Reason # Way Too Many Why I Hate Looking for Work.

Yesterday I got a message from a place I sent my resume into saying they wanted to talk to me. The message said to give a call in this morning and so this morning I called. A couple of times. Only got their voice-mail. Not wanting to spend the entire morning going back and forth to the payphone (I do have a job, you know), I left a message saying I'll call back around 2. Checking my messages a little later, I got a message from the woman saying she'll be looking forward to receiving my call at 2.

2 comes and I call. Get voice-mail. Okay, so I'll just try again. She got my message so she knows I'm calling. Maybe I just called at the exact moment she was on the other line or just returning from the bathroom. I leave a message and tell her I'll try her again in about ten minutes.

Now, I'm calling from a payphone about half a block away from my office. I can't really use the phone at the office, so I'm stuck making these super important phone calls with big huge trucks and busses blasting past me. It also means that whenever I make a call, I have to leave my desk, go down three flights of stairs, and walk to the phone. Everytime I make a call, I have to do it that way. Since I told her I'd call her back in ten minutes, I decided instead of going back to my desk, I'll just walk around and kill time that way. Ten minutes later, I call again and once again get a voice-mail. I'm getting pissed now, but what else can I do? So I tell her I'll call her back in an hour and schlep back to my desk. Total time away from my desk, half an hour.

Finally, on my try after that, around three, I get through to the person and have about half an hour phone interview. Great job, lousy pay- typical.

What bugs, though, is all the effort I had to make just to get the person. I don't have a number where I can be reached, I'm still cell-phoneless (Oh my Gawd!) and so I have to do all this schlepping to make important phone calls. No biggie because it's what I have to do. However, it is a big deal if I keep on telling someone I'll call them at a certain time and they're not there.

When I talked to the lady, I got a pretty sincere apology, the ole "lunch went longer than I expected" thing and she did sound like she meant it and wasn't dicking me around. Apology accepted, though, it's mainly because I have to. But what if the shoe was on the other foot? What if I they had told me that there was going to be a phone interview at 2 and I was late from lunch? That would be bad. The chances of them calling me back would be pretty low and even if I did finally talk to them, I'm already in the hole.

Basically, phone interviews are like waiting for the Cable Guy- so much as not be there at the exact moment it goes down and your screwed. God forbid you step out for a second or have to even go to the bathroom. Basically, if you have a phone interview, you have to down about a handful of Pepto Bismols and piss every fifteen minutes before-hand just to make sure that nothing, but nothing will keep you from not being there by the phone. But it's perfectly okay for the person on the other end to miss the appointment because she's off having a three-martini lunch and the crème brulee is a little late allthewhile I've spent all the time I could be working making the phone calls and spending money on my phone card for the long-distance calls.

And why do companies keep on telling you they'll make a decision in a day or two, then when that day comes, tell you they're talking to more people and it'll be another few days. And so on and so forth? Do they even know what it's like for the person who interviewed there? You spend the entire day checking your phone messages every half an hour, your e-mail every half an hour, and ride a roller coaster of emotion all day, only to find out at the end of the day that the company can't make a decision. Then there's like a two day breather and it all starts up again. It's torture I's tell ya. Not only that, the job in question isn't that fucking difficult (I know, I've done it before and can do it in my sleep, something which I can vouch for because I was way hungover for a huge part of my stint at that job).

Meanwhile, tomorrow's the big interview with the company that I first interviewed with almost exactly a year ago. Still haven't hired anyone and still want me to come in for an interview when I've already met everyone. Would be kind of ironic if I got the job, kind of a full circle type thing. Not to mention how they might be my last hope. Or if they do hire me, they'll basically have put me through a year of hell just because they couldn't decide whether or not they could afford me.

Oy.