Just filled out another online job form (took me about ten minutes to do) and this one drove me crazy because it constantly asked for the particular country of either where I live or where I worked. This wouldn't be a big deal but you had to use a drop-down menu to get to your country and this brings up one of my big pet peeves about a lot of drop-down menus-

Basically, I hate it when either USA or America is not like the first option and instead, you have to scroll all the way down into the "U" for "United States of America." Yes, call me a small-minded America firster.

Now, I know what you're saying-- why should we get priority over, say, China or Denmark?

Well, to that I answer it's a job in America. With an American company.

So you might say, but a lot of companies are multi-national corporations and have places all over the world.

Well, to that I said there's a good chance that the company is only in America

So what if you're wrong and the company is in more places than you think?

Well, to that I said that might be true but do they really have to put Uganda, North Korean and Djubuti in your menu as I'm pretty sure Company X is not doing business in Pyongyang. And do you have to have between 5-10 instances where you have to enter the country because I wasted like five minutes constantly scrolling past those countries and others like Albania and Afghanistan. I mean, it's a company that's involved in cable TV and I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of cable in Albania and I'm really, really positive you cannot watch "Project Runway" on the Lifetime Channel even if you are a CIA operative living in the embassy.

And to that, you say, "yeah, that's a little friggin ridiculous."

I hate doing thank you notes after an interview as I see it as one more possible chance to screw something up. Like they could be about to hire me and HR is already to find out if I should make shit loads of money or loads of money but then I send a thank you note with a misspelled word or a typo and here comes the "sorry, we're going with somebody else" email. All this worry despite the fact that from most indications, it doesn't matter. It's just another hoop to go through-- a box you're supposed to check-- and it's hazy as to whether or not people even read it. Yet, still, I find them nerve wracking to do.

During yesterday's interview, I met with five other people. For every person with whom I had to meet, I had about half an hour with them and when that time was up, they'd bring in the next person. And yes, it's grueling. But the question I had this morning-- the day after-- was that if I were going to send a thank you note, should I just send one to the boss, the entire group as a whole, or all five of them individually. The answer? Send one to each individual person. This meant having to write and send five thank you notes.

Okay, yes, I could just write one and send it all to the same people but most people said it's good to personalize it a bit to make it seem less like it's a form letter. This is also important because all of the people with whom I talked to all worked next to each other so if I did just copy the same text into each email, they'd all notice it. Again, it might not matter at all, but it could. This meant adding a little personal bit to each email which meant that, yes, that's five more chances to screw it up.

Took me all afternoon to get up the courage to finally send them. It didn't help that I kept on having images of all of them sitting there next to each other getting pinged by my thank you note within seconds of each other.

Lively Up Myself

That whole confusion over phone numbers worked itself out pretty easily and as a result, I have an interview in a few hours. The thing is that while talking to the person who interviewed me, she at one point asked me if I don't mind traveling as the company has several off-sites that everyone attends. Later, when things were going rather well, she asked again if not only can I travel but would I be able to soon and have a passport. When I pressed her, she said the next off-site is in December and whomever they hire has to go despite the fact they just started a few weeks before the off-site. Thus the question about the passport. Oh, and the offsite? It'll be in Jamaica.

So, great, as if I don't have enough pressure on me just to get the job, I know now there's also a free trip to Jamaica riding on it.

And one more thing...

...so the phone number that was given to me goes to the desk of another person, another person who doesn't appear to be there as she never picks up the phone. The phone with which the HR person called me doesn't quite work as it just rings and rings and rings. Then I decided to look up the office's phone number and found it on Google and so I called. It's a customer service line for something the company offers. I looked up the phone number in the white pages and Yelp only to discover they had the same wrong number too. Then I called 411 and, hold on to your seats, it was the same incorrect number. Either the company lied about their office phone number or just recently changed it and the new number hasn't taken hold yet.

So, in other words, I'm not exactly sure what to do here.

Today's Job Update

I never heard back from the dumbass HR woman, the one who left me with such an ambiguous voice mail that I thought I had a job, about the status of the job as supposedly they were to have let me know mid-way last week. I'm pretty sure I didn't get it and I'm pretty sure I'm somewhat okay with it but I'd at least like to know for sure, especially in light of her making such a production out of that one phone call, and I've decided to hound her until I get an answer about the job. If she's going to be such a shitty HR person, I'm going to at least make her do her job and have to tell me I didn't get the job. I'm also doing this so she'll have to feel whatever sort of pain involved in telling somebody they don't have a job. If HR people do, in fact, feel pain.

This morning I emailed her only to find out she's now on vacation. For two weeks.

Anyways, this morning I got a call about another job. Funny thing about this one-- the HR person gave me the wrong # to call her back at.

Last weekend, I went to a wedding and while telling everyone my new found-love of Denmark, I heard from a Swedish woman who told me that everything I had heard about Denmark was true and that Denmark was a wondrous country full of shiny, happy people with not a care in the world as they lived on the Happiest Place on Earth. Even compared to Sweden who, despite the fact ABBA came from there, were a little bit more prone towards melancholy and sadness.

I am in love.

This made me think about why I've become feeling so socialist these days, more so than I usually am. And here's why-- I've been laid off at least three times in my life. How's that American Style capitalism working for me?

The other day, I was sitting in the jacuzzi at the Y and eavesdropping on a fifty-something guy talking to somebody else about his plight. He got a Masters in Computer Electronics when he was in school and has been a computer engineer all of his life. He recently got laid off from Microsoft and now he's basically looking for work, plowing through his savings, and coming close to running out unemployment. When the guy he was talking to asked what he was going to do, the man, with a barely disguised tone of disgust and despair in his voice, said that all the experts and politicians says he needs to go to community college to either sharpen his skills or learn something new. This man was in his 50's, had about thirty years of experience and a good education and now he was staring at the reality of having to go back to school to learn something new so he can get a lower-end job that would probably pay him at least half of what he was making before.

How's American style capitalism working for him?

Then there's this story, about how in order to survive, companies are cutting salaries, health care benefits, and 401K payouts. Somebody commented in the story about how he took a 10% pay cut in order to keep his job but was now slowly coming to realize that it'll probably take him 3-4 years before he can ever get enough in raises to get back to the salary he had before. On top of that, he's now paying more for health care so his expenses have gone up and he's earning less for retirement which means he either has to take more money out of his salary for retirement or retire later in life. Or work at Safeway.

So, how's American-style capitalism working for him and all the other people in the same boat?

Just wondering-- when you write a check, how does the bank and or credit card company and or gas company know exactly the amount you're filling out the check for? Yes, it's really kind of easy in a lot of regards in that a lot of people have nice, clear handwriting and take the time to write their check with their nice handwriting but a lot of people (not me, of course) have bad handwriting and don't spend a lot of time making their checks legible. So, if say, you fill out a check for $28.78 but make the $28.78 part (or even the name of the company you're writing out the check for) so illegible that it doesn't even look like $28.78, how is the bank supposed to know? Do they just guess? Have handwriting experts to study it? Just take out a lot of money thinking that that's what the check writer would want?

Last week, I had that job interview, the one I wrote earlier about getting the wrong instructions from the HR person. When the interview was over, I was told that I'd hear a decision about the job next Wednesday. That Wednesday being tomorrow.

About an hour ago, I got a voice mail message from the HR person saying "blah...blah...blah...I just wanted to talk you...blah...blah...blah...see what your availability is." Now, first off, HR people never call you about a job unless you get it-- if you don't get it, you get an email. Second of all, it's the day before I'm supposed to know. And finally, there's those magic words "availability." Why that word? All of this made me very cooly and calmly think about the possibility THAT THEY WERE ABOUT TO OFFER ME A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all, why the call? And the words "availability?" Now that could have meant meeting with other people, or so I realized after almost having a heart attack, but I did have an interview with President of the company. Who else would I need to meet with?

Oh yeah, and there's the fact I'm not necessarily sure I'd like the job, let alone be good with it.

Heart racing, I called the HR person back, thinking that it was either-- at best-- the start of the long negotiation at employment or --at worst-- the scheduling of one more interview round.

It was neither-- the HR person was just calling me back to get feedback about last week's meeting. A week after the meeting. Not the day after or the day or but a week after. It was also to tell me they'll have a decision tomorrow. Which they said would happen-- last week.

Oh, when I called and introduced myself, she said "how did it go this morning." To which I naturally paused as I had no idea what she was talking about. Which means there's a very probably chance she called me instead of the person who interviewed there this morning.

This week's Love/Hate U2 Index

I read a write up of U2's big show in Dallas and there was a listing of celebrities who went to the show, including Tiger Woods. Right before "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" Bono decides to dedicate the song to Tiger. So I'm thinking, can you think of a more blatant rock star move, to dedicate a well-beloved song, inspirational song to a bajillionaire sports athlete whom you hang out with? And the way it's done makes it come off as one big inside joke between the world-famous rock star and the world-famous golfing icon. "Yeah, this song goes out to my buddy Tiger Woods who was just saying he'd like to win more tournaments and make millions of dollars-- take it away Edge!!!!!!!!"

What's next, dedicating to "One" to the rumored-to-be squabbling Brangelina and Bono's neighbors in the South of France? "Beautiful Day" to all the recently laid off investment bankers who managed Bono's portfolio?

I've been slacking off at the gym for the past few weeks and haven't really seriously gone in awhile. When I started going again, I noticed that several people who are always there were no longer there. This was a little disconcerting in that I started to wonder where could they have gone to in the few weeks that I had stopped going? Unless they suddenly decided to not go to the gym, why wouldn't I see them again? To make things even more intriguing is that one of them, the super crazy fitness girl, was no longer at the gym, but there were pictures of her all over the gym. Had she achieved such a state of fitness perfection that she had ascended to a higher fitness plane?

And today I saw them, both of them, working out as if nothing had changed. Everything is back in it's right place.

Last week I went to use my ATM/Credit card to buy a bottle of wine and the card got denied. As in can't use the ATM card AT ALL. This is always a scary thing, especially when you're unemployed and not bringing in a lot of income. Oh, I have money and I knew I had money when I bought the wine, but still there were a few moments there when I was thinking "oh shit, I'm broke. I guess I'm going to be sharing the cat food with the cat."

Turns out one of the places I used the card got hacked over the past week and the bank decided to shut down my card. Great for them but you know, it would have been nice to have known that beforehand.

Now the actual point of this post is completely different, but....

Way back before banks went kablooie, you were able to pay credit cards off online pretty much the day before it was due. This made sense because we have computers and all sorts of fancy technology and it's just a matter of certain beeps connecting with other beeps to create a happy beep. Suddenly, I've been noticing that it's no longer possible for banks to handle payments online in one day. For whatever reason, they say they need three days to handle this. I guess maybe the servers are really busy these days. Or the electronic request gets printed out and give to a Wells Fargo stagecoach to hand over to a bank manager.

Luckily, the banks have figured out a way to help all of us who are sporadically late with our payments, they can actually send the money electronically in a day BUT you have to pay an extra $15. That Wells Fargo stagecoach guy needs to feed his family, you know. I guess what this means is that paying a credit card electronically is like buying something on Amazon these days in that whenever you do it, you have a selection of different shipping options.

God damn fucking banks.

Yesterday's job interview had a whole new wrinkle, that being the HR person telling me to go to the wrong place. Well, actually I went to the right place but it had the wrong Suite # on it and so was sent from the actual place I was supposed to go to the corporate office across the courtyard so I could ping the HR person and ask where the fuck I was supposed to go. I was, of course, officially late when I went up to buzz the HR person and asking a HR person for directions because you're lost never looks good. Yay me.

As I said, I did go to the right place but one of the things that looked screwy was that the entire company was sitting around a conference table having a team meeting. A team meeting that was going on when I was supposed to have an interview. Not a really good time to have to go walking into a place. I eventually said "screw it" and knocked on the door to get somebody's attention but here's the other thing about my instructions from the HR person-- she didn't actually say who I was supposed to meet with so when the person came to get me, all I could say was that I'm here to meet with somebody about an interview but that was about it. Oh, and as I also had the wrong suite #, I was quickly shooed out of there.

Luckily, this all got sorted out fairly quickly and I was brought back into the correct office and placed in a meeting room far, far away from everybody else. Unfortunately, nobody came to meet with me. As I was going on minute 10 I began to debate when I would call the HR person to see what was going on but somebody came in. Then they left and another person came in. Then that was over and when they asked me if I was supposed to meet with anybody else, I told them I had no idea. Since he didn't either, he told me to wait here while he figures out what to do next and if there's nobody else to see, he'll escort me out. Ten minutes later, nobody came. Once again I began to debate whether to call HR or to just wander out.

Luckily somebody else came in, a big tall guy who looked like David Wallace from the Office. He asked me a few basic questions and then moved onto the "so what do you like to do in your free time" type questions, you know, the questions that people ask when they've run out of questions and want to be polite. So wanting to be polite back, I asked the guy what he did at the company. Turns out he was the guy who ran the place. And here he was, hearing me go on about how much I like to watch TV.

The interview ended and he asked me if there was anybody else I was supposed to meet. When I told him I didn't know, he said he'd go find out and then get back to me. And, like everybody else, he wandered off and wandered off and didn't return. One minute...five minutes...almost ten minutes in and he finally returned back so that nope, that was it and I was done and then the guy who ran the company, the guy who founded it and built it escorted me out of the office as if he had nothing else to do with his time.

Got a voice message from one of my recruiters about a possible job that he needed to fill very quickly. In the message he also said that it won't be in the "Bay Area." So I'm thinking, what San Jose? Campbell? Antioch? At this point, sure, why not?

Turns out by "not in the Bay Area" he didn't mean Los Gatos, he meant Austin Texas. Yes, a recruiter from here called me about a job he's looking to fill in Austin Texas.

Now why would he think I'd be interested in a job in Austin? He's either really, really desperate or thinks that I'm really, really desperate. Which I am, but that's a whole other thing. So I added up the pluses and minuses of moving there to try and see whether it's worth or not

Positive
-It's a job and they must be so desperate for a job they'd hire even me
-They must be really desperate for a job
-Austin is supposed to be a really nice
-It's only for six months.

And the negatives?
-It's a bit of a commute
-IT'S IN FUCKING TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously, I'm not going to even think about it. Unless the recruiter offers to fly me down there myself in which case I'll go but only because, hello "free trip!"

Another thing about going to the theater

-Before the movie started, I went to the bathroom where I was, umm, in a position where I wasn't standing and heard this loud whooosh sound, like a train going past followed by some mild shaking and the rattling of the bathroom stall walls. First reaction was that it was an earthquake but strangely didn't panic or make much of it for whatever reason (that's kind of atypical of me, actually, as being on a toilet during any sort of bad thing is a huge phobia of mine and if anybody says that's silly and they don't have that fear, they are lying). Instead, it occurred to me, that what happened was that a movie next to the bathroom was so loud that it rattled the men's room. Yay Hollywood!

-As usual, there was the assortment of people talking through the movie which was slightly tolerable since it's a horror movie and that's what you kinda do in horror movies as it's a good way to relieve tension or share what you're going through with people. Still, it's hard to tell that all of this is because it's a horror movie or because they like talking in movies. Then there was the guy with the cell phone. Now, sadly, we've all gotten to the point where we all kind of expect somebody to bust out a cell phone during a movie. However, whipping your cell phone out towards the end of the movie as what should be obvious as the final scene of the movie, the scene that the entire movie had been building to and the scene where the big, big, big scares happen is slightly on the you're a motherfucking doucehbag asshole side of things.

Went to "Paranormal Activity," that super low-budget film that could and could also scare the crap out of people, and as Harlan and I were in line outside the theater, we noticed a woman with one of those annoying Paris Hilton type dogs stuffed inside her sleeveless jacket walking towards the ticket line. It took us a few seconds to realize that what she was going to try and do was bring the dog into the movie. And not only that, she was going to do it by stuffing the dog into her jacket so that she could close the jacket around the dog and sneak into the theater with the dog so stuffed inside the jacket that nobody would notice about a big bulge coming out of her jacket.

The obvious question is "what the hell is she thinking?" followed quickly by "what the fuck?" Who the hell brings a dog into a movie theater? What is she going to do once she gets in there, let the dog roam free? Keep the dog in her jacket? It might make sense if she were seeing a quiet, thoughtful, indie type movie but my guess is she was there to see your typical blow 'em up movie which I'm sure a dog would love to be present for what with dogs noted love of loud noises. I'm really sure somebody in the audience would love to be unable to hear something due to a dog barking in a movie. Or because the dog was running around and trying to bite your leg.

When I saw her, we were close to handing in our ticket and I thought about saying something. I, of course, did nothing. I did talk about the woman really loud in line but I don't think anybody heard me or even cared. I also thought about telling security but I mainly thought about saying something while in the movie and not even close to a time when anybody could do anything about it. I'm also pretty sure that even those people in the theater who noticed a dog sitting near them didn't say anything. And so a woman who stuffed a dog into her jacket to sneak it into a theater pretty much got away in doing so another line in jackass movie theater behavior has been crossed and Western Civilization moves a little closer to it's end.

Fear of Flying

I am not a good flyer. I'm actually a really bad one these days-- completely anxious, terrified, and doped up on tranquilizers. I haven't had one in awhile, but I have occasionally had a full blown "JESUS CHRIST, I NEED TO GET OFF THIS THING!!!!!" panic attack several times in the past. The thing is, though, that I've flown probably over 100 times in the past, including many long flights overseas, and didn't have a problem. My fear of flying seems to only have occurred in the past five years or so.

Recently I flew back east and while fending off another panic attack, I began to think about my fear of flying and how it's one of the more common fears out there and how there's a good chance that I'm not the only one freaking out. Here's what I came up with:

Okay, say you're on a flight of about 100 people. I'd say that maybe 3/4's of them are perfectly fine and happy, or at least as fine and happy as one can be on a plane flight. That means that maybe a quarter of the people on the plane aren't as fine and happy as the others and are struggling a bit on the plane. A good many of those people are dealing with it through the simple usage of tranquilizers (something shared by many in the plane who are not freaking out) and a few on top of that are using some sort of mental practice/act they learned from somebody (deep breathing techniques, constant thought about puppies) to calm themselves down. Which leaves us with maybe five (?) at the most (least?) who are having full blown, heart pounding, "GET ME OFF THIS THING" panic attacks and are having them throughout most of the flight. So while you're walking up and down the aisle or avoiding the random stranger whose too fat for their seat, just think that there's a slight chance they could be praying to their God at that very moment.

This got me wondering about Flight Attendants and how many times they have to deal with a passenger who is freaking the shit out at various times during a flight. Like they try to get off the flight before it takes off or thinks they're having a heart attack or some other example of bad, bad mental shit going down. Once a flight? Every once in awhile? Once a year? Never? Are Flight Attendants trained in calming people down? Is there anything they can do? Anything they should do? After all, other passengers on a plane are probably not thrilled with sitting nearby a passenger who is screaming out loud about death and crashes. I always wondered if Flight Attendants had valium somewhere on the plane that they whip out for freaked out passengers but was told they didn't for the somewhat logical reason that it could easily lead to law suits if things go down.

Either way, I still hate flying.

I'm Leaving, On a Jetplane....

If you ever want to see an example of the American caste system at work, nothing illustrates it more than taking a trip on an airplane. When most of us have to stand in often long lines to check in, first class passengers get their own special, short line. While we have to muddle on through long security lines and take off our shoes, first class passengers just basically walk through their very own security line where they get waived on through in seconds. What? First class passengers can't be potential terrorists! They're First Class Passengers! Terrorists would never buy an expensive plane ticket to fly somewhere and blow it up! Once past security, we have to spend countless hours walking up and down a dull and dizzying array of bookstores and chain food restaurants to kill time First Class Passengers, however, get to have their very own special lounge where they get to sip mai tais, watch tv, and who knows-- get massages from Thai women in slinky dress. It's hard to know what exactly goes on in those lounges as very often, we can't see them, hidden as they are from the gaze of the unwashed masses.

Then, of course, comes the actual flight. First Class Passengers get to board first and then sit comfortably in their wide and comfortable seats while the rest of us have to sit in the cramped, narrow, tight main cabin where kids run up and down the aisles, food consists of two packs of pretzels, and you have to contort yourself in often unusual positions to keep from getting elbowed by the person next to you. Naturally, this is never seen by the people in First Class as there's usually some sort of drape that gets pulled between the two sections so the First Class doesn't have to worry about having their comfortable, relaxing trip sullied by views of the untouchables. They even have their own bathroom so as to prevent them to have to shit in the same toilets as the rest of us.

And as the plane ride ends and the pilot says his farewells, thanks is given to everyone who flew, but most especially the First Class and Business Class fliers for their blessing the airline with their presence. It is often at this moment that I wonder whether we too should thank the people in the First Class too for blessing us with their presence.