i don't look so good from a distance...
Am I the only person who does this, or is this what every one does when looking for a new job. I find myself searching feverishly on Monster, looking up every version of what I do from writing to graphic design, and although I guess that most of these employers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of resumes they receive, with each push of "apply Now" I find myself focusing on the company name, thinking that one day in the not too distant future I will be pushing through their heavy oak door with the brass name plate - ah, I can see it now - in my little interview outfit with a velvet headband so that I look "normal" whatever that means, but I'm convinced a velvet headband is every woman's key to being considered "ordinary" and not that awful slap in the face, "too funky" or "eccentric" or "Interesting", all of which I have had leveled at me by those who love me and those who don't but always what I want more than anything is to be just normal enough but above the mark professionally so that I look like, indeed, I am, the perfect employee that anyone in their right mind would be lucky to have.
And I believe this; I do believe that any company would be lucky to have me. God knows I am incredibly devoted, loyal to a fault (so even when I'm being screwed I have not done the screwing back; score one for corporate America, Sadi, you fool), but I just want one job where I can sink my teeth into my work, establish healthy relationships but not flirtations with my peers, and get to the business at hand and do so well that I win awards and decorate my little office or cubicle or whatever with my honors, though I'm beyond cubicle now, because of age and experience, so I see these with my other awards hanging on the otherwise blank wall and lit with fluorescent light and me leaning back in NY chair with a cup of tea and thinking how proud I am off all this - of all of this silly, corporate and so American things that I can't ever see happening in Scotland where, you can work hard, but so what - you didn't expect an award for that, did you!
Gosh, I have an enviable curriculum vitae and I know it. I have big, heavy hitting names on there, I have references from editors at the top of their field and one from the CEO of Conde Nast. I am dropping names, yes, because I I keep hearing people telling me that I should use the contacts I have to greater effect, so I say to you Saul Bellow, Steven Florio, Mike Curtis, friends at the Museum of Fine Arts, Conde Nast, Hans Koning, Jean Echenoz, Harry Mathews, David Godine, Bill Gates, and anyone who wants to listen and with whom I have crossed paths and it has been positive, why is it that I am in the same position as everybody else and that I don't have some leg up which is what one would expect.
Now, don't get me wrong; I don't want an unfair leg up. I just want to believe that networking works. I want to believe that that fact that I've written for some of the countries major publications actually means something to someone somewhere and carries some weight and will help me find a job. I'd like to think that the fact that Steven Florio himself, who I worked with at Conde Nast and is the very reason I am in writing and publishing today would care to lift a finger to help me because I have proven myself worthy by gaining all these accolades like a good little student or disciple or protege because I worked for it and I have tried to do nothing but make people proud of me my whole entire life and yet here I am in shitsville again and looking for a job because I wouldn't play stupid corporate politics with some shitlick at a previous job who was insecure and threatened and who said, when he rang my agency to see my existence snuffed out, that the job was "above me" because I had a seizure on Friday and was let go on a Monday.
Does that smack of lawsuit to anybody here or is that just me? Doesn't it seem to you that the two are connected? Doesn't it say, Get thee to a lawyer now and sue their ass or in the very least, see that this fuckpig gets his comeuppance because he politicked me out of a job.
Hey, the main guy was away in Morocco, our direct supervisor, so even though technically this should not have happened, I ac tually lost my job because another contractor (major bold word on that one) called my agency and said I was a bad, bad and dirty girl and whoosh! I went from being my Moroccan guru's golden girl to a little, ineffective shit in less than one month, and he believed this little French swish ass over me, because he never gave me a chance to speak for myself, never rang me once, never called to talk to me about it, nothing; just went with the flow of an awful thing that had been set in motion by a boy who was so scared of me that I'm sure he wet his pants a month before this when I was called to a phone call to save his sorry ass, and then, he determined that he had to get rid of me somehow, so a ha, as if epilepsy were in any way a hindrance to my job.
It is not. It never was. It is also NOT a mental illness. It is not borderline, or schizophrenia or whatever the fuck it is I keep hearing ignorant people guess. Epilepsy is epilepsy and it is neurological which is not the same as psychological and on top of which, why even diss people who ARE mentally ill because that too is discrimination. AS it happens, inb my case, I am not mentally ill, I am physically ill and that is with epilepsy and with cancer. Those are my burdens. Do not burden me more by making me pay literally for my job, for my life, because of some ignorance.
One begins to understands those awful, sad, and desperate people who turn up at their old job with a shotgun and blow everybody to bits. No, I wouldn't do it, and not planning on it. Obviously, this is wrong, but the point that I make is that when I see these sad and lost people I can only imagine what happened to them at the place of their former employ. They are always the heavily bearded, the social outcasts, the ones who were not included in the company tennis picnic or retreat and were picked on by the water cooler and whispered abut and made fun of and not taken seriously. I don't like identifying with such people as I frankly, thank god, have never been treated like that. My problems tend to be the opposite; I am too much of a threat, too good, too pure, too something or other that makes some idiot have a hissy fit because I pose a threat, so the very reason I get the good job is often the reason I lose the good job (though I've only lost a job once and that was through , as noted politics.)
I work. Don't get me wrong. In many ways, my situation in life is still enviable. I am a widely published writer. I am syndicated. I am a poet who is published. I have another book that is finished. I am reasonably young, I am okay looking - albeit a bit of a goof ball, I am smart enough but always wish I were smarter, I scored incredibly high on the Mach test in college so I know that sooner or later, I will do something to get little shitlick back and will have a job that I want in short order because that's just me and I'll work hard for it and do whatever I need to do. Push through whatever shit stands in my way because I am determined and eager and fast and all of those things that make you either the one who wins or the one who loses and thank god, I will do whatever it takes to get that good job again because I have a chip on both shoulders because I am from Scotland and freckled and hazel-eyed and have been made to feel like a second class citizen, much the way I saw John Nash be made to feel in A Beautiful Mind and though I doubt I'm as smart as John Nash, I think I'm smart enough to know what it takes.
So I log on, and I search and hit Apply Now a thousand times a day and I know that one of these days the phone will ring and it will be the right job at the right time and in the right place, only this time, there will be no little nasty man with a serious ego problem to screw it up and no Pontius Pilate to do nothing but wash his hands and watch me crucified and crying, that this time, there is hope because I believe in hope and I know that I am good and that I am God's special chosen one, you better believe baby.
As a dear friend said, "I don't look so good from a distance, but I tell you I'm the one..."
And I believe this; I do believe that any company would be lucky to have me. God knows I am incredibly devoted, loyal to a fault (so even when I'm being screwed I have not done the screwing back; score one for corporate America, Sadi, you fool), but I just want one job where I can sink my teeth into my work, establish healthy relationships but not flirtations with my peers, and get to the business at hand and do so well that I win awards and decorate my little office or cubicle or whatever with my honors, though I'm beyond cubicle now, because of age and experience, so I see these with my other awards hanging on the otherwise blank wall and lit with fluorescent light and me leaning back in NY chair with a cup of tea and thinking how proud I am off all this - of all of this silly, corporate and so American things that I can't ever see happening in Scotland where, you can work hard, but so what - you didn't expect an award for that, did you!
Gosh, I have an enviable curriculum vitae and I know it. I have big, heavy hitting names on there, I have references from editors at the top of their field and one from the CEO of Conde Nast. I am dropping names, yes, because I I keep hearing people telling me that I should use the contacts I have to greater effect, so I say to you Saul Bellow, Steven Florio, Mike Curtis, friends at the Museum of Fine Arts, Conde Nast, Hans Koning, Jean Echenoz, Harry Mathews, David Godine, Bill Gates, and anyone who wants to listen and with whom I have crossed paths and it has been positive, why is it that I am in the same position as everybody else and that I don't have some leg up which is what one would expect.
Now, don't get me wrong; I don't want an unfair leg up. I just want to believe that networking works. I want to believe that that fact that I've written for some of the countries major publications actually means something to someone somewhere and carries some weight and will help me find a job. I'd like to think that the fact that Steven Florio himself, who I worked with at Conde Nast and is the very reason I am in writing and publishing today would care to lift a finger to help me because I have proven myself worthy by gaining all these accolades like a good little student or disciple or protege because I worked for it and I have tried to do nothing but make people proud of me my whole entire life and yet here I am in shitsville again and looking for a job because I wouldn't play stupid corporate politics with some shitlick at a previous job who was insecure and threatened and who said, when he rang my agency to see my existence snuffed out, that the job was "above me" because I had a seizure on Friday and was let go on a Monday.
Does that smack of lawsuit to anybody here or is that just me? Doesn't it seem to you that the two are connected? Doesn't it say, Get thee to a lawyer now and sue their ass or in the very least, see that this fuckpig gets his comeuppance because he politicked me out of a job.
Hey, the main guy was away in Morocco, our direct supervisor, so even though technically this should not have happened, I ac tually lost my job because another contractor (major bold word on that one) called my agency and said I was a bad, bad and dirty girl and whoosh! I went from being my Moroccan guru's golden girl to a little, ineffective shit in less than one month, and he believed this little French swish ass over me, because he never gave me a chance to speak for myself, never rang me once, never called to talk to me about it, nothing; just went with the flow of an awful thing that had been set in motion by a boy who was so scared of me that I'm sure he wet his pants a month before this when I was called to a phone call to save his sorry ass, and then, he determined that he had to get rid of me somehow, so a ha, as if epilepsy were in any way a hindrance to my job.
It is not. It never was. It is also NOT a mental illness. It is not borderline, or schizophrenia or whatever the fuck it is I keep hearing ignorant people guess. Epilepsy is epilepsy and it is neurological which is not the same as psychological and on top of which, why even diss people who ARE mentally ill because that too is discrimination. AS it happens, inb my case, I am not mentally ill, I am physically ill and that is with epilepsy and with cancer. Those are my burdens. Do not burden me more by making me pay literally for my job, for my life, because of some ignorance.
One begins to understands those awful, sad, and desperate people who turn up at their old job with a shotgun and blow everybody to bits. No, I wouldn't do it, and not planning on it. Obviously, this is wrong, but the point that I make is that when I see these sad and lost people I can only imagine what happened to them at the place of their former employ. They are always the heavily bearded, the social outcasts, the ones who were not included in the company tennis picnic or retreat and were picked on by the water cooler and whispered abut and made fun of and not taken seriously. I don't like identifying with such people as I frankly, thank god, have never been treated like that. My problems tend to be the opposite; I am too much of a threat, too good, too pure, too something or other that makes some idiot have a hissy fit because I pose a threat, so the very reason I get the good job is often the reason I lose the good job (though I've only lost a job once and that was through , as noted politics.)
I work. Don't get me wrong. In many ways, my situation in life is still enviable. I am a widely published writer. I am syndicated. I am a poet who is published. I have another book that is finished. I am reasonably young, I am okay looking - albeit a bit of a goof ball, I am smart enough but always wish I were smarter, I scored incredibly high on the Mach test in college so I know that sooner or later, I will do something to get little shitlick back and will have a job that I want in short order because that's just me and I'll work hard for it and do whatever I need to do. Push through whatever shit stands in my way because I am determined and eager and fast and all of those things that make you either the one who wins or the one who loses and thank god, I will do whatever it takes to get that good job again because I have a chip on both shoulders because I am from Scotland and freckled and hazel-eyed and have been made to feel like a second class citizen, much the way I saw John Nash be made to feel in A Beautiful Mind and though I doubt I'm as smart as John Nash, I think I'm smart enough to know what it takes.
So I log on, and I search and hit Apply Now a thousand times a day and I know that one of these days the phone will ring and it will be the right job at the right time and in the right place, only this time, there will be no little nasty man with a serious ego problem to screw it up and no Pontius Pilate to do nothing but wash his hands and watch me crucified and crying, that this time, there is hope because I believe in hope and I know that I am good and that I am God's special chosen one, you better believe baby.
As a dear friend said, "I don't look so good from a distance, but I tell you I'm the one..."
posted by ragazza at 1:36 PM
