Yes, I hear you, tromping around your apartment on an urgent
mission to calm down the wildebeasts that live with you. Sometimes I think your
actions only urge the clomping beasts on.
You sometimes drop toys off the balcony, and trek outside to
get them back. The time you went to get a ping pong ball and tried to hit it up
to your balcony while I was sitting RIGHT THERE was awesome, The way the ball
bounced off the window behind me.
I hate you, stupid 10 year old kid. I absolutely hate you.
Every time I go out on the balcony to have a smoke, you run
to the door and yell “stupid smoke” and slam the door shut. Lean closer, I have
a secret.
I only smoke for you now.
I don’t smoke unless I’m at home, on the balcony, and able
to slowly give you cancer. I don’t smoke at work. I don’t smoke out and about.
But first thing in the morning, and at home in the evening, I want to slowly
kill you.
I could play loud music, but I’m not a fan of loud music
myself, and it would hit the innocent neighbors next door. Smoke has a
wonderful directional quality. I can take a deep breath and shoot it right up
between the slats of your balcony.
I actually planned to quit this week now that I’m working
full time and life sucks a lot less, I don’t need it to just get through the
day without wanting to harm things. Funny, now instead of keeping me from
hurting myself and others, I’m smoking to hurt you, you little shit.
Life was great for the three months before you moved in. With
you menagerie of elephants, wildebeasts, and ponies.
Some day, I’ll come up with a machine that smokes the
cigarettes for me. Just for your pleasure. Until then, please breathe deeply.
Thank you for letting me know that you will not be pursuing
me for the posted position. I appreciate a form letter versus a black hole like
Target or Celarity. After being in the rejection business for a few months, I
have to draw your attention to one sentence that keeps popping up in letter
after letter. I believe you wrote it with all good intentions, but it is
ultimately aggravating beyond belief, and makes me wish bad things upon you.
That sentence is:
“After reviewing your resume and carefully considering your
qualifications, we have decided to pursue other candidates who more closely
match the skills and credentials required for the position.”
Here’s another example:
“However, we have filled the job with a candidate whose
qualifications more closely align with the requirements for this position.”
Why is this aggravating? I have to tell you, I don’t
spend much time applying to job openings that are not in my wheelhouse. Of the
30 jobs I applied to last week, two of them were a bit outside my range, but
only in some of the duties listed. So to say that there are candidates whose
qualifications more closely match the skills and credentials required is like
saying you found an ice cream that more closely matches the qualities and taste
of ice cream than ice cream. What I’m saying is that your attempt to
rationalize your decision doesn’t make logical sense, and becomes even more
insulting since it then appears you did not look at my credentials and
qualifications to see how well they match the position.
This would not be constructive criticism unless I offered
an alternative. Here is a rejection letter that made me perfectly happy.
“Thank you for your interest in our Marketing
Communications Specialist position in our Minneapolis office. We regret
to inform you that we have filled this position. We appreciate your interest in
opportunities with us, and will retain your information for consideration for
future openings. We wish you the best of success in your employment search.”
Rather than attempt to tell me why I didn’t get a call, the
company just politely thanks me, tells me that the position was filled, and
leaves with a nice (even if form-letter-level-sincere) wish for success. Quick
rejection sandwiched in between two slices of politeness. Thank you, company! I
will keep an eye on future opportunities with you!
Here’s another one:
“Thank you for your interest in working at The Loft Literary
Center. You were one of 130 qualified applicants for the posted job of
marketing coordinator. I wanted to let you know that we’ve narrowed the search
to five candidates that do not include your application. Thank you for giving
us a chance to review your qualifications and interest in the literary arts.”
This one was appreciated because it didn’t offer any
trite reasons for not choosing me, and it had the benefit of letting me know how
stiff the competition was. I feel better knowing I wasn’t in the top five out
of 130 people. I have interviewed in person for several jobs knowing I was in
the top 5-10 out of more than 100 applicants, so I know I’m up there, just not
for this particular position. Once I have a job, I’ll probably look into
volunteering at The Loft, or using their services.
Anyway, if you are in charge of writing these rejection
form letters, please keep in mind the implications of writing vague reasons for
not choosing an applicant. I’m sure the process is usually an individual choice
based on what you are looking for, and the reasons for rejecting people are as
varied as the number of applicants, so to reduce your reasons to something that
is simply not true for each applicant insults the applicants and reduces the
perceived value of the work you do for the company.
Sincerely,
One of the hundreds of applicants you rejected today
I feel I should explain my comment, but to do so, we have to rewind the clock.
I started the day driving the wife to work, a drive where we saw two people spin out, one car accident, and a lot of congestion during the 20 minute commute that was 50 minutes today.
The next thing of note. I went to Michael's to return a Christmas gift we received last week, since Christmas was postponed with wife's family due to the wedding. I brought the gift and receipt to the counter, mentioning that it was a gift and that I planned to get some picture frames with the return.The guy said since it was bought more than 90 days ago, I couldn't return it. Never mind that it was a gift, that we didn't get it until recently, and so on. He said they've gotten in trouble for returning such things, even unopened with the original receipt. He said I couldn't even return it without a receipt for whatever it was selling for today. I left with the unwanted gift, and no picture frames.
Next I went to Target to get a refill on Wife's epi-pen, the emergency shot I am to give her if she ever has a horrible reaction to her allergy shots. It had two refills left, but the last time we did so was in Moorhead, since they last a year. Turns out Target doesn't carry generic epi-pens, so it was a no go. I did get two nice picture frames though.
Then I went to WalGreens to do a refill at a place we haven't filled from before.
I was having a day. Lots of crap going on, including thinking a lot about my family and how I'm going to be taking a break from them for a while for reasons I don't want to write about.
Then, I walked into the gas station to get some cigs. I walked in after you. You were a 65-year-old short woman with tinted glasses, brandishing a cellphone above your head and making a beeline for the counter, where the clerk was helping a customer.
"I've been trapped in your carwash for 15 minutes, honking. I can't get my car out. I have 911 on the phone."
The clerk chuckled a bit, I don't know why, perhaps because the way you held your phone up above your head as proof, perhaps because working at a gas station is a suckfest of drudgery, and this was something that hadn't happened before. Granted, it was insensitive. You snapped:
"It's not funny!"
The clerk got the attention of another store worker. She came over to help. You repeated your story, still holding your cellphone like it had AIDS, or you were trying to get reception. I wondered what was going on with the 911 operator on the other end while you waved the cellphone around.
"I have 911 on the phone right now!"
The second clerk chuckled at this.
"It's not funny."
Instantly, I thought how we are all tied together. Me with my shitty day. You with your shitty 15 minutes stuck in a car wash. The clerks with their shitty day trying to keep the floors clean despite the new dirty snow tracked in each second. All our lives suck today, and we all need a bit of respite from an uncaring universe to remember that none of it matters, and the most you can hope for is a Vonnegut-like post-modern perspective that the only point is to find some humor in the craziness.
I'm sorry I don't know your name. Or who you are. My resume found its way into your hands via your hairdresser, an acquaintance of my fiancé. When my fiancé had done said acquaintance a solid, she was asked if there was anything she could do in return. "Find my fiancée a job," she said, half joking, half fed up.
You see, although I've been unemployed for just a few weeks, and have had several interviews, my fiancé has learned that I don't do well without a job. I don't relax. I am the energizer bunny of applying to jobs, doing laundry, dishes, errands, and just not stopping. It's hard to live with, I guess.
The hairdresser said you would be coming in the next day and that you might be looking for a writer for some videos. She said she would pass on my resume.
I wasn't really expecting much from the whole thing, but figured it wouldn't hurt.
So the hairdresser comes in today and tells my fiancé how viscerally the guy reacted to my resume. Under my job duties at the small newspaper I worked at 10 years ago, I have:
· Reported city and county government, agriculture and business news
· Generated, wrote, shot photos and designed features on art, lifestyles, family and
religion for the weekend section under tight deadlines
· Formatted content for obituaries and opinion and pulled copy for food and
entertainment features
· Copy edited paper according to AP style
Straight forward, includes a sense of the many duties I juggled, active verbs, no biggie, right?
Nope.
This guy I guess went off on the fact that I included obituaries and food in the same bullet point. That's a criticism I can handle and consider as I continually revise and refine my resume. It's what came next that makes me hate you. A lot.
You said it doesn't surprise you that I haven't been hired yet because of this resume. That it isn't written in sentence form. That I included obits and food in the same line.
"This guy is a terrible writer," you said. "The thing that bothers me about writers is that I can write better than any of them."
My fiancé, god bless her, took this criticism relayed from the hairdresser and said it seemed a bit overboard. The hairdresser stood on the side of her client, who is a millionaire, so obviously he knows what he's talking about. He said he would look again if I fixed all the issues.
OK, pickledick, here's where you went wrong. You went from professional courtesy to professional asshole. It's a pretty thick divide between the two, so I am impressed with your ability to straddle both worlds.
One, I've been unemployed for a couple weeks, and have already had 4 interviews, so I must be doing something right. Also, your attitude toward writers in general seems overly negative. Did a writer molest you as a child? Is that how you got your millions?
The thing I've learned from reading a dozen books on resumes from supposed experts in the arena is that they are as variable as snowflakes. Format, style, emphasis varies from person to person, based on a multitude of factors including amount of experience, education, work history and skills. Each expert in these books gave different advice that conflicted with each other. You pick what you like from hundreds of examples and make a resume that works for your situation.
What this amounts to is that you do your best to create a resume that is visually appealing, presents information in a logical manner for that candidate, uses active verbs, and doesn’t include glaring grammatical mistakes. To pretend that your vision of a resume is the only possible way to do them is asinine.
At heart in your attitude is something that I think gets at a deep myth of the Midwest and the country at large. Observing my fiancé go through unemployment for more than a year and the reactions she got from people, reading articles and comments on unemployment, and reading the stupefying, simplistic advise from HR professionals in blogs that point out silly errors in resumes - I have come to the hypothesis that the way we view job hunting and employment is ridiculous. We view those hunting for jobs as flawed, that there must be something they are doing wrong that they continue to search. In America, all you need is the desire to work and it will come. If you are searching for a job and aren't getting one, there must be something fundamentally wrong with you. It's your fault.
This view is most often held by people with jobs.
The unemployment rate would not support that. There are many people out of work, all applying for jobs, and what makes one stand out above others I suggest is more often down to the whims of hiring managers or the computer systems they rely on. I've applied to jobs that I am half-qualified for, I've applied to jobs I'm more than qualified for. I've taken 4 hours tailoring my resume and cover letter to a specific position, I've shotgunned a generic cover letter and resume to 10 jobs in a day. There is no pattern to which ones have called me to talk other than that it's more often smaller companies and that spending four hours on one resume is a waste of effort. Large corporations like GM, UnitedHealth, Cargill and so on send auto-emails that say other applicants more closely matched the position, which is frankly impossible for some of them, as the job is what I have been doing for years beyond what they were looking for and I took pains to include language directly from their posting in my resume.
I talked to someone at Celarity, a hiring agency for creative professionals like me. The guy I spoke to gave me some helpful tweaks to consider, and said part of the issue was that I lived too far away. Now that I am here, and did exactly what he suggested on the resume, I still have yet to hear from them. So the sad fact is you can do everything right even for that particular recruiter and still get stiffed.
This blaming of the applicant is the rally cry of those who have jobs. I'd say it's like blaming the victim, but the connotations inherent in that make me sound insensitive. However, we unemployed are often screwed daily by HR computer systems that reject us for jobs we are more than qualified to do.
In an economy like this, there are many applicants out there with perfectly good resumes that don't get a chance. That's the reality of the market. It's like publishing. I've read a lot of incredible novels and short story collections that will never get published, not because they aren't worthy, but there's only so many books the publishing industry can support.
So, as you get your haircut and throw your judgment around, consider the idea that many others are finding my resume appealing and I haven't been out of work very long. I appreciate the constructive criticism and advice, it's the judgment that you can keep.
And on behalf of all writers and journalists who have been honing their craft for a dozen years, article after article, story after story, novel after novel; on behalf of those who have sought an education in writing to pursue a field of work that, like politicians and teachers, everyone thinks they can do better; go fuck yourself.
(The following open letter is written in the voice of my
fiance as she adjusts to the politics of working on a college campus. It is a
letter to the dean that will never be sent, even with the more confrontational bits taken out. It’s amazing how much shit we must eat to keep a job that
continually changes the rules and gives you conflicting directions. Background:
she was hired to run the writing center, but it is increasingly clear that she
is only to do what she is told and take blame for any problems that arise from
that.)
It was good to meet with you this morning. I have a few
follow ups.
1. Earlier, you indicated that the faculty adviser would be
advising me for only this semester, and that the writing center would become my
responsibility. However, whenever said adviser is around, you say the opposite.
Not sure which is true.
2. I’m having difficulty reconciling the job duties as
described to me upon hiring and in my job description and the reality that is
continually presented.
Since I began at the writing center, I have been anxious to
help develop it into a valuable resource for students and the college. In
practice, it has been difficult to do anything to move the center forward. I am
greatly enjoying working with students, which continues to be the best part of
the day. Now that I know I won’t be adjuncting this semester as you promised earlier, leaving me thousands short of what I expected when I moved here, I am holding on
to this student contact like oxygen. The students seem to be very thankful for
the help as well as evidenced by a very high return rate. I also am continuing
to strengthen relationships with the learning center.
However, I could do so much more. I would like to meet with
classes to promote the writing center. I would like to develop strong ties with
TRIO and Veterans Services to obtain referrals. Every time I try to do
something to increase awareness, I am cut short by the adviser who says I'm doing it wrong. Then I am held responsible for
the low student turnout.
My adviser said she will be the face of the writing center,
and that I am just to help students. Since I don’t understand such things, I
asked my fiancee, who has been in marketing for five years.
Him: “So she’s the face of the writing center?”
Me: “Apparently.”
Him: “She goes around to talk to classes, not you?”
Me: “Right.”
Him: “But she’s never at the writing center?”
Me: “Correct.”
Him: “That’s incredibly stupid marketing.”
I was unaware until this morning that I also have more
experience than my advisor along with more training and education. This
knowledge and experience is not being used to full potential. While I
appreciate her input into the writing center as it relates to the college, I
don’t know how helpful or cost effective it is to have her spend less than one
hour a week on writing center related issues, which invariably result in my
having to stop any plans to increase awareness.
I understand the mission of the writing center, and I want
to help it become what you want it to be; however, I feel the main message I
gleaned from this morning is that I cannot do anything without approval and
that I should just let things transpire as they will. Meanwhile, I will be held
responsible if the writing center doesn’t grow as much as we both desire.
I write this in the hopes that you will allow me to dig in
and begin making the writing center a place the students need and use
regularly.
I get the joke. Ha ha. That was a good one. I’m amazed at the elaborateness of your prank, how you involved so many people in this thing. You are like “The Game” times a million. Bravo.
It was like you had me on puppet strings, the way you got me to focus on my studies in school with promises that there would be some sort of reward at the end of it. I did my best for you – state competitor in extracurriculars, top of HS class, great scholarship for college. You even got the college to shortlist me as senior of the year. Things were going well, a good high peak, you might say.
Then you had me sell shoes for years as I looked for jobs related to my major. You whispered promises of the baby boomer generation leaving their jobs soon, and there would be a glut of openings in every field. Still waiting on that one. Nicely played, life. I like the way you came in at the last second to ruin their retirement savings so they would never be able to leave their positions. Better yet, you managed to just absorb the jobs of those that did retire so that people are working 2 or 3 jobs instead of one, saving the company money on salary.
You threw me a bone with the newspaper gig, which took about 1 year to sap the strength from my soul, and another to pound the snot out of what was left. All the while, I kept developing my skills as advised – I learned to write quickly on deadline, to express ideas and feelings through story, to meet and interview people on the spot, to collect information and impart that information clearly to others. I like to think I got good at it. I’m still learning, but aren’t we all?
Every good story has some bits of relief, and graduate school was certainly that. I was once again in my element, where hard work is rewarded, and I actually thought perhaps teaching would be a good option. Hey, I’ve always been a good student, and my students seemed to be pretty cool with me even when they were getting bad grades.
That was one of the best twists, since you managed to set up a good system where way more master’s degrees and PhDs are produced than are needed in academia, which leads to a great Ouroboros system where colleges are getting people to pay for degrees and then turn around and work for those same colleges for less than they would make at an entry level job, and with no benefits. They make their own subservient labor force and get paid by people who want to get into that job pool. Genius!
The best trick by far is the way you continually dangle little rays of hope out there – life-changing possibilities that make me believe that maybe, just maybe, you don’t suck so much, that things can be better. The way you set it up so employers can take months to get back to you for an interview, then weeks to get back to you after the interview and still expect you to start the next day – well done. The way you set it up so we have to interview multiple times at the same place – masterstroke.
OK, life, you got me. You got me good. I tip my hat to you. You got me to work my ass off for the American dream that says hard work gets me ahead in you, Life. You even got us to believe in you so much that we dug a financial hole to cover basic medical, food, housing costs, figuring surely you wouldn’t stretch out the joke much longer. But you did, you took that joke all the way to the breaking point. That’s fucking commitment, my friend, and I double salute you.
I’m anxious to see what your next trick is. Perhaps you can have a fourth person leave my office so I can do four people’s jobs for the price of one. Perhaps you can continue to keep me in Fargo, where there are no opportunities for my Fiance. I didn’t think you would be so crass as to go for this type of kick in the balls, Jackass humor, but you did, and it’s been awesome.
I enjoy a good poop joke, as you well know, but there’s only so much shit you can watch one eat, isn’t there? I think it’s time to stop joking, Life. My sides are splitting. I’m tired of laughing so much. You got me, you got me good. Can we move on, please?
To the crazy-ass woman who stopped me on 13th Ave.
Dear woman,
I never met you before tonight, when I had to fully stop my car on 13th Avenue to let you cross the street. I know you probably aren’t reading this, but I figure you can mentally collect internet traffic in the room in your head where I imagine there are shit stains on the walls spelling out your various conspiracy theories about salsas that are made in New York City.
I was dropping off some books at the Carlson branch of the Fargo Library and took I-29 down to 13th Ave. to stop at Cashwise to grab some non-curdled milk, the best kind of milk in my book, and some other provisions. I saw the bus at the stop in front of Kinkos from the time I got off the highway, but figured it would have enough time to get going before I needed to turn. I figured it would be a waste of energy to change lanes to turn right in front of the bus.
Some guys with bikes got off the bus and headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, and as the bus pulled away, you stepped forward from behind the bus bench. You were a heavier-set woman and wearing some sort of shirt that was a loud turquoise, and your chin length frizzy mop of hair was a color of yellow not before known to man. I guesstimate you to be in your 20s, with a dark tan.
You walked forward, past the bus bench, and hovered a foot off the curb into my lane. I wanted to turn, but was riding the brake to see what you were up to and to give you time to see me and back the fuck off. The road behind me was relatively clear, and in full sight of me you stepped off the curb into my lane as I hit my blinker.
You waved.
I slowed down some more.
You waved more frantically.
What the shit?
You were now fully in front of my car, waving to me like I saved your drowning puppy. You then started walking around the car to my window, still waving, and smiling, and I have no idea who the fuck you are. I searched my memory banks for former students you might match, but came up empty. No one, no one on earth that I know could be you.
I was fully stopped now, and rolled down my window slightly, in retrospect I suppose this would have been the perfect opportunity for you to shove whatever weapons you might have been carrying in at my face, but you still seemed preoccupied with waving frantically at me.
“Hi.” You said.
“Hi.” I said.
That was the extent of our conversation. You wheeled around and darted across 13th before more cars could approach.
What the hell?
I finished my turn, parked, got some groceries, and tried to shake off the encounter. No, you are not anyone I know. Not at all.
I am now terrified of you. And I will have trouble sleeping tonight without thinking of you crawling through the window while my fiance and I sleep and start waving again from the foot of the bed. You scare me.
Please stop waving at cars. We are not your friends.
This blog will be about Davina and the Vagabonds, but to help convey how absolutely wonderful they are, I need to show you what they had to overcome. I have to first address the three a-holes that were seated next to us.
Dear A-holes,
You came in to the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant on Saturday night and the three of you were seated across from my fiance and I. One man and two women. You all appeard to be about 60 something, upper middle class. The conversation was mainly held between the silver haired man and the reddish brown haired woman. Fiance and I couldn’t catch everything you were saying. But bits and pieces floated through the ether and it became apparent that you were vigorously discussing how to fix this broken country, and that item one on the list was to get rid of the poor people problem.
The woman: “I just don’t understand why so many people don’t pay taxes. Zero. They get rebates back from the government.”
The man: “And why do we keep paying unemployment for so long? It’s like free money for doing nothing! I could go out and get a job by Wednesday that pays $2000.”
This was the gist of what you were saying. You appeared to also dislike the tea party, Obama, and so on. I hoped that by the end of the dinner, your brain trust would solve everything, and we could rest easy and be honored to have been there when the deficit was eliminted by your conversation.
We tried to ignore you for the first 10 minutes, but considering who we are and why we were there, sitting next to you, it was hard not to stop talking to each other and crane our necks.
You see, we were there to celebrate fiance’s new job. She interviewed for a position last week, and was runner up for the job to someone they already knew. The guy said she made the decision very difficult. After despairing for an hour, hugging each other, wondering what we could do next, as her temp job was not going to do it for us, she decided to call him about the adjunct position he offered. She said she would love to, but needs to have something full time with benefits, and that she had applied to a writing center position at their college. He said he would work something out, to have her work 40 hours at the writing center plus teach a class or two.
This comes after about 200-300 applications over the past year and a half. A dozen interviews. Watching our finances go to crap as we tried desperately to hang on to something, anything. The time after an interview was always the best, there was hope in the air. But the rejection, with nothing on the horizon, sent us tailspining. We went to dark places. Very dark. Every week we hear another story about how the economy is on the mend, but no jobs are to be had.
But on Friday, after months and months of despair, hundreds of rejections, something clicked. Something finally worked. Without unemployment, we might not be here today. So please, asshole, don’t knock the people who have to use the system they paid in to just to get across the chasm of joblessness to the next foothold in their career.
I’m glad you could get a job by Wednesday, and I so wanted to just come over and ask you to do so for me to make our transition easier. But the night wasn’t about me, it was about Fiance, and eating a $140 meal that we can’t afford because for once, Fiance has a future. Hearing you complain about poor people while eating a three course dinner for what most people could feed a family of four for a week on makes me hate you. A lot. I could bring up the fact that in the next 10-15 years, baby boomers like you will be taking up $3 trillion a year of our national budget, but I don't like to pin my problems on groups of people like that.
Class has a few different meanings, but I rather think we should quit using it to discuss someone’s weath or status. Class comes with thinking about and treating others like human beings.
But the thing is, at 8 p.m., you quit mattering. Davina and the Vagabonds came on the stage, and all became right with the world. I’m not speaking to you anymore. You no longer exist. That’s how wonderful the band was.
Fiance and my story has Davina and the Vagabonds weaving through it. Our first encounter was three or so years ago at Rice Park in St. Paul during one of their winter carnivals. Ice sculptures were up throughout the park. Davina and the Vagabonds were playing as Fiance and I walked around. It was a cold, winter day, and they rocked, which I will discuss more of shortly. Fiance and I bought a live CD of theirs.
There are a few videos on youtube of the band. While awesome, they pale in comparison to their CDs and live concerts. This is my favorite video minus the first 20 seconds of title cards:
We listened to the CD nonstop. I sing along when driving alone. Later, we decided to get married near that same park, and when we sent out our engagement announcements, I made a DVD with pictures of us announcing our engagement with nothing but Davina singing “Daydream” by the Lovin’ Spoonful as the soundtrack. If we could afford to have her at the wedding, we would.
So when we were going to the cities to check out apartments and see caterers this weekend, we knew we needed to celebrate. Davina tweeted that she was going to be at the Dakota Club. We got tickets.
She opened the night’s set with “Daydream” and it was like she knew.
Davina was dressed in a black and white polka dot dress and had red dyed hair in honor of Lucille Ball’s birthday. Fiance said she wished she could find that dress. Davina sat at the piano, facing away from the audience, but she made up for that by giving us a good view of her playing style. Her hands jumped around the piano, slinging blues, ragtime, and awesomeness. She bounced in her seat, peering back and forth, left to right, to watch the crowd as much as we were watching her. She bounced at times like a five-year-old girl, proud to show us what she could do. She played like someone who’s been emoting through a piano for the last century. Her soul played.
Her voice broke, soared, bounced, and flitted from note to note, stretching out to each person in the Dakota Club. She threw herself into each song, alternating between sad, aching songs that made me feel like if I looked down, I would see my heart being clobbered on the table in front of me, and upbeat, glorious tunes that would pick up my heart, throw it back into my chest, and make me feel glad I made it to this point, through all the shit that life has thrown at me, because a world with this music has a lot to offer, so keep smiling, hug your Fiance, and why the hell aren’t you dancing?
This isn’t even touching on the Vagabonds, a trumpet, trombone, bass and drums that match Davina note for note, keep things bouncing, take over to give her voice a break for songs and, in general, rule the place. This video doesn’t have all the current band members, but it’s a good idea of what they do.
I said to the Fiance that along with Adele and Sharon Jones, I would be putting Davina on my list. Fiance vetoed, blackballed it. “But it’s just a made up list!” I said. “But it shouldn’t have people that you can concievably talk to,” she said. She then said Davina was on her list, next to Adele, Jason Varitek, and Drew Barrymore.
Oh well.
After five songs, I had to take a cig break outside, not because I needed it, but because I knew I would break down in a room of 300 people if I kept listening. The enormity of the fact that we may finally be escaping Fargo and what little it has held for us as a couple was hitting me. I came back in just in time to hug my fiance as Davina sang “Dream a Little Dream.”
Davina, fully aware of how devastating her songs could get, would comment from time to time. “Wow, that was sad, how about we pick it up a bit.”
After the second set, we had to find our way back to our friends’ home to crash for the night. We were emotionally spent after two roller coaster days of a bi-polar life (wherein even my car died, to add that to the mix). Fiance walked up to Davina near the bar and said “You’re amazing.” Davina, much shyer in person than she is onstage, said thank you and asked my fiance if she was having fun. It was a short interaction, but it ended Fiance’s day on a high.
Davina and the Vagabonds are going off on tour to Switzerland soon, but it’s nice to know that we will most likely be settled in the cities when they returns to catch them again.
I am not a good morning person. In fact, given the chance, I would punch a kitten to get five more minutes of sweet sweet sleep. Every day. Every fucking day.
My fiancé has learned not to try to ask me questions that require more than one word answers in the morning. Just as I have learned to make her coffee so it’s ready when she gets up and the world is just a little better.
I hate coffee, which may be part of the problem, but let’s get to the point here. I got in some Daily Show this morning, made the bed after waking fiancé, got together my paltry lunch of strawberries and yogurt and granola bar because I’m on a diet that sucks and I still live in Fargo despite trying again and again to find employment somewhere else because with all the rain this summer keeping the river above flood levels, I’m wondering if Fargo will pull a Minot next summer plus it would be nice for the fiancé to land a job with health insurance so we don’t have to pay $475 a month for the “safety net” insurance North Dakota "provides" for those who can’t get insurance elsewhere.
So that’s where my head was at as I made my way to my new gas station morning stop because my old one is off limits after telling the teller I loved him (see previous blog). I was a block away from the station and stopped behind you at a stop sign when your car appeared to die. Your car rolled back a little bit and I wondered if you were going to hit me. You flicked on the hazard lights.
A good person would have stopped. We were on a side street. A good person would have stopped to see if they could help, regardless of his complete lack of knowledge of cars, the fact he left his jumper cables back home, and that his car struggles to start every morning even though the mechanic says it’s fine.
I am not a good person.
The gas station was a block away and clearly visible. I pulled around you and kept going, but I felt guilty enough to drive out of my way to a gas station a mile away so you wouldn’t see me pull in to get my two energy drinks, cigs, and whatever else will quiet the demons that Just. Won’t. Shut. Up. Today it was a box of Nerds candy.
I hope your engine turned over. I hope you got to work. I hope your day gets better. But I was not there to mumble unhelpful advice and watch your folly of a morning. I recommend a box of Nerds candy.
You recently emailed me some writing exercises to do in order to obtain an interview with your engineering consulting firm. I accepted the challenge and completed the first two exercises rather quickly. One was standard editing of an article that was riddled with passive voice problems. The other was a standard press release for a ribbon-cutting event at a bridge. The third was to write a more opinion-based piece on the benefits of government agency collaboration. I’m glad you had a phone number there for me to call for more information.
Luckily, I was able to call the number just before the guy went on vacation. In the course of our conversation, we shared pleasantries, common connections to lake country, and a working definition of what collaborations means in this instance. I found it helpful and rather illuminating. I have enough info to write a basic piece about the benefits of agency collaboration.
The guy, an engineer, also shared that there were 200 applicants for this position. I was in the final 20, but not the final five. However, those five did the writing after their interviews and none of them “blew us away.” So you went back to the 20 and emailed the rest to see if there was still interest. The engineer said that your committee felt you could write as well as the previous submissions, and you are looking for some sort of wow factor in these articles.
About a ribbon cutting.
And government collaboration.
Now, lest you think I’m some sort of complainy mccomplainersonpants, esq., I want you to know that I love to write fun, interesting pieces. I love making complicated subjects interesting and exciting to a broad audience. I love speaking to experts on DNA extraction, or people who run the hot dog stand their grandfather started, or engineers who helped plan the interstate highway system. But there are limits to this. Sometimes, a lot of the time, actually, you have the standard, info-laden articles that exist simply to impart information. You spend the time saved on whipping these articles out to focus on the articles that can be improved by feature or narrative techniques.
I’m at a loss here, since part of this ribbon cutting assignment hamstrings the writer by giving them a set of bland facts and saying “Wow me.” It makes me think you have been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay, Simon Cowell, or other rude British realty stars.
I am tempted to make things up. An alien landing, perhaps, that city leaders at the ribbon cutting are shocked by despite the prior warnings they had received from a scientist and the local sheriff to “get people off the bridge! These aliens are feeding machines, Mayor, and you’ve just filled the trough.” But no, you had to have your ribbon-cutting event, you fool. And now look who has alien eggs all over his face!
To put this in engineering terms, not all bridges are the Golden Gate. A vast majority are workman thoroughfares not meant to be noticed. They simply get people from one place to another. Likewise with many articles – the info needs to get to those who need to know, and there isn’t much point in gussying it up unless you want to trick people into reading something they honestly don’t care about. Then they grab their pitchforks and awkwardly type angry online comments about that darn media system and all it’s stupid bias blah blah blah, and they hate you with a passion. Why do you want people to hate you so?
So in the end, I’m going to put together some basic articles on a ribbon-cutting event and the vague government collaboration thing. I could put some time into it, but you have written that this should take no more than two hours, and calling up a city engineer and taking up his time from trying to keep Fargo from flooding so I can have a nice feature piece to maybe nab me a job seems like a poor use of taxpayer dollars. It also would require me to spend some time with a that engineer, make him a central character in the article, incorporate agency cooperation facts and savings, all of which takes more than two hours and would definitely stretch your 250 word limit.
I think it would be interesting to write for an engineering firm, but I am concerned about the misconceptions concerning articles and press releases. If you expect every piece to be Golden Gate Bridge, your expectations may need some tweaking, particularly if the writer has little but 100 words of facts to go on.
Anyway, I thought you should know this before proceeding to the articles I wrote, because while they aren’t anything to send in for award season, they do what you want them to do. They get the reader from not knowing something to knowing something without confusing him. A lot of the time, that’s what we writers do, and even that is a challenge.
So enjoy the articles, and for Pete’s sake, stay off that bridge!
As Fiance and I were sitting outside enjoying the weather on Saturday at my family’s cabin, you cruised by in a pontoon with what I assume was your wife. You were assessing properties, and said to your companion that our cabin was “a waste of a good lot.” I’m not sure if you meant for us to hear that, but we did.
The cabin has been in the family for 80 to 100 years. There is no running water and we use an outhouse. No one in the family wishes to use the cabin in the winter, and it is too far away to become a commute possibility for anyone, so there is little point in updating it.
Beyond that, I have concern for your assessment of what makes a good cabin. There are all kinds of people in lake country. Most of them are rich and build some rather lavish monstrosities. That’s fine for them, and I appreciate different ways of living. We happen to appreciate a simpler lifestyle at the lake. No cable, no plumbing, curtains instead of doors for the bedrooms. We get a lot of reading done and board games played. It may not be the prettiest old building around, but it serves its purpose and we like it.
I know if my dad and uncle sold the property, the new owner would quickly demolish the building to build something new. That would be a shame.
I’m glad that there are some people that appreciate older houses. Our country doesn’t have a lot of history to begin with. I enjoy the character I get from living in a house made in 1929 and am glad that the owners before me kept those older attributes when possible.
Take a trip to Europe – any city will do. Walk around and marvel that many of the buildings around you were built before the pilgrims landed in America. For some reason, Europeans don’t think of old buildings as wastes of space, but something worth preserving. Just walking through a city, you can appreciate the long and wonderful history of space, something that’s difficult to get here in the Midwest, although there are some great places on the East Coast that also have a sense of history.
When we visit the lake for a couple weekends a year, it’s nice to look at the cupboards and know that they have been used by my great grandmother, the water pump that my siblings and I would take turns using to fill the drinking bucket, the outhouse filled with spiders that caused childhood nightmares. Memories and place connect with unseen and imagined history in older places in ways that are fascinating to some people, but not you.
Before you condemn a place because it isn’t made to your modern sensibilities, just take a moment to keep your spew-trap buttoned, bend over, and screw yourself.
