Temp job tomorrow, new one. The cool thing is that it's actually in doing what I do and with an Ad Agency. The bad thing is that the money's not so great- the exact same amount of money I made at the previous data-entry temp job.

The thing about it is that it's hard to do what I do, project management, and not get all stressed about it. You have to care. For $15 an hour, I don't want to care. For that money, I want the non-thinking, non-crazed, non-difficult Temp Job.

I want the Haiku Tunnel.

I guess a friend hooked up with someone last week, even got himself into a relationship. I don't really know for sure because he hasn't really come out and said it. Instead, he does what a lot of guys do in a situation like this- drop hint after hint after hint but never actually say it. For some reason, guys can never come out and just say "I got me some."

It goes like this: guy has date one night and can't stop talking about it beforehand. Guy calls you up the next day and instead of saying how well the date went, they'll either drop big hints like "oh, man, I'm really tired because I didn't get any sleep last night" or "man, I hate sleeping in somebody else's bed for the first time." Or they'll just drop total non-sequitors into the conversation, something that has nothing to do with anything. Things like: "oh, you're watching the Alabama basketball game, Michelle once drove through the south" or "maybe you should go to that party with me, even though I can't pick you up or drive you home because I'll be with Michelle."

Because I'm me, I never take the bait. Instead, I play dumb and don't say anything. If they're going to play games with me, I'll play games with them. Besides, it's kind of fun to play along, listening to how desperate they get for you to ask them what happened. At a certain point, they'll actually start saying nothing related to the conversation, just anything to make me ask what happened the night before and why the said what they did.

I was supposed to hear back about a job today but didn't hear anything. I did, however, notice that the job got reposted late this afternoon. I have a feeling that's not a good sign. Actually, I'm relatively not that upset because out of the three jobs I've interviewed for over the past week, it was definately the least interesting- rinky dink company in a rinky dink office sitting in a rinky dink strip mall outside rinky dink Oakland. But yeah, it's kind of a bummer because I need a job, obviously. And while I didn't really want the job, it would have been nicer if I were to get and turn it down as opposed to not getting it.

Oh, and it would have been nicer to know that I didn't get the job because the guy had to cut the interview short because he had to pick his kid up from school.

Today was my last day at the Temp Job. Or, at least I think it was. I'm not exactly sure. I finished all of my assigned tasks but my supervisor was, of course, not there, so I'm not really sure what's up. I even called his cell phone to find out what the deal was, but I never heard back from him.

Although I kind of liked it there, I was getting the feeling that I was there a little to long. I was such a recognized person there that this morning I got cornered by an employee who wanted to share her amazement at the growing up of another employee's children. This despite the fact I don't know said employee. Or cared.

The crazy thing about today was that I knew around 11 or so that I was going to finish up my project fairly early, like around lunch time. This, of course, created a dilemna in that the quicker I finished up, the earlier I was able to go home and considering I was already there, I didn't really want to go home early. I'se need the money. Plus, with the supervisor not there, I couldn't get my time sheet signed. So naturally, I took a longer lunch than normal and did a little bit more Web surfing than I usually do (actually, when I was there, I just quickly checked my e-mail and maybe occasionally scanned a news site- I never really played that much online. I swear). Other than a few items to be entered, I was pretty much done around 2 and went off to the Temp Agency to ask what I should do. Their suggestion was to finish everything up, give my supervisor a call, and then hang out to the end of the day. Which meant, basically, that my Temp Agency gave me permission to spend the rest of the afternoon surfing the Web. Which I did.

Hey, they said I could.

Oh, and a funny thing that happened was that at some point that afternoon, I decided I needed to use the time and printer to print out my roster for my upcoming Fantasy Baseball Draft. I selected the printer I thought was closest to me only to realize that the printer I selected was actually that of the Manager. After printing it out, I walked by his office and noticed that yes, lying in the printer behind him was my roster.

Oops.

Found somewhere online....

The Bush Leadership Quiz

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Patrick Clark

DO YOU HAVE THE BUSH STUFF?

If President Bush's re-election staff has its way, this election will revolve around only one question: Can anyone hope to match the heroic 9-11 style leadership of George W. Bush?

So, does John Kerry have what it takes to protect the American people? What about you? Are you tough enough to ride with the Crawford Gang? Answer the seven questions below to find out if you are made of the same stuff as George W. Bush.

1. Pretend you're the elected President of the United States.
2. Imagine that you receive multiple warnings from long-time allies concerning a coming terrorist attack which may use hijacked airliners to attack American symbols of commerce. Do you:
a) Take a month-long vacation.
b) Keep your staff off commercial airlines.
c) Finally deal with that pesky cedar brush on your new ranch.
d) a, b, & c.
e) Contact the FBI and CIA and order them to share resources to co-ordinate a national airport security clampdown while expediting a search for known terrorists who have entered the country.

3. On August 6th, just days into your vacation, your National Security Advisor gives you a briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Do you:
a) Take the rest of the day off.
b) Go fishing on your man-made lake.
c) Take the longest Presidential vacation in thirty-two years.
d) a, b, & c.
e) Act like the elected President of the United States and return to Washington to ensure the safety of the nation.

4. Having successfully ignored countless warnings, you return from vacation. On your way to a slow-pitch photo op, you learn that an airliner has crashed into one of Twin Towers. Do you:
a) Continue to your very important photo-op at a Florida elementary school.
b) Later claim you watched the first crash on television even though that film was not shown until that evening.
c) Fail to make any connection between the crash and the near-constant terrorist warnings of the past month.
d) a, b, & c.
e) Act like the elected President of the United States by dropping the children's book and hurrying to Air Force One to direct the country's defense.

5. Though you've already shrugged off anything resembling competence, when an aide whispers in your ear that a second plane has crashed into the second tower, do you:
a) Read a book about goats to second graders for seventeen minutes while thousands burn to death.
b) Delay an order for fighters to defend the White House and the Pentagon.
c) Later claim to be in bed by ten that night, sleeping soundly while the rest of the nation sat up, dumb-struck, horrified by the human loss.
d) a, b, & c.
e) Upon hearing of the first airliner strike, immediately order fighters up to defend the second Tower and the Pentagon and, later, have the common decency not to sleep a wink.

6. In the days following the disaster, you learn that the attack was planned by a wealthy Saudi named Bin Laden and that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were also Saudis. Do you:
a) Have a friendly photo op with a Saudi business friend of your father even before you bother posing on the burning rubble of lower Manhattan.
b) Allow a private jet to collect a hundred wealthy Saudis, including fourteen Bin Laden relatives, and fly them out of the country over the protests of the FBI.
c) Round up hundreds of innocent immigrants and imprison them without trial in order to appear to be engaged.
d) a, b, & c.
e) Throw your family's substantial business interests to the side in order to detain and question wealthy Saudis and so discover that some financed terrorists in the months before the attack.

7. It was bound to happen. Bi-partisan traitors in Congress have the audacity to push for an Independent Commission to investigate the massive intelligence and security failures that led to 9-11. Do you:
a) Grant the Commission a mere fifteen million dollars -- less than one fourth the amount spent to investigate the last President's adultery.
b) Stipulate that any testimony you give be off-the-record.
c) Announce that pressing Presidential-type duties leave you with less than an hour to spend before the Commission -- despite the fact that in the last year you've played over one hundred and forty hours of golf.
d) All of the above.
e) Save your country time and money by proceeding directly to a six-by-six wire suite in Guantanamo.

ANSWERS.

Welcome to the soft prejudice of dumbed-down expectations! Question one is a freebie -- just like Florida! Give yourself a bunch of points! Questions two through seven demand a little more cunning. If you answered a, b, or c, you were close.

If you answered d to all of them, congratulations! You've flunked, but those were the President's choices! You're just as much a leader as the steely-eyed rocket man himself! And you did it without oil money! FYI, if you chose e for any of the answers, you are a French toast-eating, terrorist-loving traitor.

PS- if you want to get some serious left-wing conspiracy stuff, click on the links. I'm not saying it's true, but it's definately something to make you go "huh." That and run off to volunteer for John Kerry.

Okay sports fans- grab the kiddies, get some popcorn and gather round the computer as it's Crazy Interview Time:

This is about an interview I had on Tuesday. I actually wrote up the whole story but as it's four pages I figured that nobody would read the whole thing. Hell, if I were you, I wouldn't read the whole thing. Instead, I'm just going to go to the highlights:

First, some background:

This is for a database admin posting that I sent my resume in for in hopes I'd get something to tide me over until I get a real job. The company is a personnel agency that basically hires scab nurses to replace striking nurses.

-Get handed application to fill out. Notice that they ask on it what Elementary School I went to. Begin to think maybe this job is a little below my skill level. What does that even matter? Am I not going to get a job because I went to a public school? How would they even know? I went to Elementary School in Wayne Pa, fer crissakes. Is there a US News and World Report listing for Elementary Schools? And I love how they always ask what courses you took. While this might be appropriate for college, what does it matter for High School? And if High School doesn't matter, how would Elementary School? What should I even put there? Reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic''?

-Interview begins. Overly caffienated and overly stressed person who is interviewing me asks me to tell me about myself. A couple of minutes into it, she tells me that she has a big conference call and that she has to stop the interview there. She also tells me that I have really great skills on my resume and that she's sure I'd be fine on the job.

-She then asks me to print out a report. I think it's a test. Turns out that, no, she really wants the report. Not only that, they don't know how to generate the report but am hoping I can figure out how. Spend about ten minutes with all the kids in the office trying to figure out how to do it and how to figure out a way of getting the information without running a report. About five minutes into it realize "hey, wait a minute" and that I probably shouldn't be doing all of this for them. Homey shouldn't be playing this.

-Next person I interview with tells me that everyone who starts at the company has to start off in the Call Center. It's how everyone learns all the ins and outs of the company. She then hands me the Call Center script and asks me to read it for her. Spend all my energy trying not to give her that "are you kidding me?" scowl that was lurking beneath my blank expression. Begin to figure out just what my level of desperation is and whether it means I should read the script.

-Read the script, not doing as well as I could (having done Telemarketing once, I know how to do Call Center. I did not give them 110% percent as they say). Am then given ten-minute explanation of various types of nursing licenses. I so don't care.

-Am then told that she has a very important meeting, that the interview was over, and that I have a great background and that I'd be great in this position, blah, blah, blah.

As I leave, I realize that I don't really want the job. In fact, more like I really don't want the job. Not one bit.

So naturally, I get it. Well, kind of. I got a job in the Call Center. So I call to find out what the deal is and what about the database job and haven't heard back from them

Now I know I need a job and I know having steady income, but that job so reeks of "I have a bad feeling about this."

Okay, I was totally wrong about it being a fun day. Man, this afternoon dragged.

Anyways, back at the Temp Job. I am even more convinced that I could just sneak in and work there without anybody knowing it because when I walked in and talked to the receptionist, he thought I've been working there all week. And, once again, other than a nod of acknowledgement, my supervisor never had time to check in with me. People are also saying hi to me in the hallways.

The place was a lot more happening than last week, though. It looks like they've hired a whole bunch of sales people in the past couple of days. One of the sales people, a kind of hot mid-30's saleswoman who had been there when I started slinked on over to my cubicle and introduced herself, probably thinking I was another new sales stud she could chat up. Once she realized I was only a mere down-on-his luck data entry temp, she couldn't get out of the area fast enough.

Bi-yatch.

By the way, a note to all you single gals out there- if you want to try and get guys in the office to flirt with you and possibly meet the man of your dreams, don't clutter your cubicle with pictures of your nieces, nephews and cats. It kind of, how shall I put it, reeks of serious desperation.

Hmmm, maybe I should have made more of an effort to flirt….

Going back to crazy temp job this morning. The supervisor called me yesterday around 8:30 in the morning to let me know I should come in. So I'm going on.

I'm actually kind of happy about it. It's pretty kick-back, easy, and stress-free. I get to listen to music all day, have unlimited use of the coffee maker, and can sneak onto the internet whenever I want. Plus, I'm a little on the hung-over side of things and nothing says hangover recovery like 8 hours of data entry. Just power-up on caffeine, turn on the computer, put in the Black Sabbath and it's go time.

The only thing I have to worry about is trying to stretch the little work that I do have into a full three days of work.

PS- John Kerry, the real John Kerry, has yet to accept my invitation to be my Friendster Friend. I know it's the real John Kerry only because it's just bland, humour-less, and inoffensive enough to only be written by John Kerry (like he'll mention something like he likes nude photography or listens to Xzbit. Please. Just imagine the uproar if he said his favorite song was "Bitch Better Have My Money") . Plus, it said so on Salon. Dude owns up to liking both "Animal House," "the Blues Brothers," and "Old School" though, so he's got that going for him. Still, if he doesn't want to be my Friendster Friend, I think I'm going to vote for Nader. I know Ralph would be my Friendster Friend.

Slate's been having some interesting stories about the "Girls Gone Wild" phenomenon. I don't know what's more despressing, that tons of women would want to be on "Girls Gone Wild" or that they'll do it for a trucker hat.

One funny thing about reading personal ads (hey, what else am I going to do all day?) is that you notice a tendency for a lot of people to talk about how happy they are in the ad. Now first of all, as a general rule, people who constantly tell you how happy they are usually aren't. It's the same thing about when people tell you how cool they are. And second of all, what else are they going to say? "I'm manic-depressant?" "When not at work, I like to sit at home in the dark, light candles, drink an entire bottle of wine and read Sylvia Plath poems?" "I haven't tried to cut myself since my doctor put me on lithium?" Or the perennial favorite, "I swear, I only have about ten cats because I really, really like cats?"

I know I'm supposed to go back to the Temp Job to finish it up, I'm just not sure when. It's all kind of up in the air right now. Since my supervisor was too busy on Friday to talk it over, we just decided I'll call him to check in. The problem is that I couldn't go in today because I had interviews all day and I can't go in tomorrow because, well, see above, so I'm trying to call him to see when he wants to come in again. Naturally, he hasn't returned my calls. So I have no idea what the hell's going on.

Maybe I should just show up on Wednesday and see if anybody notices?

Oh yeah, one of my interviews tomorrow is for a data entry type job. The crazy part is that on the job posting it mentions that a lot of travel is going to be involved. Now what kind of $15 an hour data entry job involves a lot of travelling? Is that a good thing?

Now normally, the last thing I'd want to see is one of those serial-killer thriller movies. I think I'd rather see a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, and Hillary Duff than see one of those movies. Which means that there is basically no way in hell I'm going to see that new Angelina Jolie thriller.

And then, while reading a review, I read this:

That's all before Jolie's shift into crime-fighting sexpot. Agent Scott starts running down halls, jacket open and breasts jiggling. Her previously pinned hair falls into a Renaissance mane as her luxury hotel room (the FBI apparently has generous per diems) becomes a boudoir complete with gauzy fabrics and mood lighting. She succumbs with great enthusiasm to a guy she barely knows in a laughable display of vertical eroticism. Jolie's toplessness goes beyond gratuitous to regrettable for an actress of her stature. ,

And I'm thinking, hmmm, maybe that's a rental.

It's Friday at my Temp job and once again, my supervisor isn't in. As I go take a peek at his office, I see that the lights are off and the door is locked. I ask the Office Manager/Receptionist if the guy is coming in or not and he doesn't know. Not only that, he doesn't think he is just because he's a big sales guy and is usually on the road.

Great.

I don't like the look of this. Don't like the look at all. Nuh-uh. When you throw in a Supervisor whose too busy and crazed to remember that you're there and a Temp Agency run by boneheads (when I interviewed there, the computer broke down in the middle of the test and when I went to go let them know, I saw the guy whose in charge with his feet up on his desk, fully reclined, staring out the window with his hands clasped behind his back) it makes me think Capital T trouble. In other words, I got a bad feeling about this and lately I've been realizing that whenever I got a bad feeling about anything, it usually happens.

It also occurred to me that I'm entering a "Seinfeld" moment. To whit, what would happen if I kept on showing up at a Temp job and between the craziness of the office and the semi-secluded nature of my cubicle, nobody notices that I'm there. Could I keep on coming back? Could I drag it out for a couple of months? If I keep showing up and nobody says anything would it become so normal that I'd be considered part of the company? Am I just one box of doughnuts in a meeting away from making the vaunted leap from temp to perm?

Hmmmm….

The crazy thing is that I've been in that situation before (yeah, I know, quelle surprise). Years ago, during Layoff #1, I was trying to make it as a Freelance Graphic Artist. I went to one Design Agency, a place that could only be described as the Worst Design Agency in the city (seriously, there were coffee stains on the coffee stains). The interview went well enough that the lady who ran it, a frumpy middle-aged woman who I'm pretty sure got the thing in a divorce settlement, told me to come back the next day for a "tryout." So I go in the next day, get a buttload of work, do a good job, and am told to come back the next day. I go back the next day, have more work thrown at me, and the next day after that.

Now since I didn't hear anything, I just went into work assuming I had work and that I was working there. And while nobody said I got the job, nobody told me that I didn't. Of course, it would have helped if the owner of the company were actually in the office to tell me what the deal was. She was hardly ever in the office as she was constantly on sales calls trying to drum up business, sales calls that usually consisted of buying clothes at Nordstrom.

A few weeks into the job, with me working pretty much 40 hour weeks, work slowed down and my coworker, a nice Born Again who was new to the city and whose previous job mainly consisted of air-brushing out cleavage for a Christian Music Label, told me it wasn't worth me coming in and to go home. The next day I called up to see if I should come in or not and was told by the owner that it wasn't going to work out and that she wasn't happy with my work. A fair enough assessment perhaps, but one that would have been nice to hear maybe a couple of days into it instead of, oh, a couple of weeks into it. A couple of weeks which were coincidentally busier than usual work-wise.

Naturally, she refused to pay me over a time-sheet issue. Bitch.

Oh wait, where was I. Oh yes.

Okay, so there I am at the Temp job, not knowing what to do and go take a walk to the Temp agency (whose going to know I'm gone?). They tell me to hold tight and that they'll call my supervisor. Back at the office, while I'm typing away the Office Manager hands me a cell phone, tells me it's my supervisor and that it's for me. My supervisor gives me some instructions, making it sound the whole time like he meant to take care of me, and told me he'll be in later. Which he was. Except he was also conducting interviews all day. Here I am trying to update him on the stack of work that he had me do a stack of work that I couldn't complete because I needed to hear back from him, yet unable to hear back from him.

At the end of the day I waltzed into his office while in the middle of an interview to give him my time sheet. As I suspected, it's not clear whether or not I'm going in there next week. I think I am, but I'm not sure. I also have a couple of interviews early next week so it's not like I can go in anyways, but I don't really know for sure.

Maybe I'll just show up and type away and see what happens?

You know, it's getting to the point where whenever I see a woman walking around the neighborhood and notice that she's got a tattoo on her lower back, my immediate reaction is, "of course."

Here's a good one….

Show up for the Temp Job today and find out from the receptionist that the entire office will be leaving around 10 for an all-day company bonding thing at the Race Track. He was even a little surprised that I came in.

So I went to go see my supervisor to check in with him. He's not there. While I do have things to do, most of them are of the make-work variety- not really anything all that important. After working for an hour, I sat there and watched the entire office take off, all except the Temp brought in for the day to man the phones. I am alone.

Uhh, so now what?

Should I stick around, completely unsupervised? Should I go home? If I stay and work, will I get shafted because there's nobody there? Was I not supposed to come in?

I stayed. Called the Temp Agency, got advice from them and typed in about 500 names into a database. All alone in a big huge office.

I apologize for not having too much to post. I'm tired, it's hot in here (to all you East Coast readers, it is indeed in the 80's here and while it's fabulous, it would be nice to get a few breezes going at night so I can sleep better), and doing data entry all day is killing me.

I do appreciate the temp job. I have nothing really bad to say about it. The money's reasonably good, the place is pretty kickback, Live 105 is listenable again (that Yeah Yeah Yeahs song "Maps" rocks. Hard) my supervisor is a nice guy, and, most importantly, I figured out how to get Internet access so I can check e-mail all day. But it's still kind of killing me. First of all, if anyone asks, a laptop is not the easiest computer to do data entry with. It actually kind of sucks. It's way too small and has no 10-key section. And it would help if there were any desire to be ergonomic. This maybe because I just don't know any better, but my guess is that while laptops are way cool, they're not exactly ergonomically sound. There's no lift, no height to them.

There are actually two main components to my job. The first is to create this huge database and do commission reconciliation. It's actually kind of fun. Not only do I get ownership of the database ("hey, let's change the bar from a blue fill color to an orange!") but it actually involves some thinking. As I've done some accounting before, I'm also fairly convinced that accounting is pretty frickin' easy. Why one has to spend years studying it when Excel spreadsheets do it all for you I'll never know. It is kind of strange, however, that the temp is explaining to the Sales Director how to read the sales reports and how to do the reconciliation.

But the problem with that task is that my supervisor is way too busy to give me direction. He's either on the phone or in meetings. So to make sure I have work to do, he's given me a whole bunch of make-work type things to do. The make-work consists of taking old, 20-30 page long spread sheets and re-enter them into the computer because the original files had been lost. I'm pretty sure those tasks weren't why I was hired, but the guy figured that he needed somebody to do them and since I was there, I'm doing them now. The thing is that he's given me so many spreadsheets to do that I could conceivably be there for months, just typing away. Which is all well and good and I'd be okay with it happening (it is a nice play to temp), but, well, see above about lap tops and data entry.

I was going to post something about the Republicans constant refusal to extend jobless benefits (Tom "I'm evil" DeLay calls the attempt to extend benefits a "clever political stunt"- hey Tom, bite me), but then I stumble upon this:

"Tennessee county, site of `Monkey Trial,' wants to charge gays with crimes against nature"


"...Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

To quote Bill Maher (I'm too tired to rant on my own):

...if Southerners don't want to have an inferiority complex, I say, "Stop doing things that make reasonable people think you're inferior!"

Like, getting rid of slavery was a good start. But don't quit there: Stop being the place that's always challenging the theory of evolution. What's next, gravity? Is that just a plot by the Jews up North to get people to drop spare change?

God damn, our country is a mess these days. If we were a celebrity, we'd be Courtney Love. If we were a basketball team, we'd be the Lakers. If we were a married couple, we'd be Whitney and Bobby Brown.

Oh my God, the Chronicle dumped "Family Circus" today, replacing it with the much hipper "Dennis the Menace." Goodbye Billy, goodbye Jeffy, goodbye P.J. Oh, what shall I read now for my for my cutting-edge comic satire? Marmaduke?

The sad thing is that I'll never see what I so desperately want to see out of that cartoon- the spin-off comic where the kids from "The Boondocks" show up. Like "the Jeffersons" only in reverse.

Oh yeah, imagine the hilarity as Billy starts wearing the backwards baseball cap and bling-bling jewelry. Or Jeffy calling Dolly a 'ho. And Dolly walking around with belly button ringing showing out of her baby T, low-cut rider jeans, and thong?

I didn't get the temp-to-perm job I interviewed for on Monday. Word has it that I didn't do a very good job designing the flyer I was supposed to do. Wasn't creative enough. My bad for not being able to design a flyer in ten minutes or so. The good news, I guess, is that at least it came down to the graphics test and not the psychological test. Or so they say.

The person at the temp agency who got me the interview told me how frustrated she was with them because she keeps on sending temps over and can't get anyone hired. You'd think that after awhile, the company would figure out that their inability to not hire somebody would be a sign. Like maybe the test is too fricking hard. It's not like there's a plethora of people out there to choose from what with the economy being in the dregs and all. Not being able to fill a position in these economic climes is a bit like a basketball player not being to make it with a stripper.

Whatever.

I did, however, get a temp job, starting tomorrow. It's for a week, but the crazy thing is I've never been happier to get a temp job. Even crazier, I wound up having to turn one down later that afternoon. Now how about that?

But, of course, it wouldn't be a full day without something whacky going on and something whacky did indeed go on. That stupid advertising agency, the one that I keep on getting set up with yet never hired, actually called me. They hired a new recruiter who didn't realize I was the guy at the dance who not even the super-geeky girls would dance with and having seen my posted resume, thought I'd be perfect the job. Since desperation has always been a good friend of us guys who not even the super-geeky girls would dance with, the hint of desperation in the recruiter's voice was music to my ears.

We shall see.

Ah man, no more "Curb Your Enthusiasm" till whenever the next run is. Stupid HBO.

I love when an old friend tells you he's going to be in town over the weekend and that you should hang, but doesn't actually say when you should hang. Instead you just get a message saying you could do something on one particular day but they don't know when. The end result is that you spend most of the day waiting to hear back from them yet never actually hear back from them. You do, however, hear from a couple of other friends who suggest things to do, all of which you turn down because you're expecting to hear back from this particular friend.

And yes, that's what happened to me over the weekend, thanks for asking.

The pisser of it all was that I knew it was going to come down like that. I knew I was going to get the Flake, yet I still hung in there, hoping against hope. Stupid me. I'm sure he thought I'd flake and so he flaked cause it's one of the reasons for the never-ending cycle of flakiness- nobody actually can ever really count on someone to not flake because everyone expects everyone else to flake. Except every once in awhile there's someone who actually doesn't flake.

Another morning, another interview. This time for a glorified Word Processor position. Well, a Word Processing position with a little Desktop Publishing thrown in too. As well as a little design work, some Web work, and PowerPoint work. Not to mention some financial analysis, handling the phones when the receptionist is on a break, and general office work. Oh yeah, and building up a marketing library "using object-oriented methodology," whatever the hell that is. I actually looked up "object-oriented methodology" online to see what it means but after reading a description of it, I gave up because it was giving me a headache.

And the pay for all of this? $14 an hour.

Before the interview, the person at the employment agency forewarned me that there was to be a three-part test I'm supposed to take. The person at the agency told me that a bunch of people had been sent over, only to flunk out while taking the test. No problem, I told her as I secretly took a big gulp. I hate it when somebody actually tests me on my supposed PowerPoint skills. How am I supposed to get away with lying about it on my resume?

Anyways, I show up at the office, introduce myself to the receptionist, and I'm handed over a sheet that I'm supposed to fill out. It's a psychological test. On one side is a list of adjectives to which I'm supposed to check off all the ones that I think people should say about me. On the other side are the very-same adjectives, except this time, I'm supposed to check off all the ones that people really say about me.

All this for a $14 an hour temp job.

Now how the hell is this psychological test supposed to tell anyone whether or not I'd make a good temp at $14 an hour? What sort of things are they looking for and how can they tell how good I'd be at doing stupid PowerPoint slides by checking off things like "energetic" or "persistent?" How is any of this going to determine anything when it's not like anyone's going to fill it out correctly? After all, I may be sort-of passive and escapist, but there's no way in hell I'm going to admit to being sort of passive and escapist. And finally there's the question of just how much of my rotten luck would it be that I cruise through the rest of the interview and the test only to not get the job because something on the test says that I have a fear of conflict due to mommy issues? And even if it's true, what the hell does it have to do with making flyers?

I finish up and the interview begins. The interview goes well although the lady who interviews me asks my why it appears that I can't hold a job for very long (you'd think that someone who works in an HR department of San Francisco would have heard of lay-offs). And with that, I go take my non-psychological test.

Basically the gist is that I have twenty-five minutes to do three different tasks on the computer- one file conversion, a PowerPoint presentation, and the designing of a flyer on PhotoShop. None of these are that difficult, but it is kind of difficult when timed like that. The file conversion thing is a pretty quick little chore so basically you have a little over twenty minutes to do two tasks that would normally take about twenty minutes to do each, more to do each well. Which brings up the great Solomesque dilemma of the test- 'tis better to finish or almost finish both of them yet do a half-assed job of both or do a kick-ass job on one and suck on the other? I went for Option #1 and did the half-assed job on both. And half-assed pretty much described it. The PowerPoint thing totally sucked mainly because just as I got into the groove I realized I had about ten minutes left and had to design a flyer and the flyer had potential but kind of came off looking like I was stopped in the middle of it because the test was over. Which it was.

All of which makes me wonder this- I wonder why it is they're having trouble filling the position?

Hmmm, maybe I should have said I was fussy?

Oh, the worst part of the whole experience? I'm coming off BART and waiting for the light on 16th and Valencia and because I'm all decked out in a suit, some homeless guy gloms onto me thinking that because I'm in a suit, I have money. Instead of doing the usual "spare change" routine, he walks right up next to me, tries to get me into a conversation, ignores the fact I'm trying my darndest not to get into a conversation with him, and then gives me a guilt trip for not giving him money. Dude, if I don't get a job in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be out asking for spare change.

Here's more signs of the crapiness of today's economy-

I haven't been able to get through to the Unemployment people all week. Everytime I call, I always get a message saying that they've the maximum amount of callers they can handle and that you should try back later. That's always a good sign that we got a robust economy.

Today I finally get through to someone. When I mention that I got laid off from a magazine, the guy on the other end of the line tells me he was working in publishing and he got laid off last year too and the only work he was able to get was with the Unemployment Office. Except that now they've cut all their hours (which is part of the reason why it's so hard to reach anyone) and are about to lay off a bunch of people.

Which makes sense, if you think about it. Because what better Government Agency to downsize in the midst of a high unemployment rate than the Unemployment people. Cause, you know, nobody needs to deal with Unemployment then.

You know, though, that getting laid off from Unemployment is kind of funny only in that you get to see you're collecting unemployment from Unemployment.

Friggin' Hotmail is SUCKING today. Again.

My guess is that there's yet another virus that's needing to be debugged, a guess I'm making on the strength of a barrage of e-mails bouncing back to me from people I don't know and another, all with attachments.

Jesus frickin' Christ people, how lame do you have to be to open an attachment sent to you by somebody named "Candi" or "Elsa"? Hello? Why is it that those of us who are slightly functionally literate in computers are suffering because some stupid old lady in Topeka Kansas who checks her e-mail just to get the latest tabs on her Church's BINGO game is to stupid to know not to open every e-mail she gets?

Further sign that we, as a country, are rapidly and quickly losing our shit:

Homeless to See 'Passion of the Christ'- Man gives $1,000 to ministry, which arranged trip.

Good to know they'll have some shelter for a couple of hours.

Yeah, I know, not that funny, but there's so many snarky things I could say here that I'm getting a headache. I'll just leave the rest up to your imagination.

Wait, this just in!

HILTON SET FOR FAMILY LIFE
Sexy hotel heiress Paris Hilton's lifestyle-altering romance with Backstreet Boy Nick Carter is continuing to temper her wild ways -- she's now desperate to have his baby.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that this could be a matter of national importance. There is absolutely no way, no how that we should allow offspring of Paris Hilton and Nick Carter. WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE GENE POOL?

There's an episode of "Buffy" (and yes, I'm just referencing the show because I haven't in awhile) in which there's a tear in the fabric of our dimension letting every sort of dimension come together in some sort of Apocolypse type thingy.

I thought of this episode while at a friends house and while flipping through the channel, caught a bit of the "Sharon Osbourne" show featuring the Becky Band. The Becky Band is a band led by Rebecca from Real World Seattle and featuring the one, the only, the One, Keanu Reeves on bass. So there you have it, on one stage- Mrs. Osbourne, the girl who watched Irene getting slapped by Stephen, and Neo himself. A true tear in the pop culture fabric if ever there was.

This cannot be a good thing.

I wonder how it scores on the ole Rapture Index.?

PS- interesting article on whether pets go to Heaven during the Rapture. And as far as I can tell, there's no irony whatsoever to it.

I stuffed envelopes today for eight hours. It was fun.

Seriously.

You can't imagine how painful it is to stuff envelopes for eight hours. My back is killing me for sitting there the whole day, my shoulders are killing me for taking that little liquid thingamabobber to over 1000 envlopes to seal it shut, and my brain is fried from the sheer mundanacity of it all. We’re talking big fun here people.

Thing is there's no Temp Jobs out there at all. Every temp company has too many temps and not enough work. There's a lot of reasons to explain it- suck ass economy *cough*- but one of the reasons is that a lot of companies down want to throw down the $20-$25 per hour for someone to stuff envelopes (that includes not only the temps salary, but the agency fee).

So I was thinking that in light of this issue, we office temps need to do what migrant workers do. We should get all gussied up in our professional office garb, go early in the morning to some designated spot in the Financial District, and wait for some HR person to drive by and pick us up for a day's work, under the table of course.

I think I'm on to something here….

I love this story:

Simpsons-related Dear Abby column pulled

"Somewhere in Springfield, state unknown, Bart Simpson is in detention, filling a chalkboard with the words "I will not write a fake letter to Dear Abby." Well, it probably wasn't Bart's handiwork, but he'd no doubt approve of the prank that forced Dear Abby's editors to pull next Monday's advice column, which included a letter that mirrored an episode of 'The Simpsons....'"

I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep a lot better at night knowing that Martha Stewart has been found guilty. Justice has been served. I am especially happy that instead of delving into less important news stories- like the Presidential Election, what's going on in Iraq, or the breaking into of Democratic Senators computers by Republican staffers (surely, you've been bombarded by stories about this faux scandal) - the news media is giving the Martha Stewart the proper amount of attention. We should endlessly debate the case, break into live TV programming, and devote hour long news segments to the case. After all, if we don't give this trial the correct amount of proper attention, what kind of message will we send to all the otherrich, famously bitchy, homemaking gurus out there who just happened to make money on the stock market?

I just wish the whole Martha Stewart wouldn't be crowding out all those important and well-mannered discussions about the big Mel Gibson movie, "Kill Jesus, Vol. 1."

Or is it "Reservoir Disciples?"

"Pulp Bible?"

One of the problems about being broke is that you have to conserve your money. The easiest way to avoid not spending money is to not actually leave your apartment. Unfortunately, not leaving your apartment leads to endless amounts of time contemplating being broke. Which means that the best thing to do is to actually leave the apartment so you're not spending all your time contemplating being broke.

The problem with this is that if you leave and go do something, you inevitably will spend money. It's the being broke Catch-22- to stop being depressed about having no money, you have to go spend money. Oh, yes, there are certainly things one could do for free. Especially when it's all sunny and warm and beautiful like it is here in the Bay Area. You could go hiking, biking, going to the park- any number of things.

Which is all fine and well but none of which is as much fun as, say, meeting friends at Pier 23 and having a few drinks. And yes, compared to hiking, drinking is much less healthy. Not to mention way more expensive. On the other hand, it's not nearly as much fun. Especially when it's in the 80's, the sun is out for the first time in months, and you're on the water. And before I hear the tut-tutting of the lack of responsibility and the concerns inherent in more drinking references, I ask you this- could anyone possibly turn down the chance to go meet friends and have a few drinks in sunny warm weather in a bar that sits right on the Bay?

I think not.

Isn't that, actually, one of the things that makes life that much better?

This morning I met with a temp agency and got the Troy McClure video. I love sitting through the Troy McClure "this is how you be the bestest temp in the world!" video. It's always chock-full of such useful information as "always show up on time!" or "always wear respectable clothing!" This one even had office safety tips like "don't use your back to pick up things, use your legs" and "make you sure you know where the fire exits are located!" Oh, and the ever popular "don't do drugs" and even "don't harass."

The best part of those videos though is how they try and make everything so happy and shiny. You are never called "temps" but "associates." And every temp assignment isn't a temp assignment, it's a "wonderful opportunity". Not to mention, of course, how you are constantly told how much of a "valued employee" you are to Drone Staffing Incorporated. All of which I guess is a much better way of saying "soul-sucking office work for dime a dozen college educated white collar types who can't get a job."

Some spam mail I got today:

424307045838934478hitch

t Generi c Ciali^s get hard upto 36 hours d
http://mediterranean.3es2s3.com/py/

wormy punctuate harmonica aphelion radish summate upperclassman neoclassic bona bilinear elicit askew penn shale theft colossal club beaux phenol radiochemical leroy=20 numeric thyrotoxic pyrite decorous balance besetting rote bellyache clown orchestra sulfite beverage darling controversial rest room korea arbitrage bash copernicus null partridge pantomimic besetting workman parallax pant raffia ricochet died deductible advance extolled murder time delimitation ambient pantheist conceal=20

There was a job posting I saw the other day for a Word Processor. Cool, I thought, I can do that. I can type 83 WPM. I know my WordPerfect. It was for some industrial company and while the job looked good (for a just need to get by until I get a job kind of thing), I read the fine print and noticed it didn't look so good. They were looking for somebody who was not only an expert in Word, but also had experience doing technical manuals and had knowledge of mechanical engineering. Because it's so important to have a background in engineering when you're worrying about margins and tabs.

Which brings out another fun component about looking for work these days (and aren't y'all happy that it's nothing but unemployed angst these days? It's kind of like U2 going back to the basics and coming out with "Beautiful Day"). It's that for whatever reasons, companies are being really, really picky about whom they're hiring.

Like one job I didn't get. They hired somebody who quit and then decided not to hire anyone else they interviewed because they couldn't find somebody who, like the guy they hired, not only did project management, had print production experience, worked at non-profits, and happened to have studied opthamology. It doesn't matter that it took them like eight months to find that guy in the first place, they're just convinced, dang nabbit, that there's tons of guys just like that out there.

Or it's like Temp Agencies these days. They have work, but the places that are hiring are looking for like file clerks who are not only good at filing, but also experts in European Immigration policies of the 19th Century and are fluent in Flemish. Or they want data entry people to help enter medical records who are not only fast at the 10 Key but are also experts in Medicare policy arcania and have Master Degrees in Public Policy. Oh, and who'll also work for $12 an hour.

It's like when the economy was really, really bad (as opposed to now, when it's merely just really bad) they all got lucky and got Grad Students who had degrees in both Law and Psychology and were fluent in five languages and then just naturally assumed that the market was full of people like that. So where does that leave the rest of us?

Oh, and I sent in a resume to be a File Clerk. Cause I really know my A-B-C's. Today, I got an e-mail with an attachment from the company. It's a two-page questionnaire I'm supposed to fill out before they bring me in to interview, with questions like: "In an effort to get a better sense of you as a professional and a person, share with us a few unique experiences, challenges, successes, stories etc. that are not evident in your resume. (In your response, please reference the context of the event: employer, size of company, year, and people involved; the tasks involved; the actions taken; and the results.) Provide as many job relevant experiences as you deem appropriate, but we recommend three to five." Or "have you ever been a member of a company with less than twenty employees?" Not to mention the ever popular "what type of career growth opportunities are you looking for and within what time frames?

This is for a friggin' File Clerk position. What kind of answer can you give for the "career growth opportunities" question? "Umm, I hope to move up to Administrative Assistant position someday" or "I want to move up on the rapidly expanding field of filing because I really enjoy alphabetizing?"

Speaking of putting down the pipe.....

"In the first poll since John Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination, Kerry and President Bush are tied while independent Ralph Nader has captured enough support to affect the outcome, validating Democrats' fears.

The Republican incumbent had the backing of 46 percent, Kerry 45 percent and Nader, the 2000 Green Party candidate who entered the race last month, was at 6 percent in the survey conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs."

You know, I saw old Ralph on Bill Mahler's show on HBO. He came off as that kind of senile old Uncle whose clearly not nearly as sharp as he used to be and has long descended into some weird paranoid delusional state. The kind of uncle who keeps on spinning all these weird conspiracy stories that kind makes sense for the first couple of bits and then quickly spins completely out of control. He's another couple of years away from being Grandpa Simpson.

Just checked my e-mail and saw I got a response for my resume. So I check out the e-mail and see that it's not about the job, it's from somebody who found my resume online and had a question for me. Apparentely, having recently decided to move into the type of job I do after years of doing something else, they had recently just gotten a job doing what I do and wanted some advice.

Where do I even begin?

Say it ain't so, Barry….

Yeah, the whole steroids in baseball thing is pretty bad. As cynical as I'd like to be about it, I can't be. I don't like it. The thing that gets me about the whole controversy, though, is the fact that baseball is taking it on the chin. Yeah, they got a pretty weenie drug testing program, but in reality, so does the NBA and the NFL. Both have policies that sound good, but when you get to the fine print, they're both jokes. Or do you really believe that 350 pound lineman can run and jump as well as they can?

Ladies and Gentleman, the Vice-President of the United States:

"If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had."

Put down the pipe Dick, put down the pipe.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Vice-President of the United States:

"If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had."

Hel-lo?

I'm watching John Edwards give his farewell speech after conceding defeat and I noticed that there's this guy right behind him, following the camera, on his cell phone and waving to, I'm guessing, the other person on the phone.

You sir, are a doofus. A big doofus.

So yeah, the Oscars were pretty boring. I was actually kind of happy watching them, though, mainly because most of the people I wanted to win won (yay Sophia Coppola). All except for Bill Murray who looked really upset when he lost. Bill plays the ironic character so well that it's shocking to see him actually and honestly, be sad about something. Cheer up Bill, we all love you.

But man, I hate the whole red carpet thing. I mean, we're at war, it's an Election year, and Paris Hilton is suing her ex-boy-toy over proceeds of the sex tape and yet all everyone cares about is what somebody is wearing. I actually feel sorry for all the celebs at the red carpet. There they are, all decked out to the nines after weeks and weeks of diets, exercise and colonics only to be picked on by Joan Rivers. How would you like your appearance being made fun of by someone whose had so many skin tucks that it looks like she's wearing saran wrap? Imagine you're like Renee Zellwiger and you picked out what you think is this totally lovely, fabulous dress and when you show up, everyone's like "Oh my God, can you believe she's wearing that thing? What is she thinking? Hel-lo?" It's like when you were in High School and you bought what you thought was this total kick-ass, totally cool outfit and when you show up, everyone laughs at you (which, of course, never happened to me).

You know another thing I was wondering about is the whole kissing. It's always awkward when you greet somebody and you never know whether you're going hug or kiss or what have you. Some people are kissers, some people are huggers, and some people are neither. As awkward as that whole thing can be on a day-to-day level, imagine how awkward it is to do at the Oscars while going to get your award. Like you've won an award and Scarlett Johannsen announced your name. Do you hug her? Do you kiss her on the cheek? And if you do kiss her on the cheek how do you do it without making it seem like the only reason you want to kiss her is because she's hot? How do you communicate that when you're going up to receive the award? Do you go for the cheek? Is there some sort of Hollywood Hand Signal that we don't know about? And just imagine how dumb you'd look if you go in for the kiss but get the hug back.

Oh yeah, the Best Song of the Year, which I forgot to mention, was totally not that dumb song from "RoTK." It's the song Jack Black sings at the end of "School of Rock." That song does indeed rock.