Tee Emm EYE

There's this little acronym a lot of us throw around as of late- 

good ol' TMI.

(It stands for Too Much Information for those of you that have been living under a rock...)

While there are all kinds of different categories of TMI (including gross bodily function reports, activity in the bedroom reports and strange OCD habits that one should keep to themselves to name just a few) the category I'm going to talk about today falls under what I would simply call "Oversharing". 

One example of Oversharing would be when you're checking out at CVS and the lady behind the register thinks she absolutely HAS to tell you about every inch of her life as fast as she can while scanning all 7 of your items at glacial speed. This exact scenario happened to me a few months back. Poised for action at the only available register open in the entire store, this woman took her sweet damn time scanning my items and pausing between each to blab so much info at me that by the time I was allowed to escape with my said 7 items, I knew the following:

1. She had 3 boys, all of which were finally grown and out of the house.

2. They never cleaned their rooms up. Like ever. Their favorite thing to do was to leave food and dishes underneath their beds where they sat rotting and getting moldy and stinky until she realized half the dishes in the kitchen were permanently missing and she finally went looking.

3. She loves Disneyland. Has to go there at least 6 times a year. Tinkerbell is her favorite.

4. She has a new grandbaby named Eileen. That's from the eldest errant son that left his food under the bed.

5. Her favorite color is purple.

6. She refuses to wear nail polish. Doesn't care how ugly her toes look when she's out in public wearing sandals.

According to my grade school level ability in math, that's almost a story PER item. When all I wanted to do was politely buy my cotton balls, suncreen, bandaids, cat litter, Diet Pepsi, gum and nail polish and GET THE HELL OUT. 

But NO, I had to be subjected to hearing all that.

Now I know, that some of you are sitting there reading this and thinking "Man! What a bitch! She can't even have a polite conversation with some poor woman that's obviously lonely and needs companionship."

And to that I say PFFT and Hooey!

(Gasp!)

Hold on there judgey pants, let me explain why:

It would be one thing if I was the one that started the conversation with her and egged her on and kept adding fuel to the fire, but I didn't. And not only that, there were 5 people in line behind me that were standing there tapping their feet and checking their watches that were just as annoyed as I was. 

And just for the record, I was nice and sweet to her, I answered her back but did not "encourage" her to continue by the way I was answering. It totally didn't matter though.

She had an Overshare Agenda and that was that. 

So- keeping that everyday example in mind...some of these same Oversharing People email me their resumes. And I pinky swear, I sit there with my jaw open when I see the messages come through. They are almost always in the cover note/email to me to go along with the resume, although some of the TMI is on the actual resume itself. Here are some examples that make my mouth gape:

1. "I have a ticket right now and on top of that, I totaled my car."

2. "I am in a wheel chair, I use the bus."

3. "I would love to have an oppertunity with your job but i do have a bankruptcy because my ex was an ass and I had to go over a little rocky road. I curently work as a stat tracker but seeking something that can give well benefits and pay me better. Oh and he kicked me out of the house too, I'm living on a freinds sofa."

4. "I have a car. It's a Honda Civic. License no. F2888 ____"

5. "My social security # is 542- 98- ____"

6. "Jello, I got no lisence driver"

7. "I just got back to L.A. from a family crisis. Because of my unfortunate cirecumstances, I cannot fly out of the state any more so if the job requires me to travel, I will have to turn it down."

8. "Sorry I haven't payed my cell phone bill yet and I have the wrong number on my resume so if you could white it out and fix it, that would be gret, you can reach me at 818-358- ____"

9. "I would love to appli but I'm working on cleaning up all lil problems right now."

and on and on it goes... you get the idea.

So people? I didn't need to know any of that.

But here's what I WANTED to say back to them, item by item:

1. Sorry to hear that. 

2. Dude, we don't discriminate. If you can get yourself around and have skills, no prob.

3. Ex's can be asses. That's a given. But do I need to know you're in the middle of a mess and living on somebody's sofa? Uh, no.

4. I'm happy you have a car. And a Honda Civic at that. Those are nice. But why the HELL would you give me your license number?? OMG

5. And speaking of OMG- 

OMG OMG OMG!!

WHY would you put your social security number on your resume? This has happened a few times and the last guy was a Marine, and I IMMEDIATELY  emailed him and told him to take his resume off the job boards and fix it. (And then I thanked him for his service after I lectured him.)

6. First of all, Jello is a dessert. And unless you're Bill Cosby and you're pushing Puddin' Pops, you shouldn't be starting off your salutation to anybody like that. And same thing I said to wheel chair guy applies to you Jello boy, can you get a ride or get yourself around? Okay then.

7. You can't fly out of the state anymore? I don't wanna know what you did. I just, don't, wanna, know. Next!

8. Fix your own damn resume, lazy butt! Don't ask a recruiter/HR type to WHITE OUT something on your resume and fix it... don't email it until it's fixed, because now? You totally tipped your hand as to what kind of an employee you'd be. A HALF ASSED one.

And I also don't need to know that you haven't paid your cell phone bill, dip.

9. Okay, sorry to hear about your Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket. But again, TMI. 

It's just too much for a little recruiting person like me to have to absorb. And none of the above examples are ever going to get somebody hired. 

So even if all that shit is going on in your life? 

Don't be an Oversharer. 

Don't be a TMI Offender. 

Keep your circumstances and your stories and your drama to yourself and your mama. 

Peace out.