We Appreciate Your Interest in Our Company

I find that when I want to make fun of someone's spelling, it's best to misspell words myself. It's just one of those self-deprecating things I do.

 

I am siding with Ballsack on this one also. Twenty years ago I decided to open my own CPA practice as I felt all my bosses were dicks. Twenty years later, I still work for a dick of a boss, unfortunatly it is me and I can no longer just quit.

Really, it was the best thing I could have ever done for myself as back then I was no longer a good employee as I thought the owners were going about things wrong and treating their employees and customers badly. I needed at the time to either "shut the fuck up" and give my bosses an honest days work, or go out on my own.

 

Okay, this brings up so many questions: How is that legal? How is it supposed to benefit anyone? Whose idea was it?


About the phony job interviews: The college I used to work for would do that too. Same reason: They had to prove that they weren't just giving all the jobs to people already in the company (even though that's exactly what they were doing most of the time).
I was the one who had to check the references for all those resumes.

 

I guess I worded that badly... it's not ACTUAL policy, it's just how people "do things" here, so to speak. It's a hiring trend, and I've seen it too many times: the experienced, educated go-getter who is surely right for the job gets the shaft simply because Ricky "can totally vouch for his bro". Sad, huh?

 

This is true of pretty much every city and town and community in the entire world.

 

I don't understand this. Maybe it's because I work for a country big on hiring people at the entry level and promoting them (rather than always hiring people directly into higher positions), but what is wrong with internal hires that a company would officially have a policy against it? Or is this just a thing in companies where HR do all the hiring and nobody trusts them not to be fuckups about it?

 

So towards the end of law school I began applying to various places. One of the places I was most excited about was the Army JAG. The idea of being an Army prosecutor was incredibly attractive to me, plus being an officer in the military, plus the countless opportunities after or going career, and so on and so forth. So anyway, I go through the process and wait. Then one day I'm sitting at my internship with the City Solicitor's Office of Revere when I get an e-mail. It's an acceptance from the Army JAG! I got in! It had some information and forms and told me my next steps.

I was on cloud nine. Vistas opened before me. My future was going to be amazing. I would have to move to Virginia after training, but I had a lot of friends there and my then-girlfriend (now wife) was willing to move back there with me. It would be exciting and challenging and I couldn't wait.

Five hours later I got another e-mail "We're sorry, but due to a computer glitch..." I was crushed. Utterly and completely crushed.

 

I've got my past four jobs not because of anyone I know in the companies (nobody) but because of who knows me and is willing to vouch for me. Having some noteworthy people on your reference list goes a long way.

It's not bullshit, it's me working hard enough to meet and earn the respect of others.

 

Knowing someone in a company you're applying too goes a long way, assuming they vouch for you. It basically allows you to pass the bullshit test, assuming the person interviewing you trust the opinion of this person. But having someone vouch for you only goes so far. Your friends co-worker won't hire you because they swear you're a really great guy, you still have to go through the interview process and hopefully not fuck it up. But all that said, it will get your foot in the door and get you noticed which means a lot.

 

This wasn't as much of a dick move as the ones in my original post, but in the vein of glitches and networking, this was my most heartbreaking job hunting story:

About a month before I graduated, I sent a package to editors of about a dozen magazines with my resume, cover letter, and a copy of the magazine I published for my thesis with the optimistic/naive idea of it getting me a job right after graduation. I got a few offers for internships, when they replied at all, and a nice letter (in the mail! on real paper!) from the editor at Bon Appetit I wrote saying they were fully staffed, which was the nicest rejection ever. But most of them I never heard from.

Six months later, I get an email from the managing editor of Glamour saying that she and the features editor were looking for an assistant, and she had been looking for an opportunity for me since she got my package, and asked if I was still available to interview. She sent it on a Friday while I was on a bus to Boston, but I replied right away saying that I would absolutely want to interview and just let me know the details. I was so excited. It was just one of those great job success stories that you hear about, if it was going to work out. I didn't hear from her all the next week, but I wasn't just going to let it go, so I wrote her again the next week. A few days later, she wrote to say she was so sorry, but the features editor had already promised the position to someone she already knew, but she hadn't been aware of the decision when she wrote me. I never even got to interview. I cried for a day.

On a related note, I also sent that package to A.J Jacobs, the editor-at-large of Esquire and the author of a couple of books. I didn't hear from him right away, but a little while later I sent a follow up email. He wrote back an hour later, saying he hadn't gotten the package because he hadn't been in the office a lot recently, but he was impressed with my resume/credentials and offered me the Fall editorial internship that year. I was really hoping for a paid position (although Esquire has one of the only paid magazine publishing internships, I just didn't know it at the time), but it wasn't exactly an offer I could pass up. Especially when the editor-at-large hands it to you directly. He told me I just had to get in touch with whichever editor lower down the totem pole was directly in charge of handling internship applications. I wrote that guy an email, telling him that A.J Jacobs had offered me the internship (which made me feel like such an ass, but it's not what you know it's who you know amirite?), and he directed me to the general application online. I thought that was stupid, but completed it anyway. A while later, I realized I hadn't heard anything, so I wrote him again to check in. And he told me the internship had been filled. BITCH THE FUCKING EDITOR-AT-LARGE GAVE ME THAT INTERNSHIP. I would've felt like too much of a sniveling twat to argue with him over it, especially under those circumstances, but god damn it still makes me so angry a year later.

EDIT: Also, that summer I had an informational interview at Teen Vogue (which I knew was an informational interview and not a real interview, because that's how it's supposed to be, and I was the one who set it up), and I referred to Anna Wintour as "Mamma Bear." It doesn't go with the focus, but that's one of my favorite job-hunting-related stories.

 

I was once interviewed for a position at a small marketing firm. I met with the co-owner (the marketing guy, apparently), and we had a good conversation where he asked the usual questions asked in interviews ("Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" was one of those - It really is a stupid fucking question, isn't it?) and read over my C.V., which is admittedly short and pathetic, but I warned him of that before reading it. After the interview, he thanked me for coming but that my skill set doesn't match what they required. I asked how I didn't fit in, so I could find out what else I would need to secure employment elsewhere - he then said they were not interviewing for a marketing position (as his secretary had told me when setting up the appointment) but for a project management position.

I thanked him for wasting my time and then left. I felt confident that burning that bridge was correct, since he had deliberately led me on and I will not work for someone like that.

I could've rather slept in for those 2 extra hours instead of going to that waste of an interview.

 

Dear employers. If you list a position on a University's job site. And you list that position as entry level. And that position has a minimum requirement of 3-5 years experience. Go fuck yourself.

 

I had a position I applied for a few years ago, I called back and the store manager set me up for an interview.

I show up on time, and am told he's in a meeting. Which lasts nearly another hour. While I wait.

Then he comes out, asks my name, and tells me he can't find my application.*

He has me fill out another, comes back after I wait an additional 15 minutes, asks me a few generic questions, and says he doesn't have anything open, but he'll keep the application on file.**

*This is the point where I should have followed Durbanite's example.

**This is the point where I should have said "Fuck you."

I still don't know how I managed to walk out of there calmly. The only outward sign of anger I showed was snorting at his proffered hand and walking.

 

I love the mandatory 20 minute wait most offices make you endure when you had a scheduled interview.

I get it, your time is more valuable than mine. Fuck you.

 

Even if they offer a job after pulling that, it gives a very bad impression.

After I had calmed down about that interview, I found myself thinking I was probably lucky I hadn't been offered a position.

 

I posted this on my Facebook a couple of weeks ago (I finally got a job which starts tomorrow):

In this economy, asking an interviewee "Why do you want to work for OUR (particular) company?" is ridiculously retarded. I have given roughly the same modified answer 4 times this week! Because fuck you! That's why!!! I can't WAIT to start dating again! The first guy to ask me why I want to suck HIS particular dick gets a cookie!

It must be for the interviewer's own amusement. That's all I can figure. Why else would you willingly set yourself up to hear endless mounds of bullshit?

 

I had an interview a couple years ago with one of the top lobbyists in the state. I wasn't going to get paid a lot, and it was only going to last during the four month Legislative Session, but it would have looked great on my young resume.

The interview went perfectly and she all but hired me on the spot. I sent her a follow-up email thanking her for her time and even said I would work for a little bit less - that I really just wanted to learn from her and have the experience. She replied graciously, saying she just had to talk to her partners and said she would be in touch with me in a couple days. Several days go by and I don't hear anything - so I email her. The next day she essentially responds with, "sorry hired someone else, kthxbi". Totally impersonal and quick.

A couple weeks later I'm in Miami on vacation, having a great time, and she calls me up to ask if I would still want to work for her. She tells me she ended up hiring a family friend as a favor and it hadn't worked out at all. She really needed someone as soon as possible, and I would be perfect, yeah! OKAY?!

Fortunately, I had found a way better, full time job in the meantime.

I let her finish her plea, waiting anxiously for my moment. When she was done, I replied as nonchalantly as possible,

"Nah, I'm good, thanks!" CLICK.

 

I completed my second Master's this September, and promptly (and somewhat optimistically) set about looking for a job. You'd think that with a double Master's in International Law & International Relations / Counter-Terrorism, given the current political climate I'd literally be the most employable white-collar individual on the planet, but you'd be wrong. I've sifted through pages upon pages of jobs and EVERY SINGLE FUCK ONE OF THEM requires multiple years of experience in the field, immediately plunging me into the evil, evil Vicious Circle of Doom, i.e. Can't Work Because Of Lack of Experience - Can't Get Experience Because Can't Work.

Ah well, thought I, demoralised but not defeated, after two months of polite "thanks, but no thanks". I'll just do some internships for a bit, accrue the required office/relevant experience, and apply in a few months' time. But hey, guess what? The fucking INTERNSHIPS require previous cunt-fucking internship experience, or else you can't apply. What the fuck is this, Intern-fucking-ception? Guess what dicks, I was too busy, you know, STUDYING and working part-time in college to do any bullshit fucking internships!

Currently I'm about to quit my internship (I assess screenplays for an editorial studio, from home no less) because they literally just forwarded me a copy of a studio manual, which explained how the assessments need to be formatted, and then slammed me with a minimum of four scripts a day that I have to grade and in some cases write in-depth coverage on. I've never received any compensation (God forbid), guidance, or anything beyond one line of feedback for the whole past month. I've also been resent scripts multiple times, leading me to believe they must have hundreds of saps like me just toiling away so they don't have to do any of that shit themselves, or pay someone to do it.

In fact, on that note, FUCK internships. It enrages me that for every good paid (or unpaid) one out there that actually teaches you the ropes of working in an office environment or how things function in that particular company there are a thousand that basically just let the company use you like their goddamn fucking slave. I have several friends who have to go make coffees, pick up their boss's cars from the repair shop, do photocopying, etc. Why the fuck did we bother graduating if we have to work for free doing shit a secretary would find degrading? THIS IS NOT WHAT I SPENT FIVE FUCKING YEARS IN COLLEGE FOR.


Right now, I'm submitting applications to get a research grant and do a PhD, because not only do I get pretty much the exact same money I would as a starting salary in an actual office, but hopefully in three years the economy will have unfucked itself sufficiently for me to get an actual job, rather than have to spend money commuting for the privilege of doing someone's fucking printing for them.