Okay, let's get back to the funny, people

So last week I had an incredible surprise that just tickled me beyond belief... the lovely Ms. Karyn Bosnak privately tweeted me and told me that she was crackin' up over my blog. And to quote her directly, she said this to me as well:
"I'm reading your blog right now. I'm worried about our country!"
Then she amended it on another tweet a minute later to say this:
"I meant:
I'm reeding you're blog write now. I'm worried about are cuntry!"

Ahahahahaha!!
I love me a girl with some humor in her.

The following day I thanked her for reading my blog, what an honor it is etc. (As it is, it really really is!)

Then she told me I should write a book.

A famous author and screenwriter.

Told ME I should write a book.

I swear I almost passed out on my desk, right on top of all those crappy resumes I was sifting through.

So Ms. Karyn Bosnak- I totally heart you.
Not just because you're awesome to begin with and your books are rockin' and you had a movie made out of one of them (What's Your Number? which comes out TODAY on DVD by the way!!) but because you took the time to tell some minor league, snarky blogger that she's not doin' half bad.
Thank you. From the bottom of my little ol' blogging heart.

Now on to the funny resume of the day!

I got a resume from a gal named "Gayle" last week.
The resume itself was surprisingly drab compared to her cover note to me.
I say surprisingly because THIS is what she wrote:

"Hi Stephanie, I would like an opportunity to talk with you. I have whored in outside sales for many years but have always been paid either hourly or by the job. If this is something you can set up, please contact me."

Uhhhhhhh, say what?
Did she just ask me to do what I think she asked me to do?

Her resume was vague, only said "sales" for a long stretch of years for a company that I tried to Google and couldn't even find.
The whole thing wasn't exactly "confidence inducing" and considering the conservative company I work for?
I didn't have the balls to pick up the phone and call her.

I just don't think the world's ready to be sold insurance like that.

Meanie Mondays are back baby!!

Okay, so I tried to keep away from the Meanie Weenie crap over the holiday break...given that we're supposed to be *joyous* and *happy* and all that shit.

But in the meantime, I've had a few Meanie Weenie doozies come my way that I've been stockpiling like a squirrel hoarding it's nuts for the winter.

Today's installation of Meanie Mondays comes to us from a LOVELY LADY I'll just call "Jean".

I found Jean on a large and popular job board. She had posted herself up for the entire employer-related universe to see, I'm assuming hoping that some phone calls would roll in.

FYI:Jean's background was dominantly in 2 things:

  graphic design and sales.

Now this is going to sound lame, but quite frankly, I get excited when I see a combination of a sales background and the graphic design and/or printing world because that's what I did for 20 years of my life...

I grew up a print shop brat.

 I grew up with printer's ink in my blood...probably because of all the paper cuts I used to get.

 I KNOW how to talk to these people.

 I can instantly have a good connection with them on the phone because I start throwing the lingo around and talk about how tragic it is that the industry has died off as much as it has with the bad economy, and that's why I'm in insurance now etc etc.  

Of course I feel the need to point out to all my fabulous and faithful blog readers here that I currently have no use for the graphic design portion of her work history, but I'm always on the hunt for strong sales people...which she had indicated she was on the earlier portion of her resume. 

My logic was this: she's got to be struggling with the graphic design portion of her life and probably doesn't have enough work to sustain her anymore, thus the reason she put herself on a job board in the first place, right? Maybe she'd entertain the idea of getting back into sales so she could pay her bills.

 What harm could it do to have a conversation with her and see where she's at with things and possibly offer her an interview? 

What the hell, I'll give her a jingle.

I called- it went straight to a message that said "The person you are trying to reach isn't accepting phone calls at this moment" or some such nonsense like that, and then it just hung up on me. It didn't give me the option of leaving her a message.

So I emailed her instead.

I said all the things I normally do in an email to a job seeker... like who I was, what company I worked for, that I found her on XYZ job board and was interested in speaking with her about a possible position etc.

Two days later she blasted me back with this crap:

"I canNOT believe that you sent an email like this to someone with a 24 year SKILLED CAREER that has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with insurance. How DARE you. I will be sure to never use your company's insurance services as a result of this ridiculous email. Take me off your contact list immediately, BITCH."

Ummmm, excuse me?

I sat there stunned. 

And as a personal observation about myself, I don't know WHY I still get shocked when I read stuff like this as I'm coming up on 4 years of being exposed to it. You'd think I'd just be used to it by now. And in an attempt to be all "PollyAnnaPositive" about this junk, I should be grateful that at least it's coming to me via email and they aren't yelling at me over the phone about it like some of our disgruntled and insane customers do to my poor unflappable, imperturbable, persistently calm co-worker Tammy. Tammy's got nerves of steel; it takes a LOT to get her all worked up.

I guess I'm more "excitable" as these emails?

They still get to me.

The clip art version of us would go like this:

This is Tammy:

And this is me:

So after being land blasted by Jean's email, I took a moment to pull up the job board I found her on, as well as my company's DNC (Do Not Contact) list. As I was reading her resume over one more time to make sure there weren't any more surprise email addresses hiding somewhere that I should be adding to the DNC list, I noticed something at the very bottom that I must have overlooked before I called her.

She's the President, Founder and Director of a volunteer, non-profit pet rescue organization in Southern California. 

This made me sad. 

To think that somebody I would have normally immensely admired for doing such heroic work would treat ME, a human being like that? Perhaps she's not a people person and only a pet person? I've met those, it's highly possible. But still...

So as I was adding her to my lists online ensuring she won't be contacted like EVER again by ANYBODY from my company, I really started thinking how incredibly stupid that was of her to lash out at me like that. If she hadn't typed those 4 measly sentences to me, I could have been a vehicle to help her out in more than one way for sure.

So because I've created this space in the universe in which I'm allowed to voice my opinion (aka my blog) here's what I WANTED to email back, but didn't of course as I'd like to keep my job:

"Ummmm- look here BITCH.

There is no need to jump to conclusions and treat a friendly stranger whom is merely trying to help you become gainfully employed in such a ferociously unprofessional manner. In case it didn't occur to you (which it obviously didn't because your incredible hate is dominating your mind) I was contacting you because you mentioned you had a "strong sales ability" on your lovely resume, NOT because you have an incredible background in insurance. Should you have had the presence of mind to actually HAVE a decent and kind conversation with me, not only could you have politely told me you no longer have an interest in going back into sales, but guess what else could have been discussed? The fact that I could have put you in touch with some viable printing and graphic design houses all over Southern California. 

How would an insurance recruiter be able to do that you ask? Because I used to co-own a print shop down here, that's how. 

So not only do I know who's still alive and kicking, you would have totally had an inside track and a personal referral that would have helped you continue with the "24 year SKILLED CAREER that has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with insurance."

And just for the record, I ALSO could have used my semi-popular blog to drive some very interested pet lovers to your door step, thus rescuing the pets you say you save from neglect and abandonment. 

But NO, you had to lash out at me and type those 4 venom-filled sentences instead.

So all I have to say to you is this:

YOU'RE FUCKING STUPID.

Good luck to you BITCH."

Whew.

I feel much better now that I just wrote all that out.

Thanks for listening my faithful friends.

It's the Little Things

So I know I've brought this topic up before, but I just got another round of ridiculousness that sparked my memory and prompted me to mention this again.

When you NAME your resume (when you are saving it as a Word doc or an Adobe PDF or whatever) employers can SEE what you've named your resume.

So things like "Sarasresume" or "Managementres" are fine.

Names like "This'llfoolem" or "willtheybuyit" are not.

I was particularly saddened last week by a "less brazen" one I stumbled upon and opened up.

Miss Kelli had named hers "Resume notprof".

No, she's not trying to disguise the fact that she's a professor.

What she's doing is giving me the "not professional" one.

Really?

I mean seriously?

Come on.

That makes me sit and wonder how much better the professional one might have been.
What am I missing out on? Why wasn't I worthy enough to have gotten the professional one?

And now?

I'm just sad.
So sad.

Sniffle sniffle.

Muwhahaha!!!

I've come to the conclusion that a good part of my day boils down to trying to figure out just what the heck people are trying to say to me when they email me. 


Take this for example: an accountant submitted his resume with the headline:


"It is important for licensed amateurs to know how much power they are allowed to use and how much power they are actually usin."


What the HELL does that mean? 


I imagine he sat there and did the hand wringing, evil laugh after typing that line.... MUWHAHAHA!!!

And then proceeded to screw up a bunch of innocent peoples' taxes shortly thereafter.


Now THAT'S frightening.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm.....

If you're a Generation X baby like I am, your brain probably went to this song when you read the title of my blog today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo

If it didn't, then you just got schooled a little!
(You're welcome ;0)

Now- on to the resume du jour:

This "lovely" young lady I'll just call "Valerie" thought she'd be coy and put this as her job objective:

Administrative Ass

I would have readily chalked it up to a penchant for abbreviating words and dismissed it, but upon closer examination I discovered there was, in fact, more to her sly play on words.

First off, she listed 2 different email addresses on her resume.
I've seen this done before and think it's just downright LAME and confusing for HR people as how the HELL are we supposed to know just which magical email address to pick to communicate with you?
What method does one suggest for this?
Eeeny meeny miney mo?

Not that I would have necessarily chosen to communicate with Valerie in the first place, because the two email addresses started out like this:
sweetansour69@
and
babycheeks69@

But I read a little further, figuring that at least this was going to be entertaining...
She listed things like being "hands on with the customers" and bragged about how she "handled them with great service" etc.

But it wasn't until I went into her profile on the particular job board I was logged onto to make notes to myself about NOT contacting her in the future that I noticed the other THREE email addresses she had also attached to her profile.

Those?
Were this:

govalerie269@
lilmama69@
doubledeezval@

So I just have one question for little Miss Ho Bag Val-

Welcome to Dingbat Country!

While I'll be the first to admit that I'm not sure what some people are thinking usually like EVER when they do their resumes, I'm REALLY not sure what people are thinking when they submit their resumes to me during the holiday season. 

I fear there's more wine/champagne/wassail/hard core eggnog involved than one should usually be involved with while composing a resume as the stuff that arrives in my inbox seems a little loopier than normal. The resumes get sparser over the intense holiday weeks, but the Loopiness Quotient goes through the roof.

That being said, I'd like to officially welcome you to

 Dingbat Country!

The following are actual excerpts I've taken off resumes I received during the last two weeks. A compilation of sorts you could say. Keep in mind I am NOT paraphrasing. These are actually word for word.

So sit back with your coffee/tea/hard liquor/beverage of choice and enjoy! 

I couldn't make the cartoon any bigger so for my visually impaired friends that are squinting to read the above cartoon caption, it says this:

"Yeah, you put on a hot cup sleeve and a plastic lid and no one thinks "martini"..."

Okay, here we go!

"I would love for the opportunity to be a part of a Grate organization."

"I am limiting my serach for a position."

"CSUN Student- California Stat University Northridge"

"I wanna more about title."

"Dear Human Recourses Dept"

"I want to start a great carrer."

"Referances upon someone requesting"

"I work for some associats. I can't remember there names."

"High, i am interested intersted intrested in sales i would like to know necesary requirments"

"I streched canvases"

"How is the payment?"

"Here is attache of my curriculae file."

"I excel at deeping existing relationships."

And then last but not least, my personal favorite as of late:

"Hi am really in a position to work with you. 

My objective is: full time. 

My qualification: word, exccell, power poind. 

Relevant experience: I used to work in a store. I have customer services experienced."

(That was the ENTIRE RESUME)

Woo baby!

What a great way to ring in the new year, eh?

All I have to say to these poor souls is this: 

I'm BAAAAAAACK!!

Hello my little chickadees- I'm back!
Did you miss me?
I missed you.
I also missed writing this blog.
Truthfully I missed anything even slightly resembling *normal*... whatever the hell that is.

So let's discuss the holidays first, shall we?
How were your holidays?
Did you get anything good?
Anything weird?
Anything crappy?
Did you spend your cherished time off with loved ones that drove you bat shit crazy? Or were you one of those lucky bastards that got to be left alone and free from the lunacy?

We had lots of people over at our house that drove from lands far, far away, just to be with us silly peeps.

And I was sick with the Worst. Cold. Ever.
Which, (along with a new Kindle Fire), was my husband's Christmas gift to me this year.

My mother-in-law politely told me I looked like "death warmed over" when she showed up on our doorstep. Amazingly I wasn't offended, as that's how I felt. I guess I thought "Good, it shows" or something ridiculous like that.

And of course, right on cue, my fused spine decided to act up as well. I suppose it didn't want to be left out.

By Christmas Eve I was such a hot mess my sweet teenage daughter finally told me that I had too many "issues" and sent me to my room.
That was memorable.

I'm still not quite sure how, but I managed to pull my sorry ass out of bed on Christmas morning... up by myself at 7 am cooking a huge breakfast for everyone because the sickest in the house gets up the earliest and slaves the hardest, no? Does this not happen in your house?
Because it does in mine.

By the evening time I was somehow feeling *slightly* better. I'm assuming because I had managed to pass the Cold Baton off to my poor brother-in-law, who promptly went to bed and put a pillow over his head to try and muffle out the annoying festivities radiating from the bottom floor of our house. My sister and hubby and I managed to pull off a fantastic dinner- all 14 peeps enjoyed it thoroughly from what we could tell. I suppose hearing from everyone how great everything was makes all the effort and hundreds of dollars worth it.
Or one can only hope.

Here's some pics of the house I wanted to share- my sister and I spent hours decorating Ole Blue (what we affectionately call our 2 story, 4000' monster with hideous blue carpet we want to rip out but can't because the house doesn't belong to us...). My hubby managed to skate by on helping with the house prep (so NOT surprised there), but we were somehow able to take advantage of my brother-in-law's recently discovered love of roaming on the roof as you can bet your bippy my sister Tracy and I weren't about to haul our asses up there.

Here's some shots of the outside:

                               Our pillars leading up to the front door...

       Front walkway- tree #1 in the window...

We decided we love large ornaments and hung them everywhere...

Figured out a way to get our huge wreath WAAAAYYY up there

Which was really only possible because bro-in-law was kind and willing to do it

Here's some pics of the inside:

One of 3 trees in the house

The coolest mantle ever, thanks to ideas my sis and I stole from Pinterest...

So that's it, you get the idea. 

It was a lot of effort, and I suffered through a good deal of it because of my health issues, but overall I guess one could call all of it a success.

Now, just to make sure I cover ALL the holiday festivities...

on to the New Year's discussion!

Just so I act like a good blogger and say it before I forget, 

HAPPY 2012 EVERYBODY!

Did you all go out and party it up?

Or are you getting old like me and so you sat on your Kindle and played Words With Friends with your childhood buddies and out of state cousins? My goal was to make it PAST midnight, while still being awake. And despite a teensy bit too much wine and champagne, I met that goal, so I consider the night a smashing success! (And my WWF opponents would probably also consider the night a smashing success considering they all kicked my ass... I totally blame it on the booze if any of you are reading this.)

Anyhoo! How about the topic of Resolutions...does anybody out there still make them? 

I am not a huge fan of them but I'll play along- here are my boring resolutions...

1. To eat healthier, and exercise more (pffft, yeah, THAT'S happening... I still don't see what's wrong with having chocolate and wine for dinner, I really don't.)

2. To bring more balance to my life for time to somehow be evened out and distributed fairly. (Yeah, that's also totally happening, what with the working full time, being a wife and a mommy, being a property manager along with my hubby, being a blogger and guest writer, fixing resumes, being addicted to Words With Friends, trying to spend more time sailing, working out more to get healthier, taking time to cook more to eat healthier... how am I supposed to do this? I know, I just won't sleep! That'll handle it.)

3. To drink less. (HA!)

4. To get more sleep (This totally contradicts Resolution #2, so HA again!)

5. To watch less TV (there's only about 17 shows I'm addicted to that I'd have to wean myself off of, that won't hurt one bit...)

6. To be more frugal. (Oh brother.)

This is all just getting damn ridiculous, so I'll stop.

Where are New Year's Resolution lists that say the following:

1. Eat worse; gain weight.

2. Do whatever the hell I feel like, with no regard to balance or anyone in my immediate surroundings.

3. Drink more.

4. Party harder; get more tattoos.

5. Watch more TV.

6. Spend more money.

That's a list I'd like to see somebody actually write. 

Forget about all this disciplined crap. 

Because really, we all think we'd be "better" human beings if we followed these lists but what would we TRUTHFULLY be like if we followed our disciplined New Year's Resolutions?

Boring.

And crabby as all HELL, that's what we'd be.  

So considering the fact that this blog is supposed to be about resumes, what the HECK does any of the above have to do with resumes you ask? Hold your horses, I'm getting there!

With the exception of the 3 days off my boss was nice enough to give us this holiday season, I worked straight through. I did not, however, get very many resumes. I am used to this by now, as nobody seems to have an interest in finding a job around this time of year. They are all apparently caught up in the festivities. Not the most brilliant tactic in my mind, but hey, that's just how people are right now. Mentally "gone"- mentally hanging ornaments or something.

The few resumes I did get were quite interesting (too much egg nog?) so I can't wait to share those later, but the one I wanted to bring up now cracked me up because it read like a cross between a court oath and a New Year's Resolution list. 

Here's a piece of what was actually on "Maria's" resume- not in a cover letter or a private email to me, but directly ON the resume:

"I, Maria __________, do hereby swear and affirm that the information contained herein is completely and utterly true to the best of my knowledge. If considered for the position you are offering, I do hereby promise to be the best, most disciplined employee you will hire in 2012."

Awwww. That's sweet.

And weird.

And totally inappropriate to put on one's resume.

And I could pick it apart 20 different ways from Sunday but for now I'll just chalk it up to 'Tis the Season!

Cheers everybody!

Here's to a great, UNDISCIPLINED 2012.