resumes

So I'm helping with some recruiting efforts to find a junior IT helpdesk person. In searching Craigslist, I've noticed some interesting things:

1. A lot of people have ridiculous spelling/grammatical errors in their resumes. Isn't that the most obvious no-no?

2. The backlash against hiring foreign H1-B workers has manifested in the addition of "citizenship status" on a number of resumes. e.g. "US Born Citizen -- Native English speaker" or "Status: US Citizen and French green card holder." This irks me. Companies purport to hire based on suitability and skill and not to discriminate based on race, religion, nationality, sex etc. but this demonstrates that people don't believe them. They believe, and probably rightly so, that American corporations prefer to hire not just citizens, but those who speak perfect English, nevermind the skills they might bring as someone with experience working in other countries, economies and cultures.

3. Some assholes are ethnocentric enough to demand that the people looking to hire them speak English well e.g. "I am accepting Phone Calls from the local 408 and 650 Area Codes ONLY. This is my Local Job Search Area. NOTE- You MUST be able to speak English clearly and distinctly." I kind of want to email him just to tell him to shove it.

4. Rather than use the title of the post to bring attention to the position they are seeking or the skills they bring, some people (ie the ones I would never contact because they just seem too dull) use their name or something like "APPLYING FOR SUITABLE JOB " as the posting title. See another example below, the best Craigslist resume post ever.

5. Some people are really too idiotic to deserve a job. Yes this is the entire posting, no there is no resume or any indication what kind of job this person is qualified for or seeking. I kind of want to email him to say "you're kidding right?"

Tony's Resume (redwood city) <--- this was the title of the post per #4 above. Brilliant Reply to: [deleted for the idiot's privacy]
Date: 2007-06-30, 12:31PM PDT

Looking for a job higher than entry level, in which will allow me to use my skills and abilities to my fullest potential

[yup, this one clearly takes the cake. Absolutely a waste of time and in no way deserving of even an entry level position in whatever it is he wants to do]

Haier sucks

Here we go again. Why does my shit always break? Why am I always on the phone with some sort of customer service rep idiot?

Dear Haier,

I have a dryer gdz5-1 purchased 3 years ago from Lowe's. Within the first couple months the fuse broke and I called Haier's customer service to find a person who services Haier products under warrantee. Back then, of the list of appliance repair companies your customer service person gave me, only one company actually serviced Haier products.

In other words the list was EXTREMELY out of date and almost all the companies I called said they had stopped servicing Haier many many years ago. A couple of them said they never remembered ever servicing Haier and shouldn't be on your list at all.

Now the dryer's drum won't turn and the one company that serviced it 3 years ago (Alegria Appliance repair in Newark, CA) won't come out to my area anymore because it's too far from them. I am in Foster City and at a loss for what to do next if no one fixes Haier around here. Please advise (and please dont send me that list of people who no longer service Haier as calling them the first time was a big waste of my time and so was trying to explain that to your customer service rep who basically threw up her arms and told me there was nothing else she could do).

Cali

So I'm on week two down here in the bay area. I've been working every weekday since I got here and trying to get used to cube life in a tech company again. My plan was to finish a paper after clocking my 8 hours but it's been hard because I'm still tired from the school year. The most I seem to manage is to look for more articles to reference and add them to EndNote. By the time we get home and fed, it's impossible not to plop down on the couch in front of Simon's new TV. Weekends are too sunny to stay in and work. This weekend we did all the car maintenance stuff on Saturday and spent Sunday at the Asian American expo, grocery shopping and watching a movie with a friend.

The paper I have yet to finish has been accepted to the Midwest Popular Culture Conference in October and another one I wrote in Fall was accepted to the National Com Association conference in Chicago this year so I'm pretty happy about that. Just wish those conferences were some place sunny instead of in the frigid midwest.

In other news someone's idiot dog escaped in traffic on the 101 this morning. A lot of drivers got out of their cars to try and chase it down. Not sure how that panned out. Ok it's my favorite time of day, bedtime.

fire

So the night before I flew down to the Bay Area (last Friday), Denny and I were gettin' ready to head out for happy hour at Ivar's and drinks downtown. All of a sudden a really piercing noise filled the apartment. It was the fire alarm. Not just a smoke detector but an apartment wide alarm. All my neighbors headed out onto their balconies to see what everyone else was doing. We figured someone had pulled the alarm but the noise was so loud we picked up our stuff and headed into the hallway where I ran into a guy in jeans and a t-shirt soaking wet and smelled some smoke in the hallway. I asked him what's going on and all he said was "there was a fire but it's out." It took a while before I figured out that his sprinkler (heat sensitive not triggered by smoke) must've gone off. We headed down many flights of stairs and outside where most residents were already standing around asking each other what happened. It took forever for the fire department which is spitting distance away to arrive. Three trucks came and the firefighters went inside then came back out and went back in with what looked like vaccuum cleaners. Before long, they were throwing chunks of carpet out the window. Then the head firefighter guy announced that anyone next to the apartment or below them would have to find an alternate place to stay since there was likely to be water damage to all those apartments. It's still not clear what started the fire but that apartment is totalled. I have some photos which I'll post later.

idiot

Tonight I went to Cactus Club Cafe at Metrotown for a little mini high school reunion. Not my first restaurant choice by a long shot but I had to please people who don't eat Japanese food which is my staple when I eat in Vancouver. That reunion was fun and all that but one incident really pissed me off. See I was wearing my favorite t-shirt. It says on the front "I WILL NOT LOVE YOU LONG TIME." Get it? White boy waiter comes by and says, oh I like your shirt. My friend can't see the whole thing and asks me what it says so I read it out for her. Stupid waiter says, "no, but you have to say it with the accent." (%$#@ WTF??) I resisted the temptation to climb over the table and punch him in the face to wake up a few of his dormant brain cells. Then I resisted the temptation to say "fuck you" and instead opted for "FUCK THAT, what do you think I'm protesting with this shirt?!" I also bit my tongue before I ended that sentence with "you ignorant privileged frat boy piece of shit." He still didn't seem to understand what I was talking about because he responded to my outrage with this lame nervous giggle. Give it a few years I'll bet he becomes one of those assholes who goes on sex tours in Asia and doesn't see why it's a bad thing.

inc

I'm taking my first "incomplete" in a university class ever. It's for a 1 credit class that requires I send a paper off for publication. This is the real thing, not some pointless exercise. I had a paper that just needed more massaging than expected and it'll take a little more time than the quarter allowed. Luckily all but one of the students in the class will be taking this incomplete and in fact it was encouraged but that doesn't make me feel any better. Neither does the fact that I left way too little time to take a break before going to SF to work for the summer. I always feel like I have to fill up all my time. Part of it was that I know Simon needs help at work and I want to get there to relieve him a bit. I'm in Vancouver now and too mentally drained to work on that paper and too wound up to feel like I'm taking a break. I dunno just being in Vancouver always feels so hectic. People making appointments and all this pressure to be places when I just want to sulk, lay on the couch, and watch Law and Order by myself. It doesn't help that I barely recognize my own city and it's just a constant reminder of how quickly time is passing and how little I've been accomplishing over the years.

jump street

Did you know 21 Jump Street happens in real life??
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/318023_federalway01.html?source=rss

I always thought that was fictional. I mean how the hell can a 33 year old man pass as a 15 year old? The slang and mannerisms and music and culture and all that you can learn. But what do you do about crow's feet and receeding hair lines? I look pretty young at 31 but I don't think that even I would pass for 15.