Diary of a Mad Unemployed Black Woman

I'm convinced that these companies are posting job openings just to make the economy look better.  I have been emailing this one station down the street from me for months.  They have been posting the same job since forever.  Last Thursday, I worked up the nerve to actually go to the place and hand in my reel along with a resume, some references and a cover letter.  I asked if it would be possible to speak to someone and  was told by the (very friendly) front desk person that the HR guy was too busy but that the next day would be better and I should just stop by then.  Well, I stopped by the next day and the HR guy walked right past me without saying a word.  And then I was told by the front desk person that he was too busy.  Too busy?!  Too busy to tell someone that "the job is no longer open"?  Too busy to say, "We're sorry but we're considering other candidates"?  Too busy to say, "You are perfect for the job but I just don't like your face, so please get out of here"?  I mean anything . . . tell me ANYTHING but at least have the decency and respect for me as a human being to speak.  I don't understand why I am getting the same exact response from all of these jobs  . . . which is no response whatsoever.  Well, actually I can understand it a little because for all of the other jobs, I just emailed or snail-mailed my resume.  But in this particular case, I was literally sitting in the lobby.  The ONLY person in that little-ass lobby, in that empty-ass building.  And the man was too "busy" to tell me anything.  Whatever.  And I know I sound crazy, right now.   But I can assure you, I did not stalk dude.  Actually, he emailed me 6 months ago and told me to apply to the job in the first place.  And when I did, I didn't hear back from him.  And then all of these months later, the job is open again and I sent another resume and followed up by stopping by the station to drop off my reel.  It's really not all that serious and I guess that's where my frustration comes from.  If I'd have been disrespectful or over the top, I could understand his ignoring/avoiding me.  But I have done nothing deserving of disrespect and the only thing I want to know is if the job is still available and if maybe - just maybe - I could get an interview.

Regardless, I am determined to do things on my own.  I will continue to work on my "brand" and try to get my little video productions going until one day I am successful.  Sometimes I consider going back to school and getting a Master's but I am obsessed with paying off my old student loans before making new ones.  On a more positive note, I am grateful that I have some experience under my belt and that I am not new to "the struggle."

Life will turn itself around.  I'm just wondering when and how.

The Down-Side and the Up-Side

Well, it's been a while.

But to catch you up the interview never happened. I have never had so many things go wrong in one day. Long story short, it felt like the heavens opened up and the Universe took a sh** on my life. I don't really want to write down a lot of detail, but my boyfriend's car broke down on the way there and the rest went down in bad story history. Of course, no recruiter wants to hear a sob story about a broke down car or someone having to be late so my job prospect went up in smoke.

But out of the flames of this tragedy comes a phoenix of hope. Immediately after everything went down, my best friend invited me over to drown my tears in a glass of wine. I took a couple days to myself to rest and rethink my next move. After this, I started to realize that in order to survive, I'm going to have to lead my own destiny. I can't continue to beg someone to hire me. That's obviously not working. I have to create my own income. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's anger . . . but whatever the case is, I'm fed up. I have the education, the drive, the resources and it's time to stop basing my survival on someone else's perception of me. At the end of the day, my future can't rest on the shoulders of some middle-aged, white lady from human resources. I have to take my future into my own hands. And I'm ready to do that.

Monkeys and Monkey Business

Saw Planet of the Apes and I'm back in "Ebert" mode. It was awesome! The monkeys climbing everywhere, looking like angry little humans. I was the only douche-bag saying "awwww!" at all the wrong times.

The gorilla escapes from the cage for the first time . . . awwww!!!

Caesar bashes some guy's head in . . . awwww!!!

The orangutan . . . well, I don't know. Just awwww!!!

The concept was good, and I could really sympathize with those simians. Probably because of my current situation. For some reason, seeing the oppression and hopelessness of the apes just trying to get through the day (maybe I'm internalizing this, LOL) reminded me of being unemployed.

I've really been in "fight the man" mode which is probably not good for getting a job. Thank goodness my "power to the people" moments have mainly been in the privacy of my own home and not on the internets (except here) or the streets. In my job hunting life, I try to keep it as professional as humanly possible. But that's kind of the problem. It seems to me that the new thing is to go beyond professionalism, go beyond just applying for a job and try to actually pal around with the recruiters. Facebook them, Tweet them, Linked-in them, Google plus them. Impress them, wow them. RAZZLE DAZZLE them. If you think I'm being a smart-@ss, you're right. I am. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. I've been following the advice, seeking out recruiters and networking my booty off but really I find the process demeaning and ridiculous. I miss the days where you could apply to a job and know that your resume is just as likely to get an interview if you didn't kiss the recruiter's butt. Getting a leg up on the competition meant having a good resume and mailing it off early, maybe walking into the office and handing it to someone as opposed to nowadays where you have to practically go to the secretary's home and sleep at the foot of their bed.

And I honestly think that it's getting to the recruiters' heads. For example, I was reading an article "Tips for Cover Letters" or "What Not to Put on a Cover Letter" (something like that) and the recruiter was talking about how irritated they were that someone put To Whom It May Concern as an opening. It was as if they were offended that the person didn't directly address them by name. "Just do a little research - call the company and ask for a name or just go on the website." Personally, I've done both of those things and 90% of the time, that information is not going to be open to the public. Companies generally don't put recruiter information on websites - I've checked. And I've called companies and received the, "We're not taking any phone calls, please just put 'To Whom It May Concern' on the cover letter" response on more than one occasion.

To be fair, though, I know that these are mechanisms used in order to weed people out. I know that the job market is inundated with job seekers and Human Resources does not have the time (or energy) to look at every single applicant. So in order to cancel people out immediately, they nit-pick and find offense with things that don't really matter. And it's my job, as the applicant, to figure out what those things are regardless of my qualifications and skill. And I also have to be willing to overlook the unprofessionalism that is involved with the folks that do the hiring at these companies. In other words, I have to know how to be an "employee" before I get hired.

Here's a horror story for ya, last year the manfriend applied to a job with a major corporation. After several weeks of vetting and two phone interviews, he drove for 4 hours to the company and interviewed with 5 or 6 people. Immediately after, he did a follow up interview and completed an evaluation of the interview process as well as an essay detailing his experience. He jumped through all of these hoops which were required by the company and received no feedback whatsoever. He called occasionally, maybe once every 2 weeks to find out his status and after maybe 6 months of no responses, he found out that they'd already hired someone else for the job. And this is after the man had sent in so much paperwork, you would have thought he was already an employee.

So I think this is what we have to look forward to in this economy. The last time I had to do this kind of indirect vetting and 'insider information' espionage-like, popularity contest interviewing without any kind of feedback, was when I was pledging my sorority. And to be honest, I think anybody looking for a job nowadays would probably agree. It's just like pledging. But you do what you gotta do. So I'm off to do some more networking. Just needed to get some things off my chest.