Oh go ahead...tell me your life story... Part 2

Hello my little chickadees!

Time for "Tell me your life story" part deux.

I was only planning on writing about one specific job seeker today, but guess what? I (we?) all got lucky as I had the pleasure of having a conversation with another random idiot that falls into the same category as the gal I was going to write about. So you guys get a two-fer and I get to blow off some steam ;0)
It's clearly a win-win.

Alright, let's dig in, shall we?

"Aretha" emailed me last week and decided to divulge a little bit too much info... just like lovely Bovine Surrounded Kevin did in my previous posting.

Aretha emailed me and didn't give me a copy of her resume, just her sob story.
Get your hankies and kleenexes ready, ladies and gents; here's what she emailed me:

"I am very interested but I must tell you I was convicted of Driving Under the Influence of Prescription Medication (Ambien), causing an accident. The way the story goes is this: I was prescribed Ambien for a sleep disorder and I had an adverse effect while on it, causing me to sleep drive and cause an accident. I could not afford an attorney, which lead me to receiving the maximum sentence. Thank you for your concideration as I look forward to hearing from you regarding an interview."

Ummm. Okay.
First of all, let me just say, I've read enough blogs and seen enough news documentaries to know that

 that Ambien shit's powerful stuff. 

It can make you do crazy things.

Now do I feel bad for Aretha?
You bet.
Do I believe her story?
I guess, I don't really have a reason not to.

What I don't understand, however, is the fact that she told me all this, instead of sending me her resume. I still have NO idea what her background is and yet, at the end of it, she says she looks forward to my call about an interview? Is she crazy? Or possibly still hopped up on Ambien?

I can't call her. I just can't. I'm not talking from a legal perspective here (although I could go a few different directions with that part of it) but how could I even have a conversation with her? I know too much about her tragic life, before we even have a chance to establish any kind of a professional one. And that's heartbreaking to me, all the way around. Because you know what? If she hadn't led with her Ambien-induced, car crashing, jail tainted foot, I MIGHT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET HER A JOB.

So dumb.
And sad.
Yet I go back to dumb.
And stay on dumb.

My next brilliant job seeker that told me too much info was a guy named "Ray".

Now Ray I had a serious interest in as he had a stellar resume on Monster.com that he had just launched up on the job board the night before.

There were only 2 possible glitches on his resume- one is that I had no idea what the hell he'd been doing for the past 3 years as there were no entries since 2009, which is unusual for a man. Women have babies and disappear all the time, but men? Not so much. So this factor both intrigued and disturbed me.

The other possible glitch was that he was licensed with the State of California Dept of Insurance and there were 3 possible "Rays" with the same exact name on the CA DOI (that's short for Dept of Insurance- see, you just learned a little sumpin' sumpin' now didn't ya?). 2 of the Rays were quality guys, but 1 Ray was a naughty naughty Ray. The Naughty Ray had his license revoked and had to pay a large fine... for what I'm not sure, but I didn't have the time to go poking around in the court docs as I wasn't even sure THIS Ray I was going to call was the Naughty Ray.

So I figured oh what the hell, what have I got to lose? I'll just call the guy and get clarification on those two particular things I'm not really happy about and we'll just see what happens.

Well what happened next I wasn't prepared for.

Ray answered on the third ring.
I could hear the traffic whizzing by him in the background so I was sure he was driving.

Me: "Hi Ray, this is Stephanie from _____________ Insurance and I saw your resume on Monster so I wanted to chat with you for a minute, is this an okay time for you?" I said, hoping he'd say no because I could tell he was driving, and even when people are driving with blue tooths, I don't like talking to them about their future career possibilities and scheduling interviews and such as it makes me nervous they're going to crash the car.

Long drawn out pause, no response from Ray... maybe he doesn't hear me? Maybe his cell phone is cutting out?
Finally, he shows a sign of life! He answers me!

Ray: "Whatz wuz your name? Persephone?"

Persephone?

Okay, I can see how this is close sounding to my name, but never, ever in my life have I been called this. Not that it's a bad thing, being referred to as a goddess of harvests or whatever great job that chick had in mythology.

Me: "No, it's STEPHANIE. Are you okay to talk now? Are you driving?"

Ray: "No, noze, I'm okays. (long pregnant pause) I have a blue toof."

Me: "A blue tooth? You have a blue tooth? Well that's good..." I say, immediately realizing I'm talking to somebody that's either got a major speech impediment or is drunk or hopped up on pills. Naturally I immediately think "BLOG MATERIAL!!" (Do you see how I'm always looking out for you people??)

Me: "So what's been going on with your job search lately? How's that been going? It says on your resume that you haven't worked since 2009, is that true? Or have you been doing contract work?"

Long pause again.
Me: "Ray? Are you there? Can you hear me?" ("now?" I'm adding in my head, thank you stupid Verizon commercials.)

Ray: "Yeah, yeahs I'm here. I... I... I don't know how to explain it all."
Long pause YET again.

Well this isn't awkward, not one bit.
I decided to forge ahead.

Me: "Well let's start back at your experience with _____ Insurance company. How did that go?"

Ray: "Pffft. That was a HOT MESS. That's how that went."
Then again... you guessed it... long pause...

Me: "Well it says here you got licensed with the State of California Department of Insurance and I just tried to pull up your record but there are 3 Ray ________'s so I'm not sure who's who."

Ray: "Oh yeah, well I'm the one in Los Angeles. No middle names."

Me: "Well they're all located in Los Angeles, and none of them have middle names. There's one on here that got their licensed revoked, is that you?"

Long pause, I wait patiently to see if he'll bite and tell me the truth or vehemently deny it.
It's GOT to be him, his behavior with me on the phone is erratic, it's GOT to be him. Fingers crossed it's him! (More blog material!)

Ray: "Well... you see... that wasn't me. Well... ummmm. It is me, BUT hearsh what happened..."
Pause.
I wait.

Ray: "I worked for this agent at ____________ Insurance. And I was supposed to be training under her to become an agent myself. But everytime she..."
Pause.

Me: "Yes? Everytime she what?"

Ray: "Everytime she wanted something, she'd never let me do it, she'd ask me to do it and then she'd get frustrated and do it hershelf. I never had a chance to prove myself. And then she went postal and turned into a screaming lunatic. That bitch was always screaming!"

Me: "Oh."

I'd never heard anybody on the phone with me refer to one of their previous bosses as a "bitch". This was new. Clearly, Ray was Loose as a Goose, hopped up on somethin'.

Ray: "And then, to top it all off, my fiance was murdered. In that building. And I still don't know what BASTARD did it, but I thinks I do. And he's gonna pay."

Me in my head: OMG I've stepped in it.

Me (outloud): "Wow. I'm sorry to hear that, that's just awful. So does that have to do with why you haven't been working for 3 years? Have you been working through your loss?" This is, after all, still a tragedy, people have to work through this crap. I'll give the guy a break.

Ray: "No, well, sort of. NO! That's not why! The stupid bitch offered to have me come back and work there after my fiance died but then she accused me of some crap I didn't do, she got my license revoked and it doesn't fucking matter because I can't go work in that building anyway. Could you? Could you go work in the building where your fiance was murdered??"

Me: "Ummm, no, probably not."

Ray: "Well there you go! THAT'S WHY I HAVEN'T BEEN WORKING FOR 3 YEARS."

I really need to get off the phone with this guy, and like pronto.
Then I hear him cussing under his breath and the squealing of brakes and he starts screaming at some guy that possibly (?) cut him off.
I sit there stunned, not knowing how to get out of this one. Obviously this guy is drunk, shouldn't be driving. I should probably be calling the cops. At this point, this phone call stretches beyond a friendly chat about past employment situations and possible future ones. People's lives are clearly in danger here.

Me: "Ray, are you on a freeway?"

Ray: "Yeah. NO, I don't know. What does that have to do with the job you're calling me to interview me for?"

Me: "It doesn't, I'm just curious. I didn't mean to rattle you with my questions. Having to divulge all of that stuff is hard to talk about I'm sure. What were you looking to do, career wise?" Not that it even matters at this point. I'm just making petty conversation and trying not to get screamed at.

Ray: "I don't fucking know. Can I just get an interview, then I can talk about it?"

Me: "Well, I'm thinking that the license being revoked is gonna be a problem for my company, so I don't really think I can get you past the gate over here. But I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your search though Ray. You should probably just go home and relax for a bit, take your time looking for jobs online."

Ray: "Take my time? You don't thinks 3 yearsh is enough time??!?"

Me getting panicky: "Well thanks for talking to me Ray, I've got somebody that just walked into my office here, I have to hang up now."

Ray: "Goddammit, drivers are so fucking stupid!"

Me: Click.

It took me a while to regroup after that... I was obviously hoping I could get a location from him so that I could call the Highway Patrol and they could hunt him down.

I'm saddened by the crap that happened to him and don't underestimate what it must be like to go through having your fiance murdered, but seriously people...get your shit together before you market yourself as a qualified job seeker. Man.

Thanks for listening and letting me share my experiences with job seekers this week my peeps!
More funny next week- no more of this sad and tragic crap eh?
Yeah, I agree.
Peace out.

Oh go ahead...tell me your life story... Part 1

My work email inbox scares me.
It just does, there's no way around it.

Therefore, I click with great trepidation, all day long.

Months ago it used to be that I was only afraid to click on an email in my inbox if there was no attachment with it. As no attachment meant no resume, and no resume usually meant "Fuck off".

But lately, even the emails with the attachments are scaring me.

They're arriving with alarming messages attached to them...messages that aren't just a simple "Yes, I'm interested in XYZ position you have available." Messages that should never, ever go to a recruiter.

Now, I've covered TMI and time stamps (the time your email was sent) before in previous posts I've written... those posts can be read here and here. But I have some ridiculous new stories to share with my faithful readers that again, just leave me scratching my head.

I'm going to break this blog posting into a 2 part/2 day event as I've got 2 great examples, but feel I can only overwhelm you with them one at a time.

First off, let me just tell you, the time stamps on the 2 examples aren't abnormal. The emails were sent between "normal business hours" or I should say, "awake" hours for most folk. That doesn't detract from the loopiness and stupidity factor though, as it's still rampant with these two.

For our first example, and the topic of today's posting, I give you "Kevin".

Now Kevin decided that instead of sending me a regular resume, he'd send me this charming email instead. Keep in mind, I do not have his resume, ergo, I have NO idea what field he's been working in.

Here, in all it's glory, is Kevin's email, with my commentary interjected here and there as you KNOW I can't help myself...I HAVE to make commentary:

"Hello my name is Kevin _________ and I'm looking forward to hearing back from you. i've been working forever, really since I was in juinior high school as i would repair and maintain my friends, teachers and family's as a hobby till it escalated to a passion." 

Whoa.
Hold on there buckaroo. You've been repairing and maintaining your friends, teachers and families as a hobby until it escalated into a passion? What does that even mean? Are you some super duper counselor type? Or did you just forget to mention you've been repairing their TVs. Or computers. Or flat tires on their bicycles?

"After HIGH school I instantly went into the workforce where Iworked a job there packing personnel and slowly moved up to Supervsor in which I was in charge of 140 or more (I dont' remember how many really) people."

Okay, again. WHOA.
You had a job PACKING PERSONNEL? As in, you were packing people up? Into boxes?
Or were you an employee that packed things? Like on a conveyor belt type line up? I'm so confused...

And you were made a SUPERVISOR.

Let's just take a moment to chew on that little diddy.

This concerns me on multiple levels, not only because you don't know how to spell it but because somebody made you, the person that packed people up, in charge of a minimum of 140 people...but possibly less OR possibly more as you can't really remember how many. Did all of those people end up sealed up in boxes and shipped off to some foreign country? And why the heck would you mention a number to me if you don't even know if it's accurate? And then purposefully TELL ME you don't know if it's accurate?
Kevin, you're starting to scare me.

"This job did not challenge me and there's where Iknew Imust do something about my career. During that time i was working I already had vast knowledge. Currently I'm Working and would love to be challenged at this career and hope to expand my horizons."

Okay, that's a lot of general fluff. You say you weren't challenged (oddly enough), that you already had "vast knowledge" (this I'd like to challenge) and you're currently working and want to be challenged and expand your horizons.

Yawn.
And besides the fact that you like to use the word "challenge" too much, I STILL don't know what the heck it is that you do.

"I work hard and prideful at what Ido knowing that one day I'll be able to use these skills to imporv the prople around me and most importantly myself."

You're going to "imporv" the "prople" around you and most importantly, yourself?
Gah.

"I've been working hard to expand my horizons but the area around me limits me I feel trapped in a cage wanting to expand my horizons but when you're from a farm town your light seems dim. My firends and I came to the conclusion that I need a new environmnet to improve my abilities and goals. For this reason my friends have reached out to help me by offering me a place to stay. My goal is to relocate to this beautiful city full of opportunity and take it by the horns. I'm grateful to my "family" at work for giving me the chance at such a young age to hold this much responsiblity  but it's time for me to move on and get out of this one cow town."

Okay, there's so many things to pick on here, my mind is reeling and my eyes are crossing.

Oh, and also?

There's a lot of Bovine Imagery going on-- farm town...take it by the horns...cow town. 

I feel it might be helpful to yell out a mighty "Yeehaw!" here just for the hell of it.

And did your friends, err, excuse me, "fire-ends" do an intervention on you? I'm pretty sure one went down. 

And where are you? You say your goal is to "relocate to this beautiful city"--- ummm, what? Relocate means you plan on heading somewhere, "this beautiful city" implies you are already here.
Where the hell are you Kevin?

So now I've got some image in my mind of a depressed and confused, large belt buckle-wearing cowboy that packs up people on a conveyor belt for a living... I just really have no where to go with this now. And I CERTAINLY don't know what I'm going to do with poor Bovine Oppressed Kevin in regard to MY company.

Kevin:

"If given the opportunity to work for you I promises to dedicate and apply myself to the fullest extent of my ability to perform the task applied to me and overachieve not only as a worker but as a person."

Yeah yeah yeah. You "promises" to dedicate and apply yourself and overachieve and... yawn again.

Oh Kevin.
I think you need more help than I can offer buddy.
Thanks for sharing your messed up life story with me and best of luck to you...whatever it is that you do and wherever you are.

Stay tuned Friday for "Oh go ahead...tell my your life story... Part 2" !!

You don't have to tell me twice!

Ahhhh passive aggressive job seekers. 
I completely love how incredibly smart they think they are with their mean spirited methods.


Take for example "Ramon", who has stuck in my craw since summer time of last year, but I just haven't gotten around to writing about him until now. He had put himself up on Monster.com and this was what he uploaded instead of his resume: 


"Want to see my resume? Then you need to email me at this address: ramonhasanoversizedego@I'majerk.com"


Ahhh Ramon, you jack ass. 
How totally and completely freaking BRILLIANT of you to take the passive aggressive, "I'm gonna make those stupid employers work for it if they want to hire me" route. Especially in this job market. You sly and sneaky son of a bitch.


But last week I encountered a new kind of passive aggressive job seeker that pissed me off on a whole new kind of level. She actually made me sit there and shake my head.
(Which admittedly happens often, but still...)


"Barbara" decided to email me and tell me that she has no interest in being in a sales role. (I had recently contacted her as I was interested in her very HEAVY background in sales...) She didn't do anything decent and say something obvious like "Thank you Stephanie for contacting me, but I've decided to switch gears and am no longer interested in being in sales."
Oh no.


Here's how Brainy Barb decided to handle me instead:


"As I advised you previously and you apparently didn't listen, I am not interested in a sales position. However, I am very interested in any CSR positions with your company and would like them all emailed to me so I can look them over. Thank you. 
- Barbara"


Oh Barbara, you stupid twit. 
Your passive aggressive little dig on me not paying attention to my prior contact with you (which is non-existent by the way, I've never contacted you before the last day and a half, NOR have you previously told me you had no interest in a sales position until now) will get you nowhere except in my shredder bin. What makes you think I'm going to "hop to" and immediately email you a list of CSR positions available with my company right now? 
Are you for real? 


You and Ramon should meet.
Preferably in a bar. 
Where you can drink away the last of your unemployment checks while commiserating over how rough it is out there in the job market today. 

Oooo! Or perhaps you could take up Lumping together?

Which is like Planking, only lumpier. 

Because you two totally deserve each other... 

Morons.

What do you mean???

I like it when job seekers make it easy for me to delete their shi-zizzle. 

Take for example "Anna", who had a resume that screamed (and was titled) "Sales Professional" at the very top of it.

She had some skills that matched what I was looking for for a particular position, so I called her. Apparently her voice mail box wasn't set up (always a brilliant move, I might add, when you're looking to become gainfully employed), so I emailed her instead.

My email entailed the normal things I say such as "I found your resume...I'd like to speak with you as we are looking for quality sales professionals in our area... I thought your skills might be a good match for the position we have to offer right now...Your voice mail box apparently isn't set up as I was unable to leave a message...Please call me at your convenience..." etc etc.

Two hours later I get THIS back in my email box:

"what do you mean by sales professional??????? please call me. thunks."

Uh, really Anna?

What about my email was so hard for you to understand? Your resume says SALES PROFESSIONAL all over it, and YOU'RE asking ME what do I "mean" by sales professional? (+ 6 more question marks)? And I DID try to call you, but your damn voice mail isn't set up. Which I ALSO mentioned in my email.

THUNKS but NO THUNKS Anna.

I'll pass. 

I ask you, my faithful blog reading chickadees, am I really that hard to understand?

Where's Waldo?

I'm sure most of you have heard of Waldo, correct? 
If not- here's a Wikipedia link to help explain the whole "Where's Waldo?" phenomenon... 
Here's a picture of him, which I'm sure you will recognize, even if you weren't aware of the entire background story of Waldo:

My sister was 4 when the first "Where's Waldo?" books came out.
Age 4 is prime "I can't find Waldo in the picture Sissy, can you help me out?" time.

Many hours I spent trying to assist her in her determined Waldo searching endeavors, until mom and dad had purchased all the books they could find in town, and she had them all memorized.

Then she cast poor Waldo aside.

In a heap on the bottom of her messy closet he went, along with all the My Little Ponies any 4 year old girl would be lucky to own.

Poor Waldo.

What does this have to do with resumes you ask?
Plenty.

More often than not, people apparently get "confused" as to where they are currently physically located. At least that's how it appears to us HR and Recruiter types as that's how they represent themselves on paper.

If I were to believe where 50% of them say they are, they'd be involved in some pretty impressive parallel universe crap.

And we all know that that's the stuff that the Red Hot Chili Peppers sing about (here) and that quantum physics dudes like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory spend hours drooling and dreaming about.

(As a side note, did you know that BBT has nabbed Stephen Hawking? Yup, he'll be on their show soon! And as a gal with a lot of super nerdy (yet lovable) housemates, I know how exciting this is!)

Back to my point (man, I get side tracked easily, don't I? LOL)... as of right now, as far as we KNOW (or think we know?), you can't be in two places at once.

And yet job seekers I stumble upon are constantly trying to convince me otherwise.

Yesterday, some charming dude named Tyler came at me wanting to be interviewed for one of our positions. Fine, I'll give his resume a looksy.

It became very clear to me in a matter of seconds that Tyler was pulling off some pretty impressive alternative reality crap.

Get this- he was not only here, working 3 different jobs in 3 different FAR FLUNG cities in southern California, but he was also in Spain, at the Universidad de Cordoba.

Wow.

And I thought I was busy.

That's downright impressive.

I only know this because he put the word "Present" after every entry.

So it said "February 2010-Present"

and

"June 2010- Present"

and 

"December 2008- Present" etc...

With each city (and country) listed after the entries.

Dude.

That ONE WORD "Present" will screw you up SO BAD on a resume.

It makes all us Recruiter types out there scratch our heads and say ..."Wait a minute now, where's Tyler?"

I call this the "Where's Waldo?" effect.

So I sat there contemplating taking six minutes of my VALUABLE time to construct an email to Waldo, err, I mean, Tyler, asking him "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? ARE YOU HERE? ARE YOU IN SPAIN? ARE YOU REALLY WORKING 3 JOBS RIGHT NOW IN 3 DIFFERENT CITIES TOO? FESS UP!"

Well admittedly, I would have said it much nicer if I did decide to take the time to email him and ask.

But guess what?

If you had seen my desk yesterday and the explosion of tasks all over it, you would have been with me on my decision to shred him and move on.

So the moral of the story today is this my little chickadees:

If a job seeker can't take the time to LOOK and see if their dates are updated and completely accurate?

Then forget it.

They don't DESERVE to have a potential employer call them.

It's absolutely asinine if anybody out there looking for a job thinks that we should be taking our time to try and figure out exactly where they are on the planet and what the ACTUAL story is about what they've been up to the last 4 years. 

I don't have time to play "Where's Waldo?" anymore.

I did enough of that with my sweet little sister in 1987.

Peace out.

Big day big day big day!

I'm so excited so excited so excited! I feel like this little guy!

Today's a big day for me as I'm officially launching my new resume service website. Yay!

I want to formally say a big THANK YOU to those of you that wracked your brains and came up ideas for website names for me per my plea last week. Unfortunately I didn't choose any of them as I ended up going in a completely different direction. I picked "Artisan Custom Resumes"... partially because the word "Artisan" has sentimental meaning to me as it was part of the name of our family print shop we sold off, but also because I decided to go for a more "classy" approach. That thought makes me laugh a little though, and in true Stephanie form, I had to hunt down anything relating to trying to feel classy. I was successful though, as I found this!

Anyhoo- I worked all stinkin' weekend on this site and I am happy to present it to all y'all here.
Please take a look when you have a spare moment.
I would be HONORED if you'd refer people to my site or even consider using my services for yourself if you have a need.

Okay, now that the business type stuff's taken care of, on to the funny!

I'm going to keep today's ridiculous resume example simple, as quite frankly? It's late when I'm writing this and Ize tired.

So!
Miss Yolanda's stupidity radiated from my screen on Friday while I was cruising through some job seeker resumes on Monster.

Here's what she titled her resume, in bright letters:

"YOR NEXT EMPLOYEE"

Ummm, no Yolanda sweetie. I don't even have to open up your resume to read it to know that YOR not going to be our next employee.

Peace out my peeps!
Stay tuned for more resume funny tomorrow!

I need your help!

Okay, I give up.

I've been wracking my brain for WEEKS now trying to come up with a name for my new Resume Writing business that I will (hopefully) be launching this weekend.

I know every angle and nuance of this new business I'm about to embark upon as I've been working on resumes for many (MANY) months already anyway, but I can't come up with a name for it to save my life.

So that's where YOU come in, my dear and faithful blog chickadee readers.

HELP!!

Come up with a name for my new resume business and if I choose to use it, I'll send you a $50 gift card of your favorite establishment OR I'll just plop the $50 in your Paypal account, your choice.

Here are my stipulations: I want it to be clever, catchy and memorable.
No snooze-alicious crap here, resumes are boring enough as it is.

Please submit your suggestions in my comment box- can't wait to see what you suggest!

PS I've been told my comment box can be rather cranky at times (bad comment box!) so if you prefer to directly email me any suggestions you may have, feel free: stephsresumeroasts@gmail.com. Thanks!

I do not like green eggs and ham

I had a new experience yesterday that I couldn't wait to share!

So I'm up early this morning to write it all up and let you, my dear faithful readers, experience the awesomeness of "Anne's" resume.

Here we go!

"Work experience

July 2011- November 2011

June 2009-July 2011

January 2009-March 2009

January 2006-September 2008

May 2004-December 2005

June 2003-August 2003

September 2002-May 2004

August 2000-June 2002

September 1999-August 2000"

You're not reading that wrong, there's nothing listed. 

Just 9 different date entries and BIG spaces of nothing in between them. 

A sense of urgency to call her, I do not have.

And since I'm feeling kind of Suessy today, I will also add, I do not like green eggs and ham.

Perhaps she's actually a Seuss fan too and subscribes to this idea of his:

"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."

I doubt it though.

I think she's just plain stupid.

It's Monday- again.

Yes, it's Monday, again.
I swear it's been Monday for weeks now.

How was YOUR weekend? Mine was relatively crappy. It involved things like taxes, laundry, and arguing with home buyers and chimney construction guys over whether or not we'd have to possibly rebuild the ENTIRE chimney or just PARTS OF a chimney on a property we are selling to them.
Yeah, it was THAT kind of weekend.

I also had lame nightmares, two of which involved piles and piles of the stupidest resumes ever, and the other was so horrific, it woke me up out of my coma-like condition at 4am: I had lost each and every game I'm currently playing with all 15 people in Words With Friends.

This last dream let me know that yes, indeed, I really do need to get a life.

So on that note, I've decided not to do a Meanie Monday post as life is depressing enough lately... instead I thought I'd just pull an easy one, a note from some idiot that apparently saw one of my job postings and came after me.
Just so we're clear- he's emailing me out of the blue, I haven't contacted him at all.
K.
Now that you've got the picture, here are his 3 opening sentences to me:

"To Whom it May Concern:
I've never given any thought to a career in insurance. I did look into a career in insurance years ago."

What?
Did you even read what you typed dude?

For all I know, it could have been this adorable dog sending me that message.

And if I could be sure it was him, I totally would have had him come in. Because lately? I big puffy heart love animals more than people.

People suck.

The end.

P.S. Want to play a WWF game with me and more than likely win according to my prophetic dream? Then just punch in sailingirl722. If I have too many games going on, just be patient...I'm sure I'll lose to someone in no time so you can jump in and win me too.

It's been Monday for like...ever

Well I dropped off the face for a bit, sorry about that. Ironically my last Monday post has just sat there mirroring the way I've felt about this week in general. Like every day's been a freakin' Monday.

I have a story about my office to share that will hopefully give a glimpse as to WHY this week has felt like that.

Even though I work for a very large company, I don't work at our State office, or our Home office, or at any of our call centers, so I work in a very small office. With the exception of some of our newer agents that are in and out as they need to be, 3 whole people, including myself, work in this office. My desk has always (unfortunately) been at the very front. I sit in the lobby (if you could even say that we have a lobby) and act not only as a recruiter, but also as a gatekeeper. This works well for when the candidates I've recruited come to interview with the boss man, but otherwise? It's totally and completely annoying.

Not only is my *special spot* in the path of every Tom, Dick and Harry cruising through (and for some odd reason feeling obligated to carry on small and unnecessary chit chat with me), it also makes me head package delivery signer, get-rid-of-all-the-many-solicitors gal, and "can you tell me where this office is located in your building? I'm totally lost" helper person to strangers.

And so not only do I endure all that garbage on a regular basis but what's even more horrifying is the fact that I sit along the wall that shares the men's restroom.

Yeah, you read that right.
Take a second to take that in.

Blarfie McBlarf.

More specifically, I sit next to the urinals.

I can hear EVERY HORRIBLE THING that goes on in that men's restroom and have for the past 4 years of my life. Day in, day out.

And let me just say, men are gross.

I already knew that, but my *special spot* has only served to continually reaffirm this mind-numbing phenomena. Seriously now- guys throw up more than girls do, they of course rip awful ones and drop watermelon sized kids off "at the pool"... they sing and whistle to themselves while they do their "dirty work", they gasp and moan (gah and more gah) and they TALK ON THEIR PHONES while they do all of this. I REALLY canNOT believe how many men talk on the phone while they are "relieving" themselves.
It seriously disturbs me.

All of that being said, I've naturally been pretty vocal about my dislike for my spot (you're shocked I'm sure), but due to our very different job descriptions, it was made clear to me that I'm the best choice to sit there and I need to stay put.

That is until this past Monday when the building maintenance guy started work on gutting the very 80's and outdated men's bathroom on the other side of my wall.

We knew this was coming as he has had a crew helping him work on the 2nd floor bathrooms for the last 2 months. They completely gutted the things, and I mean COMPLETELY. Took the ugly pink 80s tile and etched with graffiti stalls out and turned them into beautiful neutral brown tile and granite spots for gods and goddesses to rest their weary bones. It's fabulous what they've done, but it was a very long and drawn out process. Now that they've moved up to our floor, it's OUR turn to go through 2 months of renovation hell, err, I mean fun.

So Monday morning the jackhammers started in on my wall and my skull. My stuff started instantly dancing across my desk as I heard the urinals being completely annihilated. This was exciting to me in a way as I wouldn't have to hear men pissing and ripping ones while they stand there peeing on my wall any longer, but the overwhelming noise to replace the offending sounds was going to be unbearable. How am I going to call anyone? I can't talk to anybody on the phone with this going on. I couldn't even read my emails. I tried, I really, really tried. But when I caught myself about to hit send on an email full of about 52 typos, I knew I had to go talk to boss man about moving me. (One sure sign that Steph is messed up and her brain feels like jello inside her skull is if she's sending out emails full of typos LOL.)

Boss man and I had a small discussion with building maintenance man and 7 minutes later, 2 things were officially decided.
#1 I would be relocating my desk to one of the inner offices rarely used (HOORAY!!!) and
#2 they would be installing an extra piece of drywall plus more than normal insulation along my desk wall.
(The building maintenance guy was absolutely MORTIFIED and turned about 15 different shades of purple and red when I was describing to him what I've been subjected to for well over 992 days of my working life at my desk. Watching him squirm and wiggle certainly gave me a chuckle- a chuckle I very well earned DAMMIT!)

Anyhoo, I am now a new woman.

I have an office with a door that I can freely close whenever I so choose. 

I do not have to sign for packages unless I volunteer to do so.

I do not have to continually adjust the thermostat for the lobby. 

I do not have to entertain people against my will.

I do not have to give directions for all that are lost.

I can just freakin' recruit and work on contract stuff like I'm supposed to.

Score one for Steph.

Alright- now that my silly story is out of the way, on to the resume of the day!

I'm picking on a ridiculous one that caught my attention as I settled into my new digs.

"Robert" sent me a very short, entry level resume.
His email that went along with it alerted me to the fact that I was in for a winner of a resume. First the email copy:  "i am hily interested.please get bakc to me as soon as possible.my resume is atached."

Ummm yeah, this one'll be good. I can just feel it in my bones, can't you?

It took me all of three seconds to find the funniest portion in the sea of mistakes poor Robert emailed me and I'm sure the rest of the Universe.
He worked at an undisclosed location (I'm choosing not to name it as it's too specific) involving a place of "fun" and "recreation"- we'll just leave it at that. Here's the line that made me giggle before I shredded the sorry ass piece of paper I was staring at:

"wait for any costumer to make a purchase and provide them wth correct change andoffer them an ice packed if they appear ingured."

WTF?

I think he's trying to indicate that he was supposed to give customers correct change after they bought something at some kind of a stand and then be observant enough to notice if they had hurt themselves and offer them an ice pack if they were too cool to suck it up and admit to him that they had sustained an injury.

Did I get that right?

After successfully translating jibberish and living through Potty Gate, I feel like I deserve some of these:

Wouldn't you agree?

It's Monday Baby!

And you know what that means....Meanies!

Today's example of a Meanie Asshole comes from some dude named Elliot. (Name made up of course... to protect the innocent- which would be me in case you are asking.)

So the premise of this email I received is the same as always...I found Elliot on a job board, I saw stuff on his resume I was interested in, I called him and left a message on his voice mail. Elliot seemed normal when I heard his voice mail message, there were no prior indications of lunacy in his message.

I emailed him and approximately 26 hours later, THIS is what I got back in my inbox (and the red highlights are exactly where they were in the original email):

"I have informed you on numerous occasions to "NOT CONTACT ME REGARDING SALES POSITIONS." I have also talked to several individuals and informed them the same thing. Just because the word "sales" is on my resume does not automatically mean I WANT TO BE IN SALES!!! I have kept every email that I have received and both my email and conversations have stated clearly that I have NO INTEREST WHAT SO EVER IN BEING A SALES PERSON. I have also stated clearly that if I am every contacted again by you, that I was going to contact a lawyer and sue you for harassment and ignoring MY NUMEROUS REQUESTS TO BE PLACED ON YOUR DO NOT CALL LIST. THIS IS NOT A THREAT, IT IS A PROMISE, THE NEXT TIME I GET CONTACTED I WILL BE CONTACTING A LAYER AND PRESSING CHARGES AGAINST YOU. With all the proof I have I don't think I would have any problem having a layer take my case. PLEASE REMOVE REMOVE REMOVE me from your damn list and this DEFINITELY MY LAST WARNING AND REQUEST.
Respectfully yours,
Elliot ___________"

Okay, where do I begin here?
There's so many things to discuss with this particular Meanie.

First of all, this is the first time I've contacted him. So I guess he's been approached by a bunch of other horrible recruiters like myself looking to do something AWFUL like employ him.

Silly us.

Second, if you don't want a job in sales I have 2 suggestions for you- either takes your sales experience off your resume COMPLETELY or leave it on and put some kind of disclaimer underneath that section that says "While I enjoyed my time in this position, I have no interest in a future career in sales."

This is simple, yet will save a lot of unnecessary aggravation for the poor recruiters in your path AND your blood pressure levels.
Not that I care about Elliot's blood pressure.
Because I don't, just for the record.

You're going to contact a "layer" Elliot?
BAHAHAHAHAHA!! You said LAYER instead of LAWYER- TWICE!!

And last but not least- "Respectfully yours"?
Check your damn auto signature if you're going to GO ALL CAPS LOCK ON SOMEBODY'S ASS.

You fucking ungrateful moron.