I'm homeless and loving it!

On phone at 4 p.m.…

Me: Hey baby.

Wife: Hi.

Me: We're homeless and I couldn't be more happy!

Wife: That's wonderful!

Re-enactment

Earlier…

Five years ago, I took the plunge and bought a house. Today, I sold it. I am so incredibly grateful to be done with the whole mess.

I've pontificated previously on the horrible downsides of having a house. I don't want to rehash that.

I'm sitting in Spicy Pie right now, waiting for the only slice of pizza I can afford. Between the wife and I, we have 20 bucks. Because this is a short sale, I do get a little kick back, about 500, so I'll be able to get home to the cities tonight and post this.

I have an hour before I need to go in and sign the house away.

I just spent an hour picking up a few final items from the house. I left some random stuff - shelving, some chairs, a hammock, a dehumidifier. I swept out the garage one last time. Not because I wanted to, but I felt bad that the yard wasn't mowed, the weeds weren't pulled, and adding yardwork to moving would just suck balls. So today was just driving to Fargo, signing a bunch of papers, and driving home. No time to dilly dally.

It no longer felt like home. The scars of the last year in Fargo will be with me for a long time to come. The hours spent trying to make fiancé feel like there was more to life than lying in bed and looking at the ceiling and wondering why we keep going. The weeks of no phone calls or interest in her resume. The months of working volunteer jobs and temp work just to have something to do, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. This mode of existence sucked all enjoyment for life from me. I became even more withdrawn than usual. There's only so many times you can say "Tomorrow will be better" before you feel useless and powerless.

So we ran. We ran to the cities. We no longer have to spend our days wondering how we can afford to repair the latest mechanical problem, or the time spent mowing, shoveling, and all the other bric-a-brac that brought none of the enjoyment from a job well done that you see with homeowners on TV. All our work accomplished was making our mess of a yard a little less messy.

It hasn't been easy. The last few months has been filled with job applications, a few hours of temp work, lots of credit companies calling to say hello. On Monday, I will be going in for a third interview in the "casual lunch" form for a job that would solve soo many problems.  I have about 15 hours of editing work, 7 hours of temp work, and some writing between now and then. I've got two art writing assignments for May, and more pitches to write. Things are on an upswing, but history shows how fragile that is and it's hard for me to be happy about such things prematurely.

But I am glad that today I can walk away from homeownership. I escaped with only some bruises and scrapes. 

Anatomy of shitty job seeker columns

One thing that I get a lot of as a job seeker is email newsletters from the many places I use to find new positions. Often, an HR professional will write an advice piece on what you are doing wrong as a job seeker and how to correct that.

The beauty of this sort of criticism/advice is that it can be done to anything a job seeker does, because it is ALWAYS your fault that you don’t have a job. You said something wrong or did something “unprofessional” that lost you the job.

Let’s take today’s e-mail from The Ladder about annoying voicemails. 

The writer brings up a topic, here leaving voicemails, and has a handy example of why some moron didn’t get a job because of his stupidface voicemail message. Some of the tips are solid – Of course you should leave your phone number and full name.

But most of these are doing some language parsing and imagineering on a grander scale than a sophomore English major trying to impress her professor. The columnist reads the line: “When I spoke with your CEO at our Alumni Conference last week, he mentioned what a great background I have for the role” as a vague threat. Perhaps Stan was genuinely excited about the job, to the point that when he saw the CEO at an event, he introduced himself and made a good impression. Stan really wants to work for your company, so much so that he’s generating networking opportunities to build relationships. He wants to jump in right now, because there’s nothing more he wants to do with his life than help your company become the juggernaut of industry that you all know it can be. But I guess noting that you are ready to go ASAP is “desperate.” My argument here is that the audience can take the message any way they want to. It's the old communication machine: 

You can encode a message as carefully as you like, but half of the process lies in the ability of the receiver to decode the message accurately. If you intentionally want to be a dick, like the HR person who read Stan's message about chatting with the CEO as a threat, you sure can, but do you think there's more than 5 percent chance that Stan could have been calling to threaten the HR person?  

I’ve got some degrees, and I can play this fun game as well. Lets look at the voicemail that the columnist says is a good example and one we should use as a template for our own interactions.

“Hi Susan, it’s Jim Ablebody at 867-5309. Just calling to let you know how excited I am about the opportunity there at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. As I mentioned last week, I’ve spent 17 years in nuclear safety, so I feel there could be a great fit. Hey, just like Mariano Rivera, I’m getting better with age! Thanks, Susan, and, again, it’s Jim [stop and tiny pause]. Ablebody [stop and tiny pause]. 867-5 [stop and tiny pause]. 309 [stop and tiny pause]. Thanks, Susan!”

1. Hi? Hi!? You really need to be more formal in these voicemails. Friends and schoolkids say Hi. Professionals say Hello or Good Afternoon.

2. “Just calling” is an outright lie. You are not just calling to let me know you are excited. There are a plethora of valid and good reasons you are calling me.

3. “Mariano Rivera”? Seriously? Is that a baseball player? You’ve just turned off anyone who isn’t into sports. Add to that your use of the word age rather than experience and you’ve just lost the job, buckko.

4. You said Thanks, Susan twice here. You are groveling too much at this point. You are repetitive, and aparantly have some sort of “thanks” Tourettes.

5. You said you have 17 years in the business. So, why are you trying to kill me? (Ok, that was just for fun)

So what’s the upshot of all this? The vast majority of columns can be boiled down to “just be nice and be respectful of the HR department’s time.” “It’s always your fault you don’t have a job yet because you did something stupid, stupid pants." And in part "HR departments are always right no matter how they want to interpret your messages, so don't question them. OBEY." 

With the wide variety of HR professionals out there, each with their own strange quirks, pet peeves, and outside lives that affect their mood at any given moment, there is no magic bullet that will get you hired. It's an impossible task to come up with something so neutral that it won't offend someone for some random reason, but will also be in the least bit memorable. What you say to one employer can be taken completely wrong by another. But such thinking makes for entertaining exercises in language analysis and keeps job experts busy writing columns about all the things you are doing wrong. 

Bipolar life

The highs and lows of living with me day to day is more than wife can handle. I don't have bipolar disorder, I have bipolar life. Here's the past 27 or so hours.

10 a.m. Tuesday: I get a call from temp service. The people I worked for last month want me back for a week starting next Wednesday. I'm supposed to close on the house in Fargo on Thursday. I let them know and have not had a confirmation either way.

11:30 a.m. Tuesday: I get an email from my mother. I haven't spoken or written to her since January. At that time, I had made clear how much I had been hurt by her actions toward my wife. She still hasn't apologized. She has tried guilting me about how she feels, she has tried chastising me by saying hasn't this gone on long enough, now she is threatening to call wife's mother if I don't get back to her soon. In all this, she hasn't said sorry once. She will never admit to being wrong about anything, so the only way to move forward would be for me to accept that everything is just in my head, that I was wrong, and to put it behind me. I've done that my whole life. I'm tired of just forgetting and forgiving. My last two emails to her were lengthy, heart-spilling emails that explained why I moved, why I love my wife, and how without her, I would likely not be here today. Her responses have yet to even be concerned that her son was feeling suicidal or to ask if I'm better. I've decided not to respond.

12:30 p.m. Tuesday. I have cleaned up and dressed up for my interview. I head to my wife's job with a sack lunch for us. We were discussing the morning's events when I got a call from the realtor. My uncle had been kind enough to go paint some random spots on the house so the appraiser could approve the sale. Because the buyer is using city funding, everything has to be done by next week, or the sale will fall through. However, one spot under the garage window was missed, and if it wasn't fixed by 4, the sale would be off. Brought down by a few dollars worth of primer. No one I knew had free afternoons, and the realtor had a tight schedule. I turned to twitter in panic. Then the realtor called back to say she got her husband involved and that it would get done. Although now I have to call HUD tomorrow to get the sale approved quickly. The bank has made it clear that they don't care whether or not the sale goes through.

By this time, it was 2:30. I had a major job interview in one hour. I spent the time trying to calm down, reading the job description, researching the company.

3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. I had a good job interview. The place seems like a good fit. My background seems good. A bunch of things during the interview made me more optimistic about it, like talking about salary, about training, about the next step being coming in to see HR.  I got homework - writing a press release and editing another. They put it on a flash drive with no mention of getting it back to them. That also gives me good feelings about it, who throws away a flash drive like that? The manager even made a Star Trek joke, and how cool is that!

Evening: I get beer and the ingredients to make pizza. Wife and I settle in for the night. We try to unwind, although I know I'll be up late working on the homework. I've been reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo out loud to her in the evenings. Sometimes I get 4 pages done, others I get 25. Depends on how wiped out she is and how anxious.

10 p.m. to 2 a.m.: Wife falls asleep. I work on the homework late into the night. I knock out a press release and edit the other piece. It's rather dry stuff, but the struggle is part of the fun.

8 a.m. Wednesday. Wake up, wife looks at what I wrote and makes some comments. I make her lunch and send her off to work. I continue to work on the homework and email it along with a thank you note.

10 a.m. I try to relax. Wife forbids me to do anything else productive today. I decide to go to a movie, my second this year. While I am there, the realtor calls to say that HUD approved the sale. She's positively giddy. I have to call a company to de-winterize the house. So much for not being productive.

Now I'm just waiting by the phone, waiting for them to call me and tell me I've got a job. 

Things sticking in my craw lately

If you are going to have me fill out a job form that takes 2 hours to give you the exact same information that's on my resume and cover letter, please don't be a dick and send a form rejection letter.

I should not get antibiotics right away for an ear infection and then watch as my wife is told she has to wait a week to get antibiotics for an illness she got from me.  Watching her suffer for a week while I got better was horrible. Then she finally got a prescription on the THIRD visit to the doctor.

I got a call from a job that I did a phone interview for two weeks ago. They were going ahead with other people, but it was certainly nice to have a human being call to let me know. I appreciated that.

One of my wife's friends is helping me with my query letter, which is absolutely wonderful since he used to be in the agent business. He's also forwarded my name to contacts that might need some freelance work done from time to time. He is now my hero. 

While I will not use my name in this blog, since people who hire in this day and age do searches, and this is not a professional outlet that I want to advertise myself, I did get a thing published today by Walker Blogs. They were looking for writers of 300-word quickies called viewfinders. Wife encouraged me to send one in about a piece we saw last month at the Walker. The few readers of this blog will find out who I am, but I'm OK with that as long as you don't use my name in this space. The nice thing is that it will lead to some freelancing work so I can write about art events in the cities that wife drags me to.   

So between the contract editing work and this Walker thing, I might actually have some money trickling in. Not enough to live on, but I like that both things are doable even after I get a full time job. Once that happens, these part time things can go entirely to paying off debts and bills that have piled up during unemployment. It's just getting that full time job that's eluding me.

Our house is in the middle of selling. So that's nice!  I stopped paying for it in November, and I won't see any money whatsoever from the sale, but I think once it's done, it will be off the plate of worries I've had resting on my shoulders.

Wife is feeling the pressure of keeping things afloat by working full time while I struggle along looking for a full time job myself. It's a daily struggle. Tears. Stomach pits. IBS. Judging by the shit that's coming out of me now, by the time I'm in a home, I will be a nursing assistant's worst nightmare. (I said this wasn't professional. You were warned.) I love my wife and wish I could pull through soon to just get us both on some kind of solid ground. Once that happens, Watch Out Twin Cities.

Email I sent to wife yesterday

OK, what the shit.

The doctor says I have the beginning of a sinus and ear infection. I have her send the prescription to Walgreens. 

I get to walgreens, and they haven't finished it yet. then they want to charge me 88 dollars. I flash my insurance card. He says the computers are down and they could do this thing where they charge me 88 and then I would come back..

"Can you send it over to Target?"

He does. I go over to Target, where they just got the call and it will be 15 minutes. I sit on the bench, trying to remain conscious and upright. I haven't eaten since breakfast, I haven't had anything to drink since 10. It's now almost 4. My head is killing me.

I get the pills for 10 dollars. Then start heading home. 

About halfway home, I notice my wedding ring is not on me. 

It should be. 

I empty all my pockets while at a stoplight. Nothing. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

I turn the car around and head back to Target. 

I park, walk in in a relatively straight line, wondering how long I can remain on my feet. So dizzy. 

I get to the bench I was sitting on. There's someone there. Nothing under her. I am sweating. 

I decide to get in line again to file a lost and found report. I get in line. Look down. And there is the ring. 

Thank jebus. 

I pick it up, slip it on, and head home. 

Stop being a stupid interviewer, please!

The web is full of articles about the job interview process. These articles range from "10 things not to do in an interview" to "the five dumbest answers given in interviews."

Notice how all the emphasis is on the interviewee. The person desperate to get the job they've been "lucky" enough to get called in to talk about. As someone who goes through job interviews at least once a week for the past six months, I've become something of an expert on the interview process. I have to say, your performance is lacking, interviewers.

So, in the ever-tried-and-true list form, here's a top five mistakes to avoid that I've seen over the months.

1.       If you interview someone, whether over the phone or in person, do them the favor of telling them they didn't get the job.

                About half of the interviews I go on, send thank you letters for, and contact a week later to check on their progress - all perfectly reasonable things recommended by experts - I never hear from again. I took the time to thank you for taking the time to meet with me and discuss how I could best help your organization, but the fact is, I drove to your office, changed my schedule, and put on my best suit for you, sometimes taking 3 hours worth of writing tests. You show up in the same old thing you wear every day, talk to me for 30 minutes, and move on. I feel like we slept together and you didn't have the decency to call the next day.

2.       Please put the questions away!

                I now have a good idea what press junkets are like. I go to interviews, handle the same questions with a rehearsed ease of "spontaneity," and feel like we learned nothing about each other by the end of our time. Look, I interview people for a living as a reporter, let me tell you something - the best stuff you'll get is when you LISTEN to the other person, and ask questions about what they are saying. It's called a conversation. It's awesome! All too often, I get sat in a room with 2-5 other people, who read pre-written questions that come from the Dummies Guide to Conducting Job Interviews. "What interested you about this job?" "How do you handle change?" "What do you do when you have competing priorities?" I can only spin so much gold for such questions. I promise you, you will never get to know someone in this way. Don't get me wrong, pre-written questions can be a useful tool, but only if you ask follow up questions.

3.       More than the act of sticking to your scripted questions, some of the questions themselves need to go!

                You know what interested me in this job? You pay money. For services I can provide and have been doing well for years. I'm sorry that I don't have a born and bred loyalty to your company that I just applied to along with 30 others last week. I'm unemployed and am not choosy. That being said, if you hire me, I will kick so much ass and be so loyal, you'll be begging me to take it down a notch. But right now, the only thing that interested me was that you need a writer, and you pay. Period. But you ask this question and expect an "honest" response. I guarantee you all you will get is bull crap. 

4.       Telling me about your company is all good, but edit your shit.

                Maybe one in three interviews, but enough to be annoying, is the interviewer who spends 20-30 minutes of our brief time together talking about the company, their position, and the job details. This can be done in 5 minutes, tops. Any more time, and you are wasting a lot of time in our interview telling me about your company that I will not be working for because you haven’t taken a second to stop proselytizing to have a real conversation.

5.       Be honest.

                You ask honesty of people in interviews. Honesty and integrity screwed me out of a job last week, actually, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the things you say after the interview. If you are already set on someone else, let me know. Don't lead me on for a week or two, saying "we are still having internal discussions about the position" only to tell me later that I didn't get it. If I'm not in the running, let me know, and let me know what I can do better. I ask for feedback, but rarely get it. If I never hear what I did wrong, how can I do better? Constructive criticism would be good.

So, there's your top five. Not that I expect you to do them. After all, there's "so much going on around here" that you don't have time to put effort into finding the right person to fill a position at your business. You make that clear in the first two minutes. Every time.