Advice for Talking to the Unemployed

That last post gave me an idea for another post on general advice for talking to the unemployed.

Here are some things to not say:

Have you tried looking at the classifieds? 
Someone actually suggested this.  A. I must be an idiot if going to the classifieds hasn't occurred to me.  B. Going to the classifieds isn't really with the times, is it?  C. The classifieds aren't really helpful to engineers.

Have you looked at [Insert Big Company Name]?
It's amazing how often one hears this.  Again, I must be an idiot if I haven't looked at Medtronic or Boston Scientific or 3M or whatever.  If you're going to suggest a large company, you had better have a contact for me.  I guess it's OK to suggest a small company because there's a chance that I haven't heard of it, though at least for me, I probably have.

Have you looked at [completely unrelated company]?
I ran into a former coworker at a local conference and he suggested that I look into Oracle.  Now, I'm not a programmer and he knows my engineering discipline isn't related to anything Oracle does.  So if you suggest a company to an unemployed person, at least put a second of thought into whether or not it would be relevant.

OK.  Rant over.

FDA Approval

SEWMOC called me recently to tell me that the project that we had worked on received FDA approval.  He, of course, is excited about it and expected me to share his enthusiasm.  However, this moment was bittersweet for me.  I had imagined this moment for years, and it's weird to think that when it happened that it didn't make me happy. 

Of course, living well is supposed to be the best revenge, but there must be something I can do for revenge, right?  Maybe I'll start donating some money to stem cell research.  They just did a stem cell thing that enabled a blind guy to see.  Maybe with enough time, stem cells will make the medical device I worked on obsolete.  I don't even care if that would mean that my stock goes to zero. 

Advice to people while talking to a former coworker: your good news is most likely not their good news.  Just keep that in mind.  Now, the former coworker will act happy and all that, but don't expect them to really feel the same enthusiasm.

PSA Rejection

I just realized that to you, the reader, my 100th post actually only looks like the 98th.  Oops.  Well, I had two posts in draft and this is one of them.  

One of the recent acting gigs I applied to was to be in a local PSA for swine flu.  Wouldn't that have been fun?  I can't find a link to the other recent PSA, but the one where there's a class and Miss Lee tells everyone to cover their coughs and to get vaccinated.  I feel like I could've easily been one of the students in the class.

Anyway, I didn't get the job.  But I did get a nice personally addressed response:

Sorry for the late reply and thanks so much for your interest. We have filled the roles with other candidates but I really appreciated your interest. If we have other work I will let you know in the future. Best of luck and happy holidays.

I thought that was a nice e-mail to get.  Can't other companies send me a nice rejection letter like this?  I know we're all busy, but because of this e-mail I have a better opinion for the MN Department of Health.  Maybe we'd see other companies less like faceless corporations if they took the time to nicely respond to our employment inquiries. 

The 100th post

So this is my 100th post.  I thought I'd point this out.  Let's go to google analytics to get some stats.

First, my AdSense account is up to $31, so that's kind of cool.  Apparently, it only took 41 clicks to make that money. 

The blog's only been visited 268 times, but 416 different pages have been viewed.  I guess I'm not the next Waiter Rant yet. 

I've had six international visitors from Canada, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, Lithuania, and Pakistan.  It'd be cool to at least hit each continent once.

There have been visitors from ten US states with (of course) Minnesota having the vast majority of those. 

I can also tell what search terms have led visitors to the site and leading the list with two is the search "Andrew Gold", which was one of my Thanksgiving themed songs of the day.  The most interesting search from the list is "the jetsons "vice president jetson"".  The only search term that lead to more than zero seconds of time on the blog was ""working on" article australia".  I have no idea what they were looking for, but they spent 33 seconds on the site.

For four users, the first page of the blog they read was the andrew gold page.  (There must not be enough out there on this guy, since someone would read my little entry on him.)  For three users, their first page was my Infinite Jest entry.  FYI, I never finished the book.  Oh well.

More posts will come this week, but it's kinda cool that I made it to 100.

Fezziwig's Feast

Disclaimer: This post is a plug for Fezziwig's Feast and I happen to be friends with someone involved with the show.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to Fezziwig's Feast.  This is kind of an interactive theater thing like We Gotta Bingo or Tony and Tina's Wedding (other Actors Theater shows) and it's an interactive performance of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  If you don't know, Fezziwig is Scrooge's former boss and it's like Fezziwig is reading the story to you and people act it out and Fezziwig's family serves the food and all that. 

It's past christmas already, but I want you to keep this in mind for next year.  Also, if you buy the tickets several months ahead of time as I did you save some money. 

The show was a lot of fun.  And it kind of has a more casual feel and if you go to the show at the Guthrie that might be a little more stuffy.  Also, if you're not a big fan of interactive theater, there really isn't that much interaction.  You talk to the other characters when they serve food and a few other occasions, but it's not like you're going to be dragged onto stage to do some silly dance like in other shows.

Food was good too.  The menu was roasted pork with collard greens and polenta with bread pudding for dessert.  The food was very good (except the collards, but I've actually never liked collard greens).  One thing we discussed was that I had imagined that the food would kind of from the era.  You know?  Like we'd have a turkey like in the story.  And some sort of pudding or something more British.

So, go see it next year. 

Finally, a post

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy I guess.  Family and friends have flown here to visit and that takes up a lot of time. 

I do keep a list of blog post ideas and I'll go through some of those now.

Checking References

So some former coworkers told me they were contacted by last week's 14 interview company.  That's usually a good sign.  This is the first time that they've been contacted so this is definitely the farthest I've gotten in any job.  I'm still worried that I'm only going to be offered the stepping stone job or possibly I may not be offered anything at all, but still, this is a good thing.

One interesting question they were both asked was about how much time I'm at work.  They both said that I was there when they arrived and when they left.  The second reference was asked if he had been coached by the first.  I don't know if that was asked seriously or jokingly, but still kind of funny.  I've never interviewed a reference before, but I think this is a good question to ask.  So I guess if possible, one could coach references to give the response that they work or if the question isn't asked, sometimes you get a chance to say anything additional about a candidate and maybe they could mention that there. 

Song of the Day - Save Ferris

Today's Christmas-ish song of the day is Save Ferris' version of "Christmas Wrapping".  While I consider the Waitresses' version to be the best, this particular version is kind of a Jewish take on the song and today at sundown will also be the beginning of Hanukkah.  So this song goes out to all of my Jewish readers (probably none of you.)



As you may have just seen, there's actually no video on this youtube video.  I only found one other youtube with this song and it was a plain green background.

Kind of on the subject of Save Ferris, I thought I'd tell you about my friend's costume idea.  We had kind of an 80's themed halloween party and a friend of mine thought it'd be cool to dress up like the blue water tower in Ferris Bueller's Day Off .  Like you'd use cardboard and make a big round blue thing and put "Save Ferris" on it.  Unfortunately, he got sick (likely swine flu) and was in bed that whole weekend.  One advantage of a costume like this is if you're in a place like Madison for Halloween, when you parade around, you can bundle up as much as you want and it won't ruin the costume.

Chances to be on TV

I had some other recent chances to be on TV.

First, there was a commercial in St. Cloud.  I have no idea what the commercial was for, but they did call me back after I sent my head shot.  Unfortunately, I was out running errands all day and I forgot my phone and I didn't get the message until late in the day.  I left a message, but I never heard back from them.  It's probably for the best.  They wanted to shoot on Tuesday, and that definitely would not have been a fun drive back home with all of the snow.

Then, there was a shoot for an infomercial.  I'm not supposed to go into specifics, but the job would require me taking a weight loss supplement for certain amount of time.  Then, I'd be on the infomercial endorsing it.  It sounds kind of sketchy (and readers that know me are, I'm sure, already snickering at the concept) and I decided not to do it.  Perhaps not surprisingly, this job pays way way better than your normal be an extra in a commercial gig.  Maybe I'll consider it if I make it to the end of my unemployment benefits.  I mean, Robert Rodriguez funded El Mariachi mostly through being in experimental drug trials and he's doing great.

Lunch with Patent at Obento-Ya

Last week, I had lunch at Obento-Ya with my friend who I'll nickname Patent.  Patent recently passed the test to become a patent agent.  He's not a lawyer, but with his certification, he can write and argue patents in front of the US Patent office; he just can't sue anyone for patent infringement or anything like that.

First off, I would recommend Obento-Ya and it's a nice place for lunch.  They have over 10 options for Japanese bento boxes and the ones that Patent and I ordered were both very good.  These bento boxes come with a meat, rice, a salad, potatoes, and miso soup.  Very good value at $9.  It's a fairly small space and it reminds me a lot of Midori's Floating World, their old location especially.  (I would recommend Midori's too.) 

We were meeting because in one of my recent interviews, I had an idea.  We were discussing current problems with their device and I just blurted out something that popped into my head that sounded good.  We didn't really talk about my idea and moved on to other stuff.  Since then, I searched google patents and did general google searches and surprisingly, no one else has thought of this.  I have other patents, though I generally feel like they were just timing.  Maybe I'm being modest, but I assume that if other engineers that had worked on those projects, they would have also had patents because they would have faced the same problems I did.  I kinda feel the same way about this patent idea.  Also, as this is something that just popped into my head and sounds good in theory, I have no idea if it would work in practice.

Anyway, Patent advised me to write something called a provisional patent.  What's kind of cool is that it only costs $110 to file it.  So the strategy is I'd write up the provisional patent, and then shop it around.  As I don't really have any contacts, I'd go back to the company I interviewed with.  And provisional patents don't really count until you file for real (which would cost well into the thousands).  Maybe I shop it around and get nothing, or maybe somebody thinks it's worth something and then things'd get interesting from there.

I have no idea if this post was interesting to anyone, but to me, it's cool that you can do something like this so cheaply.

Song of the Day - Christopher Williams

Today's song of the day is "Talk to Myself" by Christopher Williams.  Does anyone remember this song?



I remember hearing this song, which came out in 1989, and thinking that it's really stupid.  I guess it still is kind of a dumb song, but relevant to me and probably lots of the other unemployed people out there.  I spend most of my days in my house at my computer and I might talk to someone (other than my wife) once a day. 

I guess before, there might have been a number of days spent at my computer with little contact, but even the act of showing up in the morning and saying hi to people you pass by; that small act kind of lets you know you're a part of something.  And I miss having lunch with lots of people.  There was a big group of us that'd eat together all the time.  The group lunch interview from last week is the most people I've had lunch with in a long while.  And I actually felt like I had a good rapport with them.  I hope I can have that again whenever I find a job.

Shaking Hands and Hand Sanitizer

ERIDC told me this story about a recent interview she had:

She goes to meet the manager at a small company for a job interview.  They say hi and shake hands.  They sit down in this woman's office.  As they chat, the manager discreetly gets some hand sanitizer and proceeds to rub the sanitizer through while keeping her hands under her desk. 

I guess that's not so weird in the season of swine flu.  People are super-paranoid and that's OK.  I just can't help but wonder what if it was reversed?  What if the job applicant goes for the hand sanitizer right after shaking hands with the manager?  I'm guessing that would looked upon poorly by the manager.  Or even worse, what if one is white and one is black?  Especially, if the one using the hand sanitizer is old and white, I feel like that could be construed as racism. 

So I guess my general advice for applicants is don't use hand sanitizer in front of anyone that's evaluating you for a job.  Go to the bathroom first.  I guess for interviewers, I would suggest using hand sanitizer out in the open and not trying to hide it; maybe give some line about swine flu.  Otherwise, it just looks weird. 

A lot of Interviews

So I've made several references to a stepping stone job.  I'll go through the whole thing here.

So back in my Hooray for Networking post, I talked about meeting someone through networking.  This manager's company is a fairly large private company around here.  We meet for lunch and he tells me that the job may not be exactly what I want, but I have my spiel and he seems to be OK with that.  Then, I hear back from HR and schedule an on-site interview.  I'm also given the long test described earlier.

OK.  So I'm now at the onsite interview.  The drive wasn't that bad.  I guess it'll be awful when there's snow, but we could probably say that for most commutes when it snows up here.  I proceed to meet 11 people that day and I gave my stepping stone spiel to all of them.  Also, I didn't get out of there until almost two and I didn't get a lunch while I was there.  I just thought that was strange.  I also left thinking that I definitely don't want this job that's beneath me, but I did like some of the people I met. 

So then a day later, I hear back and I'm invited to lunch with three other people.  (Wouldn't it have been better to keep me there all day the day before?)  I thought the lunch went well.  I liked all three of them and there really wasn't any mention of the stepping stone job. 

Now, I can say that I've met 14 people from this company and sent them all thank you letters.  I doubt this is a big deal, but I took care to not mention the stepping stone job title.  I just don't want them imagining me in that role.  I'm encouraged by the fact that I had the extra lunch interview.  Obviously, if the onsite had gone poorly, I wouldn't have gotten that.  During the lunch, I asked if my next interview would be meeting the CEO.  They laughed (phew) and said they heard he wasn't in town.  All I can do now is sit by the phone I guess.  

Business Cards

For a networking event I recently attended, I decided to print my own business cards.  So I thought I'd write this for any job seekers that might want some ideas on business cards. 

First, I guess I would suggest against getting the free business cards from some place like Vistaprint.  If you get the free ones, usually the printing company will put their logo and stuff on the back.  Maybe that's ok for some of you, especially students, but probably not for most people.  Because you also have to pay for shipping for those free cards, you only pay a little more to print them on your own. 

If you want to pay for a company to make your cards, by all means, do it, but the main reason that I want to print my own is that I want to have different cards with different job titles.  I have a few strengths, which I believe qualify me for somewhat different job titles so I want to make sure that whoever I meet.  Something else that you might want to do is make a generic plain card and this is what you use when you have to put your card in a box, say at a networking event or a big conference. 

As to the design of your cards, I've been told to stay away from clip art.  Usually, it looks cheesy and designs I tried out that had clip out were only moderately liked by my wife.  A while back, a friend of mine did a fun drawing that kind of looks like.  I wanted to use this as my business card picture, but my wife and I felt that it wasn't professional looking enough and I didn't draw it myself either.  Maybe I'll use it if I make actor business cards for when I'm on the set (Let's hope.)  It's OK to have big clocks of color just on the card.  However, color ink does cost a lot, and on my first sheet of a card with lots of blue squares, I noticed my blue ink started to fade by the bottom cards.  I'll play with that some more in the future.

I don't know if this helped, but I'm sure I'm going to try printing some more business cards in the future, and I'll post if I have some more tips.

I Coulda Been Somebody

Update on being an extra.  Over Thanksgiving weekend, my wife took some pictures of me in my suit, and I'm using the black and white version of that as my headshot.  And I made my actor's resume with my very meager acting experience.  I saw a website where it said to just lie all over the place on your actor's resume.  I can't imagine seriously trying to be an actor.

So I sent my headshot and resume to three different jobs I saw on craigslist: office worker in a corporate film, a short film where I'd be a referee for a wrestling match (yes, that would be comical), and an extra in a commercial for a local casino.  Surprisingly, I heard back from the casino commercial director, but filming would have conflicted with a networking event.  I decided to decline the commercial and do the responsible thing.  Filming was actually done at the casino, but that's like two hours away from here.  I could've been able to do both if filming was here.  Oh well.  This is encouraging though.  I didn't expect anyone to get back to me.

A Ridiculous Test

In preparation for the aforementioned (how often do I use that word?) interview for the stepping stone job, I was sent a link for an online test.  And this test was just completely ridiculous.  There was a math section and an analogy section and word definition section (very SAT-ish).  But there were also several personality assessment sections.  Since the test was online, I was copying some of the questions over and now you get to read them.

The first section is essentially True or False.
-You have never wanted to "tell someone off."
Who hasn't wanted to tell someone off?  What kind of weirdo hasn't?

-You have never said anything that you later regretted. 
I remember reading a quote that was something like, "You haven't lived if you don't have regrets", and I agree with that statement."

-People never irritate you. 
-There are times when taking revenge is the only fair and logical thing to do. 
-You have never been angry at anyone.
I answered false to all of these.  Aren't these ridiculous questions?  Maybe I should have answered true to the revenge question.  I'm thinking now that if I was in the Kill Bill situation and my fiancee and baby (presumably) and friends were all killed, revenge might be a fair thing to do.  The revenge of living well might not cut it in that situation.

In another section, they give you two activities and you have a scale of 1 to 4.  1 means you strongly prefer activity 1 and 4 means you strongly prefer activity 4 and 2 or 3 mean slightly preferring. 
-Balancing your checking account  - Listening to others talk about their problems
-Writing a story, screenplay or theatrical production - Setting and attaining your own business goals
I slightly preferred listening to other problems.  (I assume that means that I would have empathy.)  I also picked writing a story.  Isn't that just more fun?  Well, I guess it is for me and I actually think it would be for the majority.

Anyway, so during the onsite interview, I noticed that all of my interviewers had this stapled packet.  And there was a pie chart on the front and it was divided into like 8 fairly equal sections.  I'm wondering what it would mean if, say, 3/4 of the pie chart was the same color.  One of my interviewers mentioned that from my test, it's apparent that I would be a hard worker.  Really?  These crappy questions somehow communicate that to you?  He also mentioned that the test shows that I would follow rules strictly.  I don't understand any of this stuff.  Whatever I guess.  I still think the test was stupid.

The Price is Right

Contrary to what you might think about someone that's unemployed, I really haven't watched very much TV.  (My "spare" time is spent surfing the web.)  But the day after thanksgiving, my wife and I watched The Price is Right and I haven't watched in long time.  I just want to take some time here to make fun of a very stupid contestant.  First off, he's wearing a shirt that says "F.B.I." on it.  My wife assumes it stands for"Female Body Inspector", but no, underneath it says "Firm Believer in Christ".  Shouldn't that be FBC?

So in the first bidding game, someone bids 875 on whatever the prize is, and this guy has the last bid and says 874.  Of course, he loses.  And then on the next bid, he bids like 2500 and the actual retail price was like 1200.  Damn.  He did improve after that.  I think on the next one, he was only one dollar over the price.  That had to hurt.  He finally made it on stage on the very last game.  And proceeds to win that game.  And then he spins a dollar on the wheel.  And then on his showcase showdown, he's off by like 10 thousand but the other contestant is off by 15.  Very lucky streak.

I'm guessing if I'm on The Price is Right, I'd be really nervous and surely capable of saying something really stupid.  But with years of watching the show, I feel like I have built in instincts on at least how to bid.  And I can promise you if I'm wearing a shirt that says FBI on it, it certainly won't be standing for "Firm Believer in Christ".

Song of the Day - Monkees

I used to come home from school and The Monkees would be on TV.  (That was a while ago.)  So today's song of the day "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone."  Apparently, the song was not originally done by them, but whatever, I'll always associate this song with the Monkees.

Earlier this week, I had an interview for a job that I consider very beneath me.  And this was an onsite interview and I met several people at the company.  And it was like each interview started out "Are you sure you want this job?"  "Of course not," I'm thinking, but I go into my super-professional voice: "I believe that this job would serve as a stepping stone to better opportunities in this company while learning as much as I can about your products."  I really can't imagine any of them buying that, but we all play along in this farce and I'm just hoping that someone sees what I'm really good at and recommends me for something else.

A Fortune Cookie

I was recently at a Chinese restaurant called David Fong's.  When I got the fortune cookie, it said, "You will soon be crossing great ocean waters for an incredibly rewarding experience."  Now, if we add "In Bed" to the end of that, I think it would be worth crossing an ocean for that. 

I really can't imagine this fortune actually coming true in any way, but what would have to happen for this to come true, considering my current situation?  Let's take the word soon in the fortune to mean within a year.  I don't have any trips planned so my rewarding trip would have to be paid for by someone else.  Maybe I'll win a contest or something.  I've already been rejected by that company in Australia, but I guess maybe I'll send my resume out to a few more companies.  Could I be hired by some company who thinks I need some training in Europe?  That would be kind of cool.  I don't even know what an incredibly rewarding experience could be.

Anyway, I'm going to put a reminder in my google calendar and a year from now, I will post on whether or not this fortune has come true.  Even it wasn't a rewarding experience, I would count the fortune as coming true if I took a plane across an ocean.  We'll see.

Giving Thanks 5k

That was kind of a depressing post for such a fun disco funk type song.  I thought I'd talk about the Giving Thanks 5k, which my wife and I did with some other friends this past Thanksgiving.  The major advantage is that it's not the Turkey Day 5k, which is the big one in Minneapolis.  We've done that one before and there are just way too many people there.  You can barely walk anywhere in the Target Center for registration and you can barely walk on the course. 

The Giving Thanks 5k is way less crowded and it's in Como Park.  And you can actually park close by.  Wow.  It was very very cold though and registration's outside.  They did provide hot water and hot chocolate which was nice.  And this wasn't generic brand hot chocolate either; you had your choice of Land o Lakes, which I think is pretty good.  

The course goes around Lake Como twice.  It's kind of disappointing when you approach the finish line for the first time, but you have to keep going another lap.  I guess there wasn't anything really entertaining during the run (This isn't the Blubber Run, where you're served beer), but my friend who's in theater gave me tips on my headshot (black and white) and my actor's resume (people put down all sorts of random "skills") so that was useful. 

After the run's over, no one really wanted to hang out since it was freezing and some people had cooking to do.  But we did get some of the snacks afterward.  They had Snickers Marathon bars, which are good, but I'm just going to guess aren't super-healthy.  They also had packets of "dried plums".  According to wikipedia, they're marketing prunes as "dried plums" now in an effort to reach a younger audience.  That seems kind of silly and these particular dried plums kind of sucked to eat because there was a syrup or something and your fingers get all sticky and gross.  And more trivia, prune juice is made from reconstituted and pureed prunes.  If that's the case, what does plum juice taste like?

Song of the Day - Gap Band

I have a disco-ish station on Pandora and they just played the Gap Band's You Dropped a Bomb on Me. 

Isn't this just an amazingly bad video?  Can you imagine anybody wearing those outfits today?  It would be awesome if a bunch of kids, say somewhere in asia, make a youtube where they dress up just like this and do those dances.  That'd be a great video. 

Anyway, I still feel sore about my whole situation.  A year ago, I was told that I was so valuable and all this other junk and it was all a lie but I ate it all up.  And I remember being let go.  I walk into the office and someone from HR is there and that can't be good.  It occurred to me, but I didn't believe it at that second.  I was completely stunned and silent.  I was asked if I had any questions after getting the news.  All my questions are internal now.  Who am I?  What do I want to do?  Who do I want to be?  I thought I had a pretty good answer, but I don't really know.