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.

Just Saw The Help

So I just saw the movie The Help and being that the manfriend doesn't want to hear me go on and on about it, I figured I'd just give my thoughts on here. First things first, I think it was a good movie. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer did a wonderful job portraying the hard working women that paved the way for Black people today with dignity and grace. As for Emma Stone, she can do no wrong in my book and everybody else did a marvelous job of making me hate them, so I guess that means the acting and storyline was pretty good. The best thing about this movie, in my opinion, is the reaction it gets. Anytime the film industry takes it upon themselves to remember that Black folk even exist and decide to make a movie about us, we start to get a little sensitive. If I could turn my theater seat around and watch the audience, I would. But to tell you the truth, everybody in the audience today absolutely loved it so there was not much to see.

Just yesterday, I was hanging out with my best friend and she was telling me that the movie was forced upon her. She said she didn't want to see it and as far as the book was concerned, she couldn't get past the first chapter. She said the Black people sounded like slaves and the White people were way too racist for her to spend her leisure time getting angry about. I'd read the book and enjoyed it. I thought it was well done and brought up a subject that was worthy of discussion. If anything, I was disappointed that a Black person didn't think to write this book and tell the real story of the women that lived during that time. But it's probably just one of those things that we've just always taken for granted. "My momma cleaned other people's houses just to put food on our table," so on and so forth. I don't know how many times I've heard that and to tell you the truth, my mom has actually raised white children (and some black, lol) as well as cleaned houses and did whatever she had to do to put food on our table so I can definitely relate but never thought to write a story like that.

Anywhoosers, I don't wonder what it would be like to live in that day. To be honest, the only thing I really wonder about is how good the food was (considering that everything was fresher). Shallow, I know . . . but everything else doesn't really, I don't know, get me angry in the way that maybe I'm supposed to be. I mean I get that it was bad. I understand that innocent Black people were hung, shot and murdered all kinds of ways. I know that. Hell, I have an uncle who was lynched back in the 50's. And while I get angry looking at how things were, there's a certain part of me that really shuts off. Maybe it's a coping mechanism but it's kind of hard for my mind not to go numb when I watch the retardedness that went on in those days. There was a point, I think the first time someone used the "N" word in the movie, the Black lady next to me gasped. I turned and rolled my eyes at her like, Really? You're shocked? Or the scene where the White guy commands the maid to make him a sandwich. And again, the lady next to me goes "Wow!" Her reaction kind of made me laugh a little. Sometimes I think that maybe I'm not mentally removed at all. Maybe it's the people who are still shocked that these kinds of atrocities have happened that are removed. I don't think that it was right that the past was so horrible, but I'm far from shocked. Especially with the ignorance that we see going on today.

Like, I feel like I'm always gasping and "wowing" about things that are happening now. Constantly looking around like, "So what are we going to do about this?" And most times people look at me like I was looking at the lady in the movie theater today. Really? You're shocked? Of course I'm shocked. I guess my mind equates ignorance and inequality with the past. It's when I see people being abused and discriminated against nowadays that I really get upset. Will there ever be a time in America's history when one group is NOT being disenfranchised? Or better yet, will there ever be a time when we don't have to actually fight against our own government for what should be "self evident" rights? (Health care, education, the right to work, a clean planet, decent food standards, etc.)

All right, I guess I need to take down my "fight the power" flags and get my butt to bed.

So I'll just end it on this note . . . I greatly appreciate the acknowledgment to the maids who were a significant part of American society in those days and absolutely love the dignified treatment with which their stories were told. Go and see The Help. T'was good!