Job Hunting Idiocy, part two

If you read yesterday's entry, you learned what it's like dealing with telephone calls from technical staffing firms.  In today's installment of Job Hunting Idiocy, you'll learn what it's like to meet these people in person.

At the conclusion of the phone call described yesterday, I'm assigned an interview slot at 10:00am.  Not bad.  Early enough to leave most of the day free, but late enough for morning rush to be concluded. 

Here's the timeline of events:

8:45:  Into the bathroom for bathing & grooming.  Another upside of unemployment is how much money I'm saving on razor blades and hair gel.
9:15:  Don the job-interview uniform and hope the dry cleaner's professional shirt-starch is still good for one more wear.  It is.
9:25:  Depart home, drive halfway across Denver.
9:55:  Sign in at agency's front desk.  Am handed an application to complete.  See yesterday's entry on redundant information collection.
10:10:  Recruiter arrives, ushers me into tiny conference room.  Another re-hash of my resume and experience ensues.
10:20:  Time on dashboard clock as I start my car and begin the half-hour drive home.
10:45:  Carefully hang dress shirt in closet and wonder what just happened.

I've gone through this sequence of events numerous times.  It's nearly impossible to understand where those two hours went, and what benefit I gained by expending them.  Since I don't believe I was abducted by time-manipulating alien beings at any point, I have but one conclusion: that interview lasted no more than seven minutes. 

I dimly recall sitting there, thinking, "We're done already?"  As quickly as I arrived, I was ushered away with a promise of future phone calls, wishes of good luck, et cetera.

What could be the possible purpose of such a meeting?  To ensure I don't have Mike Tyson tattoos on my face?  Not so much as an earring.  As a test of punctuality?  If that's the case, I passed; the recruiter failed.  Could I have done or said something horribly inappropriate?  I don't think I was there long enough to embarrass myself sufficiently. 

In the end, I'm left feeling like another chunk of sub-standard meat dumped into the sausage grinder.  The recruiter did the bare minimum to keep her job, I did my part and updated my search log.  The tedious cycle continues. 

In the next installment of Job Hunting Idiocy, I'll offer strategies on dealing with those left behind: former colleagues who insist on calling or emailing on a daily basis.

Posted by Dito @ 2:22 pm EDT | Permalink | 7 Comments

Job Hunting Idiocy, part one

Okay, so I'm unemployed.  In order to get my weekly check, I need 5 job contacts per week.  Typically, this isn't hard to do: sit down on Sunday morning and go through Career Builder, Monster, etc. 

A lot of CAD jobs get posted by contract staffing agencies.  I've gotten more than one phone call from an agency recruiter that went something like this:

Agency: "Hello, may I speak to Dito, please?"
Dito: "Speaking."
A: "Hi, my name is Mary Jo Clueless.  I found your resume on Monster and wanted to talk with you."
D: "Okay, great."
A: "So, where did you work last?"
D: "Um, ABC Engineering."
A: "And how long did you work there?"
D: "Um, a little more than a year."
A: "And before that?"
D: "Hold on.  Isn't all this information on my resume?"
A: "It is, I just don't have it in front of me."
D: "I see."

... this goes on for my entire work history, skill set, education, references, etc., and ends like this:

Agency: "Okay, great.  Can I get your email address?"
Dito: "It's. On.  My.  Resume."
A: "Okay, no problem.  How about your home phone number?"
D: "You just called me at home."
A: "So this is the correct number to reach you?"
D: "Are you sure you're qualified to do technical staffing?"

I wish I was making this up.  I'm editorializing a little for effect, but it's really like this.  Just like I need to make 5 contacts per week for my paltry unemployment check, these recruiters must be required to make a certain number of phone calls per week to earn a commission or something.  The hardest part is trying to hold my tongue and not snap at these people, because I really do need a job.  It just really makes me wonder if they understand what I do, the differences between engineering disciplines, why all CAD software is not created equal, etc. 

In the next installment of Job Hunting Idiocy, you'll learn just how inspiring a 7-minute job interview can be.

Posted by Dito @ 3:32 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Unexpected upside of unemployment

My gamerscore has gone up 700 points since I got laid off last week.  And that includes 2 days out of town. 

I think my new goal should be +1000 by the time next Tuesday (8/7) arrives, exactly 2 weeks out of work.

I think I can do it.  And without blatant achievement whoring, either.  I'm close to finishing The Darkness, then I should go back and finally finish off Rainbow Six Vegas. 

It's good to have goals.  I need something to work on. 

Oh yeah... unemployment paperwork... I really should do that first... really.

Posted by Dito @ 10:17 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Back from Chi-town

I'm back from my little jaunt to Chicago.  We had a damned good time. 

Friday: White Castles, the local Irish pub.  Nearly perfect.  Except for the humidity.  Have I only been gone 3 years?  How did I put up with this for the previous 35 years?  God, that was awful.  I typically don't complain about the weather, since it's out of my control, but this was nasty.

My buddy and I realized that we're getting older, and just not up for the back-to-back nights of heavy drinking like we used to do.  Furthermore, while all bars and restaurants in Colorado became non-smoking last year, this hasn't happened yet in Illinois.  The result?  I woke up Saturday morning, not hung over, yet still feeling awful.  Didn't take long to realize it was the secondhand smoke.  Clogged sinuses, heavy chest, stinky clothes.  Ugh.

A little breakfast at an old high school-era hangout, then it was time to see The Simpsons.  We agreed on a 3-star rating.  Some truly hilarious moments, but others seemed to wander off-topic and run a little slow.  We double-featured with Die Hard IV ("Just Die Already"), thereby spending most of the hateful heat-filled day hiding in the air conditioning. 

Then, a little old-school PS2 gaming.  Once we got tired of making up obscure HORSE words in Tony Hawk 4, we popped in Aggressive Inline, a game we both recalled enjoying.  We must have recalled incorrectly.  Or perhaps we got spoiled.  What a weird game.  It's a very blatant Hawk ripoff, with a funky control scheme, a soundtrack that seems to have no more than 6 songs, and some unimpressive animations.  The level design isn't bad; I recall wishing we could import our Tony Hawk skaters and boards into those levels.  I guess we understand why there wasn't a sequel.

My buddy from Chicago is headed west sometime later this fall.  Fall in Colorado is gorgeous.  We have non-smoking bars.  And the 360 has some killer games.  Should be a kick-ass time.

Posted by Dito @ 10:53 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Unemployed.

I'm now an unemployed older gamer.  Wheee.  Not really.

I got scapegoated by a project manager who ran a $40m project into the ground.  The cost overruns and penalties are so high that the company will probably lose money on the job.  I'm just a drafter; I draw what I'm told.  5,000 feet of galvanized steel hand rail?  Sure.  I can draw that.  Oh, that's not what the client specified in the contract?  That's okay, the project manager approved the change - cost savings.  A few months later, trucks begin to arrive at the job site, delivering nearly a mile of hand rail.  The clients - being a team of smart people - immediately notice that it's not what they asked for.  Project manager tries to force it down their throats, loses, and we take a $250k hit to redo it properly.  Must be the fault of the drafter who drew it.  Must be.  And that's only one example.  I've got tons more.

But I had a great interview last week, got cashed out for unused vacation, and some severance pay.  Could be a lot worse.  Leaves me more time to game, as long as I get my 5 job applications in per week to keep my unemployment claim running. 

Now that doodi appears to be back on line, I'll resume trying to get the Low Rollers clan established.  Hell, I've got a lot more free time now.

Posted by Dito @ 2:41 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments