Saturday, March 16, 2013

Isn't it Ironic?

How's this for ironic?  Yesterday I attended a federally required "re-employment session" at my local government center.  The same one from which my employment was terminated.  In fact, the state agency providing this gracious and ridiculously unnecessary service is located right across the hall from the very office that was kind enough to hire and fire me after 90 days of employment.  This experience is dehumanizing enough for the average person, but to have to endure it when you know the representative conducting your session is going to skip down the hall on her break to talk shit is enough to make a grown woman want to cut someone.
Anyhow, (and this is the most frustrating part because I'm confronted by it on a daily basis) as you may have guessed, I'm already doing everything I possibly can and more in pursuit of a job.  In fact, I don't know one single person who has applied for more jobs than I have.  I don't know one single person who has done more to make herself employable than I have.  I feel like the grossly obese person who subsists on nothing but vegetables and the occasional piece of fish and exercises two hours a day only to continue gaining weight.
Searching employment websites and job banks and newspapers and every other source under the sun day in and day out and applying for every possible position I can?  Check.
Keeping my resume and cover letter current and customizing it to specific positions because I know a great deal of companies use word-matching software?  (I won't even mention the fact that it should be grammatically correct.  If your documents are not free of spelling and grammar errors, you don't deserve a job).  Check.
Utilizing quality references?  Check.
The good news is that I think I made this lady more uncomfortable than she made me.  I'd called her in an attempt to cancel the appointment, informing her that I'm well versed in job searching.  She told me that nobody thinks they need to come to these sessions and that I had to go.  Okay, lady...whatever you say.  The look of shock on her face when I produced the list of jobs I've applied for in the past three years (with the positions I've applied for since I was fired highlighted in yellow, of course) was somewhat satisfying.  Then, the second I informed her the only thing I can do differently is to leave my master's degree off of my resume because apparently it is not sufficient and that I've returned to school to pursue a second bachelor's degree in HR she seemed to sense that I was on the verge of a complete mental break down and the meeting was over.  You see, she didn't get the satisfaction of providing me with brand new information and I hope the fact that I'm likely more qualified to do her job than she is crossed her mind.  Also, unlike the clientele to which she's accustomed (trust me, if you lived around here you'd understand what I mean), I know that I'm expected to be actively searching for employment and I know how to turn on a computer.  I was told to set aside 90 minutes for this meeting; it lasted 10 minutes.
I'm super cranky today.  Sorry for the rant.

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