My Tale of WOE

First off, I'd like to say a special *thank you* to those of you that commented on the whole Vacuum Gate situation that doth goith on in my house.

A lot of you emailed me privately as well to wax eloquent, not only about vacuums, but about being married to an engineer, and I thought that was awesome.

It made me realize that I need to start a support group for Wives of Engineers. We could call it "WOE" - get it? (Wives Of Engineers for those of you that haz the dumb today.) I think it's fitting. I'm pretty sure it would be a LARGE and RELIEVED group that could get together and drink heavily without judgement. All the exchanging tales of common and predictable behavior would be a joyous time together, no? 

Anyhoo, this past Saturday night would have made for an excellent WOE story telling moment. 

We'd just finished installing the baseboards into our teenage daughter's bedroom and I wanted hubs to finally HANG some shit up on the wall for CRYING OUT LOUD. I wanted to do that as soon as we'd finished painting eons ago; he said NO, that was OUT OF ORDER, that we hang LAST. So I've waited impatiently for 3 effing months to hang stuff up. My simple wish was for one of those paper orb lights to hang over our daughter's bed and some other paper orb things sans lights to hang in the middle of her room. Plus various other mirrors and pictures, invisible bookshelves etc to make it as "teenage zen-like" as possible. (Cuz I'm the coolest mom ever, yo!)

Finally agreeing to help me hang things (probably because I'd been threatening to do it myself, and he knows if I follow through with my threat, it won't be "to his liking" so he'll have to re-do it anyway) out come the levels, the plumb line, tape, pencils, hammers, 29 different colored wall anchors, the drill, and about 422 different sizes of drill bits. You know, just in case. You've got to be PREPARED to do this stuff properly. Can't be hanging stuff all Willy Nilly and shit. 

At this point I was so ecstatic things were going to be permanently hung, I didn't care; I was willing to stand on my head while handing him his tools with my toes if he so required it of me.

After 10 minutes of working flawlessly together, there was suddenly a snafu. Of all the things that held up our progress, the worst issue became the paper globe with the nightlight in it. Oh for the love of everything that is holy, did I want to go postal over this one. It required yet another pit stop to Lowe's (our local money dumping facility) to find *just the right* cable holder thingys that go in the corner of a wall. You know, THESE things:

We'd already been to Lowe's THREE TIMES that day, but in the car we went.

At first it would seem that Lowe's didn't have the right kind. Too big, too small... My 6'4" manly Goldilocks about blew a damn gasket over not having the precise one. But alas, after 26 minutes of combing the aisles, we located the little boogers. 

After those were safely in hand, I timidly expressed my *creative Pinteresty wish* to get all crafty and hang these OTHER cool cute paper orb things I got from my friend Malinda's baby shower a week ago... right in the middle of our daughter's room, from the ceiling. Well that sent him into a tailspin, searching for the appropriate "hooks" to "ruin" (according to him) the ceiling with.

I quickly grabbed those 3M plastic sticky-backed picture hanging things and said "What's wrong with these? Why can't I just use clear fishing line and stick them to the ceiling with these?"

He looked at me as if I'd shot him in the chest.

Hubs: "I don't think that's a good idea. That's not the proper way to do it."
Me: Wha? "How do you know? They don't WEIGH anything, it's like hanging feathers."
Hubs: "Fine, whatever. Ruin the ceiling then. It's late, I'm tired, let's just go."

It was late (8:47 on a Saturday night, yeah, I know, we need to get a life) and I had to remind myself that Grumpy McSnappy pants had just had surgery on his teeth 2 days before... surgery that went horribly wrong when the lovely dentist drilled an extra HOLE through his jaw bone. (Yick.)

All the way home I contemplated 
a) how I got away with it and 
b) how I was going to actually ruin the ceiling. 

Cuz I was pretty sure I'd never hear the end of it if I actually DID ruin the ceiling, and this was one of my only shots to prove that there isn't just ONE way to do something. 


Here is a pic of the end result... I think it turned out lovely, and sweet teenage daughter was tickled to death when she came home from her sleepover the next day to her new and improved room:

Some days I want to be my own daughter. Seriously. 

But the best part of the whole experience?
Hubs said it actually wasn't such a bad idea to use those sticky thingys after all. 
Gasp!

Score one for the founding member of WOE!

What's that you say? 
You showed up here to read about bad resumes and want me to shut up about home improvement and engineers in general?

Well then (as my totally non-PC cool boss man would say) KEEP YOUR PANTIES ON! I'M GETTING TO IT!

There never seems to be a lack of material... so whom shall I pick on today? 

This is a shot of my blog writing folder... EACH ONE of those pieces of paper could be an entire blog posting. 

There are more than 500 sheets of paper there. Y'all relax now, those of you that are worried about my material "drying up" and have even emailed me to say so. While I think it's touching you are worried I won't have anything to say about job seekers being moronic, never fear, the stupidity is rampant.

Now!
Here's a few I've gathered up most recently- a lovely hodge podge of insanity for you:


This was a direct message to me from Ruth. This message is all that came in with her resume:
"hi, well honestly i don't drive, but maybe i could do a few parts of the job?"
A "few" parts? Oh honey, that's not how it works out here in real-live-job land.

"I am a highly qualified and results-driffen Operations Mangment professional." 
Driffen?
Underneath that sentence, this was his job description:
"Remove staples, paperclips and tape. Then shred."
That's ALL he listed.
Pffft. "Operations Mangment Professional" my ASS.

This note came in, submitted along with a very confusing resume: 
"I am not your person!"
THEN WHY DID YOU APPLY DINGLE BERRY?
Oh wait, maybe this is why... because he (she?) signed it with SEVEN DIFFERENT NAMES.
"Litlin, Boris, Galina, Bales, Vlad, Mari and Johnny."
Perhaps they got confused and were fighting amongst each other over whether to apply or not?

Allan started his resume off with this at the top of it: "I retired in January 2010."
Really? Just for the record- don't lead with your "I retired" foot, people.

Rachel applied to one of my customer service type positions that requires heavy phone responsibilities:
"I am really interested in the job. i do not have an active phone but i am really interested in the job. so can you please provide a phone number where i can reach you, i can be sure to call you."
How? 
How will you accomplish this? 

On the flip side of Rachel's brilliant statement is Ramone's:
"If you wish to contact me; please do so with the contact information provided."
As opposed to what? Subliminally?

And last but certainly not least, I think the best one I randomly pulled out of my magical folder today comes from Eric:
"My name is Eric Bly S____. I live in _______ California which I have me entire life. I am 19 turning 20 in a few years. I have currently completed 2 years of college and will be starting into my 4th."
WTF? How has Eric accomplished anything? After those opening few phrases, I'd be impressed if he could brush his teeth properly.

Peace out my peeps!

Vacuums Suck & So Do Resumes

Oh ma gerd! I'ze been gone too looooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg!!
Sorry sorry!

I've been busy, SO busy!
Between all my awesome new resume clients that kept me hoppin' (need your resume done? Then go here for my help! Cuz I'm finally caught up! Heh.) and all the construction goin' down at El Casa De Purple (aka The Purple Palace- because yes, our newly acquired house is purple, for reals) I've been running running RUNNING I tell ya!
Whew!

Anyhoo, now the kid is busy, the hubs is busy, my resume orders are done, and I can finally sit my tooshie down to recap this weeks' resume madness. 

But first, a little vacuum humor for you.

Back story time:

My husband is an engineer. Gawd love him... but he's an engineer. 

I don't blog about my husband much cuz 

a) I love him 

but mainly because

b) I fear the day I get the phone call while he's at work saying "HEY! YOU BLOGGED ABOUT ME! WHAT'DYA DO THAT FOR??" etc.

Until today. 
Today I couldn't take it anymore, and decided I better blog about him and one particular situation going on in our household or I might blow a proverbial gasket.

If you've not hung out with engineers recently... you'll need to know a few key pointers to understand my little story. 

Engineers like to research things. 
They like to know what makes things tick.
They are important people to have around because, quite frankly, half the things I use and enjoy in my life would not be in existence but for these glorious "types" and their ability to put shit together and "make it go". 
That being said, they are sometimes *interesting* to live with.

For example:
There's usually a SPECIFIC way to do things PEOPLE. And chances are, there's only ONE SPECIFIC WAY to do it. Like you get in the pool toe first, you don't just JUMP IN. (True story my MIL likes to retell from when hubs was 3.)
Also...
There's a specific order to how the clothes go in the drawers, how the shirts get put on, which side of the bed and bathroom counter goes to whom, etc etc.

They also obsess on things.
Like to the point where they eat, sleep and breathe every minutiae of the topic they are obsessing on. 
And they like to discuss it to death with everyone in their realm. "What do you think about this part of that? I've read that blah blah blah" and etc.

So my husband rotates through so many topics, it's unreal. I've joked since 2 months into our marriage (starting point: 17 years ago) that if I wrote down every topic he's focused, researched, and obsessed on, I could have rooms full of wallpaper of it by now. THAT'S how many different topics we've hemorrhaged to death on.

The most recent topic has lasted a little longer than most, probably because there's a lot of trial and error involved. 
And that topic would be... vacuums.

Sigh. 

We've been through a lot of different kinds of vacuums over our married life together- most have not been that stellar. Before moving into the Purple Palace, we lived in a large, cat laden house with my sister and brother-in-law so we used their Dyson, the Pet Specific model. It wasn't THAT awful, it just wasn't that great. Nothing to write home about ya know? Like they make you feel you will want to when you view their commercials. Just kind of, oh I dunno, meh.

So one of the first things to purchase on hubby's "list" for our new house once the new carpet and hardwood flooring finally went in, was a vacuum. And one of the "auto pilot" robot kinds, where you don't have to worry, you just push a button and it does it by itself. This was supposed to be "livin' the dream baby!" or so I was told.

My poor husband spent HOURS researching every cotton pickin' vacuum known to mankind. He watched YouTube videos, read consumer report reviews... I'd find him up late at night in the office reading BLOGS ABOUT VACUUMS. I think I would have *almost* preferred to have caught him watching porn vs. reading up on vacuums.  (I said *almost* ladies... not quite.)

Wait, isn't this lady porn? By gosh by golly, I think it is! I think I've missed the ENTIRE POINT here... he's been trying to make himself more attractive to me? As if that were even possible! 
As if!

Okay, so clearly maybe I shouldn't be bitching.
Still, I feel I must, so I'll continue my little story.
Ahem.

First we got a Roomba, by iRobot (not the movie, the vacuum manufacturer. Focus here people). And not the crummy one either, the top o' the line model.
We spared no expense on this little round, hockey puck shaped, disc of heaven.

Then we brought it home.
And discovered it barely fit under the sofa, chaise and chair, so THAT had to be adjusted, because "What's the point of having one of these if you can't vacuum UNDER the furniture?? We HAVE to be able to VACUUM UNDER THE FURNITURE..." said husband. 
Sigh again.

Okay.
I was totally willing to crawl under the furniture like I would have normally, it's really no big deal.
Really it's not.
But no, "wonderful "bot" should be able to do it for us", said hubs.

Here's a picture of our new living room so you have an idea what I'm talking about... still not finished, so don't be too judgey... missing baseboards (to be installed this weekend), a nice white fluffy rug in the middle with a nice coffee table, an end table to the left side with a large gorgeous lamp hanging from the ceiling, and nice pillows with various pops of color. Oh plus matching drapes. We've had lots of houses with the warm golds and browns, tans and greens, but decided to do a cooler palette in this home, keeping in line with a "nautical" theme as I'm all about the boats people. 

Aren't our floors gorgeous? We put those in ourselves. I can tell you everything you need to know about how to lay REAL hardwood (well engineered hardwood at least) floors. 
But I'm totally getting off track.

My POINT is, the furniture got a "lift". It's now "heightening". (50 points to you if you caught the Seinfeld reference. Here's a clip of it for a chuckle: the ultimate way to heighten.)

So after poor hubs spent hours heightening the furniture *just enough* for little Roomba to go under, we discovered it's a little, oh, how shall I say? Special needs.

It didn't have a clear path in mind, it just kind of wandered all over, bumping into things randomly like a drunken robot (I think in hindsight we should have named it Bender?), then turning around and zig zagging back and forth, in weird patterns.
Patterns that totally missed the crumb piles we set up to test it.

It did GREAT on the carpet mind you, just not so hot on the hardwood.

So back to the big BBB in the sky it went, no questions were (fortunately) asked.

On to the next victim: the Neato.

That's what it's called, a Neato.
We ordered him on Sunday, he showed up yesterday.

Lots of endearing (read: exhausting) arguments took place between hubby and I before Neato arrived as we knew (from all hubby's research of course) that Neato was TALLER than Special Needs. That meant (in hubby's mind at least... where I dare say *stranger things have set up shop*) that the furniture would need to be HIGHER STILL. Even MORE heightening apparently needed to take place.

Ummm, no. 

I do not want my furniture on stilts. 

I was envisioning having to tell my guests "Mind your head when you climb up on to the sofa, you'll probably get smooshed by the ceiling, but the floors UNDERNEATH the furniture are clean! Isn't that a relief!??"
It was the battle o' battles regarding to stilt the furniture or to NOT stilt the furniture.
(Who HAS conversations like this going on in their home? Is it just me? Am I the only lucky chick that has this kind of shit going on??)

Neato arrived and unfortunately had to charge overnight as you can imagine the amount of tension anticipation that had built up over his arrival and expected performance. So even though I was tempted to put him to work after he'd been sufficiently charged while I was home by myself during the afternoon, I knew I better wait for hubby to be home to witness the Maiden Voyage. 

Well Neato (quickly nicknamed Neato Mosquito, then, ultimately, Skeeter) took off in wonderful, cohesive, well thought out patterns. He's loud, SO SO loud, the cat thought the house was going to implode and took off in the opposite direction for fear of ultimate robot control. 

Here he is working on my office floor with a ferocity unmatched:

Won't it look better when there are nice white baseboards and the pictures are actually ON the walls instead of the FLOOR?

Skeeter is a hard worker.
He didn't seem to be Special Needs at all. 

Until he crossed over onto our new, beautiful carpet in the hall way.
Then he stumbled. 
And backed up.
And tried to squirm his way off in a big hurry.

You see, our new, plush, not terribly shag-like carpet is too much for Skeeter. He couldn't take it. Hubs and I just looked at each other like "You've GOT to be fucking KIDDING ME!??"

So that makes him Go Back to El Storo Numero Dos. 

Shit.

And as of now, my poor, deflated husband is SO depressed, sulking on the sofa looking at Porsche's on Craigslist, telling me one of THOSE will make his Vacuum-Gate woes disappear. I really don't agree of course, but I had to share our pathetic, sucky vacuum story with you all anyway.



And now, the reason you're all here, on to the sucky resumes!

Here's what I gathered over the last 3 days while doing recruiting- I tell ya, it NEVER disappoints:

"Education: I got a high school dippma at North Valley High" 
Should I fax this over to the school's main office? I feel like I should.

"hello i am inte  ted in a interview with you guyz can u send me ur address please"
Ummm no.
No I cannot.
I do not want you finding us.
Ever.

Email address reads:
Alejandre.sara@fakeending.com
Real name is:
Omar Rodriguez
Get your OWN DAMN EMAIL ADDRESS!! It's NOT THAT HARD EINSTEIN!

After a phone number listed on the resume, "James" put after it at the very top in bold letters: "(Leave message with email only)" and then no email address listed on the resume. 
WTF does that mean? 
Only email me, I don't want to talk to you, but you're going to have to go back and HUNT DOWN my email address. Oh, plus I don't ever want to talk to you. 
But hire ME anyway!
Ummmm no.
The most ironic thing on that resume was the fact that he got a B.S. in Mass Communications.
Tell me this isn't funny? 

"Grace" my 100th teacher submitting a resume for me this week put this line on hers:
"I was a second grade teacher for and intercessin program."
You know... let me just stop and say here- I love teachers, I really do. But they screw up a LOT on their resumes. To the point where I don't wonder why they aren't employed. 

This lady named "Sheryl" sent me this batch of TMI to me yesterday:
"I have been unemployed since 2009 due to the death of my husband and my subsequent relocation back to California. I chose to spend the last 4 years at home with my son as he struggled with his father's death. It was really too much for him, he's been in and out of different counseling sessions and I'm at my wit's end trying to deal with him over this."
And now? I am depressed. And feeling awkward about how to have a conversation with her. Don't DO this people. Just say "Homemaker" on your resume and call it a day. Gah.

Here's a couple of examples of some very not well thought out email addresses:

stevemillermba1982@madeupending.com
Why is this bad?
Well... let's think about this. 
Now I know what year Mr. Miller got his MBA. So what can that lead to?
You guessed it, AGE DISCRIMINATION. 
Not by me of course, as I really don't give a shit -you can be a dinosaur for all I care, as long as you can get your short little decrepit arms to work, then it's all good as far as I'm concerned, but other companies don't share my "fairness for all dinosaurs" approach.

Here's another bad email choice:
Nidsmakesgraves@madeupending.com

What?
WTF does this mean?
Do you DIG PEOPLE'S GRAVES??
You didn't put that on your resume.
Is this a side hobby of yours?
Are you a grave robber as well as a cashier??


"I'm a leader not a follower"
Translation: I don't take direction well. Also? This one isn't even out of HIGH SCHOOL YET. She's got a LONG road ahead of her. (She even listed her PreK-6th grade school name ON HER RESUME! Did I say long road? Excuse me, I meant REALLY FUCKING LONG ROAD...)

"Honestly Stephanie, I didn't want to step into an insurance position, but rest assured I will consider it if you can disclose to me the full benefits, medical, 401K, what days a week I will have to work, how I can expect your company to benefit me etc..."
Loss for words.
Loss for words.
Oh wait, here's some:
FUCK. YOU.

Oh, and here's some more words- "rest assured" I'm putting your blatant stupidity and arrogance to good use by showcasing you on my blog.

"Please feel free to forward my resume to any IT positions your company has as I have no interest in the other positions you have posted."
Please feel free to go suck an egg.

And last but not least... one of my new favorites... 
In an opening email to me:
"Dear Search Committee..."
This one caught me so off guard, I actually spit out my Coke Zero all over my laptop screen, and then started maniacally laughing till tears were running down my face. The cat was laying next to me on a chair all chillin' like a villain until she got visibly concerned, to the point where she had to assess her safety in the situation and ultimately decided to leave the room.
We aren't SEARCHING FOR DEAD BODIES HERE PEOPLE!! WTF??

Here is a shot I took of Tasha after she decided it was safe to come back into the office. She's really tired of me and my resumes:

What vacuum do you recommend?
Please tell me, we're totally desperate now.
Peace out my peeps.