0.05 caffeine. Until then, it's best to stay out of the way, unless you happen to have some vinarterta handy (Vikings can be appeased temporarily with sugar).

Though it's hard to remember the time B.S. (Before Starbucks), there in fact was such a time, and during said time, a Brazilian exchange student lived at my place for a year. I was fifteen and she had coffee. Not American coffee, mind. American coffee was far too weak, so she had her parents mail her bags of Brazilian coffee which she ground herself. This coffee was amazingly strong. I mean, a spoon would stand by itself in a cup. In fact, I think a couple of spoons may have dissolved. One day, out of sheer curiosity, I poured a small amount in a cup and added enough cream to choke a horse, along with a ton of sugar (I mean, this stuff was dark). I stirred it and took a very, very cautious sip.

I remember the rush. My brain launched out of my skull, like a rocket, and flew skyward. I remember wondering why anyone bothered with cocaine when this stuff was cheap and legal. I also remembered wondering if I wasn't maybe a little young for this sort of thing. Then I chugged the rest of it (it wasn't very warm, what with all the cream) and poured myself another cup. That was it. I was hooked. Only one other time did I taste coffee this strong, and that was at a Viet Namese restaurant in San Diego, California. Not only was it almost solid, it was also combined with sweetened condensed milk. I was bouncing off the walls for twelve hours. Seriously, cheap and legal. Think about it.

If not for coffee, I'm reasonably sure I never would have finished high school, and I'm also reasonably sure I never would have made it through college. In college I began having interesting fits of sleeplessness (okay, let's call a spade a shovel; manic episodes) in which I'd not sleep for sometimes three or four days. I'd still be tired in the morning, though, which is where a new restaurant near the university, called the Coffee Plantation, came in. On those mornings I'd stop in and get a double espresso with a shot of chocolate syrup. This ensured that I would not only be tired, but tired and jumpy, a great way to manage Russian 101 and the finer points of my Victorian literature seminar. In its later years, the Coffee Plantation deteriorated from a necessary student stop-in to a student meat market and finally a would-be-artist hangout before nose-diving out of existence in the wake of the Starbucks boat, finally sailing in from the Pacific Northwest. Before it died, my best friend Kevin pounded a stake into its heart by dubbing it the Coffee Pretension. It expired of ruffled dignity before the market struck the final blow.

In closing, let me finally say that there are plenty of ways to mess up a pot of coffee, but coffee is like pizza is like sex is like an airplane book: Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. (The Strain might be the unfortunate exception.) It took Joan almost 15 years of living with me, but she now drinks the stuff, too. Which just goes to show something or other. Cheers, all, I'm off to Starbucks.

Talk Thursday (the following Monday): Priority Mail

Interesting topic for a Talk Thursday. More so in that I spent much of the last several days wishing it were possible to mail human beings from one place to another. Here's the thing - I like going places, but I hate going places. That is, I hate the physical packing of a suitcase, finding a neighbor to watch after the cats, finding the cats so they can be watched over by the neighbor (with apologies to Douglas Adams), the hauling of me, Joan, the suitcase, and assorted accoutrements to the airport, the stuffing myself into an airplane seat, the stuffing Joan in next to me, the dirty looks from whoever has the misfortune of being stuffed in next to us (this last lady actually got up & moved; hey, if it's not a full flight and she'd rather sit next to a whiny four-year-old with a cold than me, well, God be with her) and then the doing it all in reverse on the other end. It would be much easier if we could just hop into an envelope, stick a stamp on our butts and emerge instantaneously on the other end. I keep wishing somebody would invent transporters, but particle physics keeps telling me that while it's technically possible, what it would actually be is not transportation but duplication. And the last thing we need is another one of me running around.

All that said, however, we spent an interesting weekend in Salt Lake City with my folks. Interesting because my folks are always interesting. For one thing, they're nomadic. They just happened to be in Salt Lake City this particular weekend. They have a house there and another one in Arizona but they're most often found at none of the above; Glacier National Park, Boise, North Dakota, Germany on one occasion, California, Las Vegas and various points between. But, this weekend they were in Salt Lake City. My sister and her husband, who also tend toward the nomadic, were there too, and that was pretty cool. We're not very often all in one place.

Salt Lake is the city of my young childhood, and it's changed quite a bit. For one thing, they have Starbucks now. For another thing, they have a baseball team, even if it is minor league. So we took in a game. The Bees vs. the Reno Aces, victory to the Aces. Oh well. I didn't get my baseball fix this past Fourth of July and we got to ride the train there, so it was all pretty cool. Besides, minor league baseball is fun. The players aren't as polished, so they make more mistakes and the games are a lot more unpredictable.

We also saw a play, Saturday's Voyeur. If you're anywhere near SLC and you speak Utah politics, you will probably want to see it. I didn't catch a lot of the in-jokes, but since many of them were national news, I picked up on the rest. It's a weird place, SLC. Even weirder than Texas. No, really. I am not making this up.

Major high point: Driving up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Silver Fork Lodge to have the world's best sourdough flapjacks. Major disappointment: Not getting to see JulieAnne because she was busy with family stuff. Oh well. Maybe next time.

And then it was time to repack the suitcase, stick another stamp on myself and mail myself home again, home again. And here we are. The cats are fine and even still speaking to us. Will wonders never cease.

Still, I'd kill for a transporter. Beam me up, Scotty!

Back in the water again!

Playing on the iPod: "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin (Vikingkittens.com)
Meters swum today: 1600 - a mighty mile!

Thank God. I was afraid my skin would start sloughing off from lack of exposure to chlorine. Luckily there was lots. Chlorine, I mean. While I was driving to the pool at 6:30 am, and the temperature here in Dallas was a balmy 26 degrees (that's -3 for you Canucks) I had decided to be happy if I managed 1200 meters. 1400 would be excellent. But 1600? That I did not expect. I wasn't as tired as I thought I'd be, either, which means I'm in better shape than I thought. Or else that I'm delusional and in a few hours I'll wake up minus all of my limbs.

I drove over to Starbucks after the pool and I guess they were having a bad day or something. They must have asked me about my order four or five times. "Now, was that a double half-caf espresso mocha with a twist of lemon?" "No, it was a grande skinny cinnamon dolce latte." "Was that a caramel macchiato chai tea whack-a-mole fanny banger?" "No, it was a grande skinny cinnamon..." You get the idea. I was at the drive-up for like 15 minutes. Well, actually I did not keep track, but it was long enough that I broke out my issue of Tricycle and made it through most of an article on happiness.

One thing about Tricycle, it's one of the few lofty intellectual zines that can make me feel like I don't know what I'm talking about. I sometimes have to look up stuff in the dictionary. I'm serious. Anyway, when I did get to the front the flustered-looking lady at the cash register gave me my double half-caf espresso caramel cinnamon chai tea whack-a-mole dolce latte fanny-banger for free. About which I felt bad. I tried to pay her anyway and she wouldn't hear of it. One of the Big Five Precepts is to take nothing that is not freely given, the reverse of which being, I guess, that you take something that someone is insisting on giving you. So I quit arguing with her and took the coffee thing (it was good, whatever it was--still can't tell you) and drove to the mechanic's for an oil change. And to check out my ignition cylinder, which keeps sticking when I try to turn my key.

While I was there, I read the rest of the article on happiness. People actually study what makes people happy. Isn't that kind of like studying what makes humor funny? Anyway, this guy traveled to the supposed happiest places in the world, which were as diverse as Iceland and Bhutan. The United States is only the sixteenth-happiest place on earth, and Disney World didn't even make the list. Sooner or later, those dark tales about a rash of suicides among the Seven Dwarfs are going to come out. I can feel it.

Back to the article, though. Iceland is a wealthy, highly developed, very clean, technologically savvy society that's cold and dark for six months of the year. Bhutan is a beautiful, mountainous, semi-tropical but very poor country, where the per capita income is about $840 US and they just got phones a few years ago. Totally dissimilar societies, but most folks who live there are very happy. Again, I don't know how you measure happiness but it must be true. It was in Tricycle, after all.

There was a little statistical blurb about how money not only doesn't equate happiness, but after a certain point, more money actually makes you less happy. The tipping point seems to be about $50 grand a year. That's probably for an individual, not a family, but anyway, above that level people report being less happy. I guess you start worrying about investments and stuff.

About this time the mechanic came in and told me that the sticking ignition key problem was actually a bad ignition cylinder and they were going to have to change it out, as well as make me a new key. I said fine (I always say fine) and then I started wondering how much that's going to cost. I mean, a new ignition cylinder sounds kind of pricey. I just got my tax refund so I knew I had a little money but I was kind of hoping to stick it in savings.

A while later the mechanic came back and told me he was done. I went up the cash register, bracing myself. $400? $500? Good God, might it be four figures? Then the cashier said, "That'll be $36.50, ma'am" and my jaw about hit the floor. Turned out the ignition thingy was covered by the extended warranty that I'd forgotten I had. The only thing I was paying for was the oil change.

If I ever make over $50 grand a year, I'll let you know about that getting-less-happy thing, but for now let me say this. Today I got back in the pool after over a week away and swam a mile. I got a free coffee thing, whatever it was, and my new ignition cylinder cost $36.50. If you can't be happy about things like that, then all the money in the world won't help you.

Oh, and Saturn of Mesquite like totally rocks!