Ostensibly

Resume Rant

Why America continues to send students into the world with little to no education on how to create a resume and/or find a job is beyond me. For those of you who continue to struggle with the subtleties of applying for a position, please see the following pointers.

• Your name, address and contact information are instrumental in my being able to contact you. Sending me a confidential resume without your name is somewhat indicative of a weak mind and perhaps a streak of paranoia.
• Speaking of contacting you, I would strongly advise telling the person who will be answering your phone that someone may be calling in reference to a job, lest they confuse me for a telemarketer and say something, ahem, inappropriate. This goes for you as well. Try answering your phone with something other than, "What", and change your voice-mail message to reflect your professionalism. This means changing your current message, from "You know what to do.." with Tupac blaring in the background, to something a little more tasteful.
• Your e-mail address says a lot about you. BigBear69, PhatLadyLover and anything with 420 in the title are inappropriate.
• Objective statements are useless unless you mean them. Every resume I see says the same damn thing. To obtain a position that will allow me to utilize my skills in an environment with...blah blah blah. A summary of your background or nothing at all is much better than your version of what you think I want to hear.
• If you cannot succinctly identify what you've done, where you've worked or how long you worked there, some deep soul searching and perhaps a review of your w-2's is in order.
• Bullet points are a fabulous way to share your work history. Start each point with a power word in present tense, Utilize, Provide, Execute, Address, Annihilate......you get the idea. DO NOT write a paragraph about what you did. I come in and check my e-mail and then I help people.....AAAAUUUUGH
• Don't lie, I will find out, I do find out....it is my GOAL IN LIFE to find out! if you only worked there for a month, and when you quit you mooned the boss, be ready to answer some questions about that. if you try to hide it, and tell me some BS story.......you will not get the job.
• Don't identify the dates you went to college. Yes, you finished in four years...we get it, you're a mental giant, congratulations. Now move on!
• A list of your hobbies is appropriate for a personal ad, not your resume. I don't care how many Star Trek conventions you attend or that you like to garden. As much as companies like to say that they want you to be a well-rounded person with outside interests, the reality of life is that we want an undying workhorse with a passion for whatever it is we do.
• References should not be related to you. Also, you may want to tell your references that someone will be calling them so I don't have to spend the first five minutes of our conversation establishing who you are.

Buy a book, take a class or steal someone else's well written resume. Just make sure you take responsibly for teaching yourself what the rest of the world expects you to know.

Hate Mail

Some of my favorite folks are East Coast Kids, which means they can and will take you down a notch at will. I find this to be an admirable trait, and will postulate that this guy's site is currently transmitting to us from the Eastern US.

Jalapenos

One of my favorite things about rainy Sundays is that it is perfectly acceptable to waste the day watching movies. Usually I would do this from the comfort of my own home, but the lure of Sin City and movie theater popcorn was palpable, so off we went.

The movie was fabulous, and thanks to E's flask I was intoxicated. It was then that I remembered how much I liked nachos. I'm not sure at which point in my life whiskey and nachos mixed, but it must have been good. As I snuck to the snack counter, wallet in hand, and a swagger to my step, (I was kind of wasted), I fantasized about the salty spice of cheap chips and processed cheese food. I ordered precisely, "one order, extra cheese," and proceeded to the condiment bar. And then I saw them....sloshing in a tin of oily green liquid...... jalapeños. Not just jalapeños, but the cheap ones that waste away at the bottom of movie theater condiment bars. The smell was sharp as I piled three spoonfuls onto the chips, and returned to my seat. I don't remember clearly, but at some point my tongue began to burn and I felt a little light-headed. This really should have been a warning, but….did I mention whiskey and nachos go well together? I was a bit uneasy as we left, but chalked it up to a highly graphic and violent film. Later, I tried to eat dinner, but still felt a little off….

Fast forward to 2AM, as I awoke with an indescribable feeling of panic. What could it be? Are the cats fighting….is someone in the house….why is my heart racing? I was covered in sweat, a little dizzy and incredibly thirsty. I tried to reach for a glass of water next to the bed, but couldn’t sit up, as my stomach had turned itself into a wringing knot that refused to allow me to contract my stomach muscles, forcing me to roll out of bed, and push myself off the closet to stand up. What followed was a tour de force of alternating hot sweats and icy shivers on the bathroom floor. I could smell jalapeños on my skin every time the sweats would come, and I seriously considered waking Chris up to take me to the hospital. After about a half hour, the pain subsided, with only a dull ache in the pit of my stomach as a reminder. I returned to bed, and eventually to sleep, and awoke this morning with a renewed sense of life that can only come from having your intestines tested by fire.