never could get the hang of thursdays

[alenxa_classic]

Or, I Shaved My Legs For This?

I've gotten emails before from this outfit called Best Jobs Magazine, which claims to be wired into the job market and buddy-buddy with actual hiring managers. I've never wanted to follow up, having looked up the last organization run by the same people, HiringMax, which according to complaint boards used to place people as "independent contractors" and use that as an excuse not to cover them under comp and/or pay them regularly. Now, however, I've pretty much got a brick-wall imprint on my forehead from the massive fail that is my job search, so I decided to go. 9:30-1:30, a promise of a meeting with a "job specialist" who'd be able to submit my resume to *~real~* employers and also give pointers on how to fix it up, and at least a few of the aforementioned real employers on-site? And no need to register and give them my mother's maiden name until I get there and decide if they're legit? I'll give it a shot.

Yesterday, I got an email. The subject: "Did you receive this?" Sender: guy's name. My brain: SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM wait, it's not spam scored...? I opened it to find it was a reminder about the job fair. Because I hadn't registered. Uhhh...OK. Whereas before I'd have decided not to go because of their obvious lack of professionalism, this time I just wanted to find (guy's name) and tell him personally how full of suck his email was.

Strike one: I arrived at the event, and right behind me was a representative for World Financial Group. Try googling them and you'll quickly see what I mean. I was contacted by one of their "representatives" back in the other apartment, and only managed to get her off my back by telling her I couldn't talk right now but she could call back tomorrow and I'd be free. Giving me time to google. I haven't let anyone from that racket get anything out of me since. So seeing them there, being treated as a valid employer, kind of torpedoed any hope I had of any good coming from this affair.

Strike two: the company founder is a follower of The Secret. Positive energy attracts positive energy, and if you only just believe that "Something wonderful is going to happen to me today," it WILL. If there was a "sparkle" HTML tag, I'd have used it right there. Way to minimize, y'know, skills and experience.

Strike three: the 9:30-1:30 part of the "event" (the literature all says "Career Fair," but we were encouraged to not call it a "fair" because that meant no commitment, and to look for a JOB rather than a CAREER--what the fuck do you think I've been doing for five months, dude?) did not include the advertised meeting with the Senior Job Specialist, unless you count "your resume needs our other workshop at 1:30, so badly I'm not even going to take it, and anyway you can only apply for our stuff online." I really don't think pointing to each step of the online application process, as delineated on the handout by well-illustrated and numbered graphical steps, counts as a fulfillment of the promise to "show you which employers to apply with." (Taken from the spammy email, verbatim, I swear.) The other workshop at 1:30 was also free, and promised to impart wisdom and resume-tinkering tools, and I was seriously tempted. Then I remembered what their other promises had come to, and figured that that hour would be at least half devoted to plugging their 3:00 seminar. Which cost $99.

I called kelson for emergency extraction, and we had lunch. Which made me feel even sicker than the past two hours had. Many zombie re-corpses later, I felt well enough to actually apply for the jobs I'd written down...and discovered the website is about 15% broken. It shouldn't have surprised me. Alas, it did. And it still wasn't over.

I have a pair of hand-carved koa-wood hairsticks from Waipio Valley, Hawaii. They were obviously created as individual pieces but are incredibly well-matched in length and design. Additionally, as I discovered early in 2007 (or perhaps late in 2006), they are "signed" by the artist, whose name is...Milo. So yeah, I've got a little magical thinking going on with these. Problem is, I lost them after coming back from Comic-Con last year, and I've been looking for them ever since. Sometime earlier this week, I was looking through junk in the shelf of the coffee table and found them. Joy!

So this week, our usual Tuesday with K's parents was preempted by a concert, so we rescheduled to tonight. We've been watching Trek TOS and the episode up next was "Day of the Dove." If you're familiar with the episode, and with me, you may already be able to sense where this is going. For those without spider-Mo senses, the episode features a bunch of Klingons being rescued from a badly damaged ship and taken aboard the Enterprise, where they have to be convinced that there is an eeeevil mystery going on and that it is worth solving. (Memory Alpha will have more details if you're curious. It involves mind control and violence.)

LJ comes in when you realize how many treatises and essays on sexism and misogyny I've been reading lately along with all the RaceFail and privilege material. The Klingon captain is married to his science officer, but in the mighty Klingon Empire apparently the job of a science officer is to look pretty and be utterly passive. She gets forcibly macked on and bodice-ripped by Chekov (!), rescued by Kirk and Spock, and dragged along on their quest to find the Evil Alien of the Week. The guys spend a good MINUTE (probably more, I just couldn't believe it) speculating on the nature of this beastie, tossing technobabble back and forth, with her standing silent and motionless, with extra clavicle showing, in the background. Then they drag her to the bridge, where they decide that threatening to hurt her is the best way to get her husband to cooperate. At this point, I threw my head back in exasperation and RAAAAAGE, and immediately heard a *SNAP*.

Yup, I was wearing the hairsticks. The back of the couch splintered the hell out of one of them, which I left with K's dad to see if there's any way it can just get put back together for decorative purposes. It'll never stick hair again, that's for sure, but maybe there's something cool I can do with it. I've still got one, at least. And I'm sure as hell going to start scouring the web for an acceptable replacement partner.


Turquoise cervidae: My day sucked, which was magnified by most of the suck being my own damn fault.

Comments

[alenxa.livejournal.com]

So apparently saying that I've read RaceFail material is enough to get me linked from the official FanHistory wiki. Didn't really want that, but if anybody actually read through the above pity party hoping/dreading that I'd try to say something of consequence, I salute you. I'll go back to my regularly scheduled listening now.