Back to Work

After going on 9,467 interviews, I finally got a job. I think I figured out the trick to getting someone to hire you: smile a lot during the interview. I noted that in my last two interviews, both of the interviewers commented about my smile, and therefore, this must be significant. If only they knew what I was smiling about.

As they asked those loaded questions, previously mentioned in another blog, I was tempted to tell them the truth. But you must be on your best behavior and stretch the truth in this situation. For instance, one employer asked me what my favorite subject was in High School. Somehow, I didn't think "getting stoned" would be the right answer. So I settled for "Algebra, when I was stoned. Dude, all those angles and calculations just blew my mind!"

I am going to work in a doctor's office as a receptionist/office worker. I think I'll do well there because I have all of two months experience in another doctor's office, whereupon I nearly had a nervous breakdown from the stress. But that was a full-time job, and this is a part-time position, so I'll probably only have a part nervous breakdown.

At my last job, I had a coworker whom I'll call Sandy, who could not get through the day without reminding all of us that she was married to Bill. If it rained, she'd say, "Bill told me it was going to rain." If there was an accident on the road, she'd say, "I'll have to tell Bill not to go that way." If she had to scratch her ass, she'd say, "I have to get Bill over here immediately." Bill this, Bill that. And yet, when an attractive male came into the office and Sandy was checking him in, she'd flirt outrageously. It really seemed she was looking for attention. Could it be Bill was not all that?

So one day, as she was flirting with a patient, and having had my fill of Bill, I turned around to them both and said, "Stop flirting with him Sandy, Bill wouldn't like it." She turned beet red, went about her business closed-mouth, and later said to me all agitated-like, "You're cramping my style." Your style?

Anyway, I'm starting the job next week, so now I have to think about things like what I'm going to wear, what to bring for lunch, what time to leave each day; things I haven't worried about for quite a while. I just really hope their microwave is clean. The aforementioned job had a microwave so filthy and disgusting, I'm sure a new strain of the ebola virus was growing in it. I refused to use it, and took my chances on fast food, which can also be lethal.

I'll have to learn to get along with coworkers who may have a Bill issue, or other issues. This is probably one of the hardest parts of a job. Working amongst back-stabbing witches (to be nice) can be difficult. I had this one supervisor who was a real horror. She didn't know who she was dealing with. (They still haven't found the body.)

I'm off now, to prepare lunches, iron clothes and get really drunk!

In This Corner...

So, I went on another job interview today. This company had actually called me twice, the first time, I didn't return the call, because it mentioned something about "inside sales" and that made me a little nervous. When they called a second time, and set up an interview for the next day, I thought for sure, they need someone desperately, and soon. This was not to be.

As usual, this was only round one in the boxing match for fighting one's way to getting a job. It went something like this today:

"Today is the first round, and then we'll bring people back for a second interview. If that goes well, we'll have a third interview, where we will interrogate you with a Taekwondo master on hand, and you will be hooked up with an electronic gadget and a lie detector test while you are tied to a chair with rope. At that point, we will determine if you are telling the truth about your previous employment, and each time it doesn't prove out, an electric shock will be sent to your brain, and our man will practice some torture methods on you."

"Wow," I said, "You really are thorough in choosing an employee."

"Oh, that's nothing. You should see what happens if you make it to the fifth interview!"

And so it goes. Employers like to make a fun game out of hiring pathetic unemployed people like me. You get all gussied up, looking your best, practicing in front of a mirror answers to lame questions like, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" My answer to that is simple, in an insane asylum from having been abused and tortured by potential employers like you!

One interviewer asked me what I didn't like about one of my jobs.

"Well, I had this one boss, she was a real bitch. I used to sit at my desk and dream up ways to kill her. One time, I gave her four flat tires and tried to run her over while she was getting help. Another time, I put this stuff in her coffee; she went home early but showed up for work the next day. Does that answer your question?"

He must have been duly impressed with that answer because he was nice enough to call another employee in to walk me out to my car.

I know I'll get a job eventually. Someone out there really needs me.

Someone Hire Me!!!

I've been out of work for a while. About three years to be exact. You see, I have this depression, bipoloar problem. There it is, I said it. I've been on disability all this time, and in the past two years, I've been in a horrible relationship with a guy who is 1) a pathological liar 2) a gambler 3) a loser 4) dirty 5) also bipolar. I could go on but I don't want to waste too much time talking about someone with whom I've wasted two years of my life.

So I go to the job boards everyday, Monster, HotJobs, PA CareerLink, PA JobMatch, Post-Gazette. I send out resumes up the wazoo, and occasionally go on interviews. At some interviews I start getting panic attacks, this is especially bad when the room is small and the interviewer keeps talking. I feel the room start to spin. At one interview, to try to get the panic attack under control, I asked for water, then I asked for the door to be opened, citing claustrophobia. I never know when its going to hit. I simply pray and pray that it won't happen.

I haven't written for a while, but I read somewhere that writing is good for the psyche. It releases some kind of chemical that overnight, turns you into a Supermodel. So I just can't wait till tomorrow. One Supermodel once said, "I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day." In my lifetime, I have often gotten up out of bed for $-56 a day, or less.

Anyhow, the boyfriend is gone, and my house smells much better now. Really, he didn't take showers for like 9 days at times. We had stopped having sex long ago, thanks to the drug oxycodone and percocet, which made him unable to umm, stand tall. In the past, he would leave and I'd let him come back, because he'd call me from the psych ward of some hospital, I'd feel sorry, and need his money, so I'd give it a try again. I have ordered my friends and relatives to shoot me on site if he is seen within 100 yards of me.