25 Applications

I was on my 18th or 19th application when I decided that in order to get a job, I would have to apply for at least 25 positions.  I told myself this to take the pressure off.  Instead of treating each position like it was my last opportunity ever, my attitude was that finding a job is a volume business, and to get one you have to kiss a lot of frogs. So to speak. 

The magic number that I'd decided on was 25.  I wouldn't expect to get any offers until I'd applied for that many positions.

I hit that magic number a few weeks ago.  It wasn't half an hour after I'd submitted my 25th application when I received an email from application #23.  They wanted me to come in for an interview.

Eight days (and two interviews) later they offered me a job.

+++++

The library that hired me said they were very impressed.  After rejection after rejection after rejection, I don't suck anymore!  

Me, for one. 

The funny thing is, they almost lost my application.  The only reason I got an interview is that I know someone (Betrothed) who knows someone (her colleague) who knows someone (his wife) who works there.

A few weeks after I'd applied, I emailed Betrothed's colleague's wife and asked her if she knew anything about the position.  She said that not only did she know about the job, she was the head of the department and was in charge of hiring the position.   She was about ready to make a decision on it, but asked me to send her my resume first.

When I told her I'd already applied for the position a few weeks earlier, she went to their HR department to see if she could find my materials.  They weren't there.  Although I'd received a (presumably automated) confirmation that they'd received my application, she couldn't find it.  It had been lost in HRland.

She asked me to re-apply, and she was impressed enough with my resume and cover letter to give me an interview. And then a second interview. And the people at the interview were impressed enough hire me. And to think they almost never even saw my application.  I wonder how many of my other 25 applications have been lost?

+++++

When I started my job search I created a new gmail account that I would only use for professional correspondence.  I didn't want to use the address associated with this blog because I didn't want a potential employer to stumble on it and judge me for my politics, personal tastes, cynicism, or potty-mouth.  So I put the new gmail address on all my resumes, cover letters, and applications.  (The new professional address has "25" in it because that's my birthday.)  

Ironically, all the correspondence I had with my new employer has taken place with my personal email address, because when I initially contacted Betrothed's colleague's wife, it was an informal message.  And from there we just kept emailing back and forth using my personal address.  So in the end I didn't even use the special "25" email address I'd created for the sole purpose of finding a job.

++++

Whenever I tell people about my current commute, where I live 50 miles from where I work and drive an hour each way, I'm always quick to point out that the commute itself is quite stress-free.  It's a straight shot on the highway with very little traffic. "It's not like living in Chicago," I say, "Where you could go 15 miles and it would take the same amount of time in bad traffic."  I swear I've made that statement dozens of times. 

Guess how far my new job is from my new house?  15 miles.  And guess how long the commute is?  About 45 minutes.  It's slightly shorter than my current commute, but not by much.  And it's in hellish suburban traffic, something I always said would drive me nuts.

But after getting rejected 24 times in the past year, I've been humbled.  When I first started my job search, I was brimming with confidence and verve: "Yeah!  I could be the Head of Reference at a major research university!"  Now my expectations are a bit lower:  "I hope I'm good enough to work 9 hours a week as a substitute librarian at a public library 30 miles away."

+++++

I really am excited about my new position.  The library itself is really impressive, huge with lots of great services and resources.  Even before I got the interview (and then the job) there, I used to look at the happy employees on this library's website and say to Betrothed, "I want to work at that place."

And soon I will.

God and Lawn

I was mowing my lawn last week when my crazy neighbor lady accosted me over the fence.  She shoved a $5-bill through the pickets and asked if I would mow her lawn for her.  I said I'd be happy to mow the lawn, and she didn't have to pay me.  I refused her $5.  (Frankly, if I were doing it for the money, $5 would be pretty insulting.  But I understand that she wants to feel like she's contributing.)

My friend Abe Lincoln wants to know if you'd do me a favor...

I used to mow her lawn more regularly, but lately it's been hard enough tending to my own stuff, so I haven't been very attentive of hers.  (Moving, planning a wedding, applying for jobs, buying a house, selling a house, and spending almost every weekend in Chicago takes up enough of my time.)  Another neighbor does the large part of her front yard with a riding tractor mower, but it's too big to get into her tiny fenced-in back yard, and that's what needed mowing.

She knows I'm moving and getting married, and asked me about my house situation.  I told her we were buying a house, and she asked if it was a fixer-upper or if it was move-in ready.  I said the latter, and she responded, "Well, that's good, because I know you don't like to do much house maintenance."  What the what?  I just agreed to mow her lawn, and she's taking a dig at my homeowner skillz?  I know it drives her crazy that I don't spend 10 hours a day on my yard like she does.  Sorry, some of us have a life outside of our garden.

++++

The conversation took a weird turn when she said how happy she was for me that I'd found love again and was moving on.

"God gave you a second chance," she said.

I nodded and smiled.  I agree that I'm very lucky and I am thankful for all the great things in my life.  I have more blessings than I can count. But do I believe that God gave me all those things?  No.  If I did, I could just as easily have responded to my rude lonely widowed neighbor lady with, "Yeah, it's too bad God doesn't give a shit about you."        

(When I told Betrothed this story, she said, "God didn't give you a second chance.  I did.")

But I don't believe God plays favorites.  When good things happen, it's not a reward, and when bad things happen, it's not a punishment.  It's just life.  Sometimes you're the lawnmower, sometimes you're the grass.  Or something like that. 

        

            

Four Links

If you like travel and geography, this site will suck all time from your life:

http://geoguessr.com/

It plops you down on some random place in the world using Google Maps streetview.  You figure out where you are and guess.  I spent an hour playing with it when I had a lot of other stuff to do.

Where in the world is this?

+++++

If you watch Arrested Development, you can waste tons of time on this lovely App, from the most unlikely of sources, NPR:

http://apps.npr.org/arrested-development/

I've often said that Arrested Development is the funniest show ever that constantly flirts with incest. It's a tiny category, to be sure.  This chart shows me all the times when it actually happens.  They even use the exact phrase I do, "...flirt with incest." 

+++++

This link isn't so much fun as bizarre.  I was at the Chicago Green Festival this weekend, and this was by far the weirdest thing I encountered:

Flameless Cremation

Instead of that messy fire to turn your body into ash, it uses "a combination of gentle water flow, temperature, and alkalinity" to turn you back into dust.  I had no idea that traditional cremation techniques were not good enough.  I thought the absence of caskets, embalming, and taking up space in the Earth was already better for the environment.

I checked out their website, and it all seems a bit... sketchy.  And creepy.  It seems like they're trying to solve a problem that isn't a problem.  And certain obvious questions-- like How is this better than fire?  And How long does the process take?-- are conspicuously absent from their website.   There's almost a defensiveness to their website, like they know it's creepy and they're trying to convince us otherwise.  They go out of their way to point out that using alkalis to decompose the body is not the same as boiling a body in acid.  They just use hot water and acids to turn the body into ashes.  They also point out, "These alkalis are also used in common cosmetic products, body washes, shaving creams, and many household products."  Um, yeah.  How is that better for the environment than good old fire?

+++++

Michael Pollan, of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food fame, is the subject of another interesting web app from the New York Times.  (Not to be confused with the Michael Palin of Monty Python fame.)

Here you can read some of Pollan's favorite rules about eating well:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/10/11/magazine/20091011-foodrules.html?ref=michaelpollan&_r=0

They all seem to stem from his one core rule:  "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Pollan has a new book out, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, which I plan to read soon.

   

Oh the Human(ity) Resources!

According to the Excel spreadsheet I started last year, I have applied to 22 positions since February of last year:  11 university positions, 8 public libraries, and three community colleges.  There are 38 institutions on my list of websites that I check for positions.  The URLs to these sites include words like jobs, employment, listings, openings, careers, applicants, joblist, postings, get_involved, and interviewexchange.

So I've become pretty familiar with human resources software over the past year.  My favorite places to apply are the ones that simply give you a name and email address and say, "Send your resume and cover letter to this address."  Easy and straightforward.  But I'm not writing about those.

I've encountered a hellish bureau-scape of forms, disclaimers, and ass-backwards procedures.  I sometimes wonder if they do this on purpose to discourage applicants.  If you can make it through the gauntlet of their HR website nightmare, you're worthy of hire.

One job posting I saw from an online, for-profit college listed their location as "Chicago," but was not any more specific than that.  "Chicago" covers a lot of ground, and I'm not commuting from a northern suburb all the way to south Chicago.  So it's kind of important to have an address.  The most amusing thing about this posting, however, was the button you click when you want to apply.  The button was labeled, "Submit to Job."  Whenever I see the word "Submit" on an online form, I always think of it as a synonym for "knuckle under."  Uh, no thanks!

Submit to your new overlord-- I mean job

    
Jobs posted at the Chicago Public Library read like tax code. Here's a small sample of one Job Description:

Disclaimer - "Accredited" means any nationally or regionally accredited college, university, or law school where the applicant is enrolled in or has completed an Associates, Bachelors, Masters, or Juris Doctorate degree program.

Education & Employment Verification- Please be advised that if you are selected to be hired you must provide, upon request, adequate information regarding your educational and employment history as it relates to the qualifications of the position for which you are applying. If the City of Chicago cannot verify this information, any offer extended to you will be withdrawn and you will not be hired.

NOTE: To be considered for this position you must provide information about your educational background and your work experience. You must include job titles, dates of employment, and specific job duties. (If you are a current City employee, Acting Up cannot be considered.) If you fail to provide this information at the time you submit your application, it will be incomplete and you will not be considered for this position. There are three ways to provide the information: 1) you may attach a resume; 2) you may paste a resume; or 3) you can complete the online resume fields.

NOTE: You must provide your transcripts or diploma, professional license, or training certificates at time of processing, if applicable.

VETERANS PREFERENCE NOTE: The City of Chicago offers Veterans Preference to both current, active military personnel AND military personnel who have served in the Armed Forces of the United States and have received an honorable or general discharge. Eligible candidates must have at least six months of active duty documented. In order to receive the veterans preference, candidates need to indicate whether or not they are a veteran by answering "yes" or "no" to the question on the online application that asks, "Are you currently serving on active duty for at least six months in the Armed Forces of the United States OR have you served in the Armed Forces of the United States on active duty for at least six months and received an honorable or general discharge?" In addition, you must attach documentation to verify your military service. For veterans, you must attach a copy of your DD214 to your online application which includes character of service status OR a letter from the United States Veterans Administration on official stationary stating dates of service and character of service. For active military personnel, you must attach a letter from your Commanding Officer on official stationary verifying your active duty, length of service, and character of service in the Armed Forces of the United States AND a copy of your military ID to your online application. Failure to answer the question and attach the required documentation will result in you not being considered for the Veterans Preference.

Three notes, a disclaimer, and a verification.  And this is only one section of a very long job description.  Half of the ad is written in bold face.

After reading all that, and considering whether I want to apply for a position in a location that would be a horrible commute, I read this:

Residency Requirement: An employee must be an actual resident of the City of Chicago. Proof of residency will be required at the time of employment.

Since we're buying a house in Evanston, I guess I'm not eligible.  I was actually relieved to realize I didn't have to apply for this job.  Can you imagine what headaches would await me on the other side of that "Apply Online" button?  

+++++

I know what fresh hell can be found at the other end of the "Apply" button, because I've been down that rabbit hole.  One particular university has an HR portal that annoyed me before I ever applied there. They made it really hard just to find listings. Part of me hoped they'd never had a job listing for me and I wouldn't have to deal with them.  Here's an actual example of text I found on a job listing:

Application Deadline: Date below
Deadline:Jun 2, 2013

I can't figure out what the difference between "Application Deadline" and "Deadline" might be, but they're both listed, with the helpful notice to look one line below.

But when this university advertised a job that I was (approximately) qualified for, I felt to compelled to apply.  And I found out that their annoying HR portal would only get worse.

Here's part of an email I sent to someone describing the experience:

"I submitted my application to [Annoying University] this morning, and I hate their institution now. Remember that I didn't like their human resources page because it made it so difficult to look for jobs? It's ten times worse when you actually try to apply for a job. The application forms are confusing and annoying."

Some examples:

• The first page asked me to download my resume, and then it somehow scanned the document and filled in my information on the form.  Pretty cool!  But then when I moved on to the next page, it didn't transfer that information over, and it asked me to fill out a form asking for all the same information I'd just submitted on my resume.  I had to retype my entire resume into their stupid little boxes, including things like listing my high school (which I haven't listed on a resume in 20 years.)
• On the initial page there was a tiny text box that said, "Paste your cover letter in here." Uh, there's no way to upload a Word document?  I went ahead and submitted that page without it, hoping I'd be able to do it at a later stage.  
• When I "submitted" the first page, it took me back to a menu page that was really confusing. Although the previous form said "Step 1 of 5", the menu page didn't give any indication what step I was on, and it wasn't clear where I was supposed to go next.
• When I finally figured out how to find the next page (2 of 5), it was a full application form, basically asking me to re-type my entire resume into their little boxes.  I was so angry about having to do this that when they required me to put something for "minimum salary," I added $5K to what I would have accepted.  If they were going to make me jump through all these stupid pointless bureaucratic hoops, they were going to pay for it.
• Some of the text boxes were so tiny I couldn't type anything in.  The box for "city" for each school they made me enter (IT'S ON MY FUCKING RESUME) was 3 spaces.  I'm not exaggerating. It was literally three spaces to type in the name of a city.  (Sorry, we only hire people who were educated in cities with names like airport codes.) 
• When I finally filled out the whole form, it sent me back to the confusing menu page, which had no option for where to go next. I had to go back to their jobs portal, search for the job, then click "apply for this job" again. 
• Then it asked again for my cover letter, but only provided a tiny text box. I was supposed to "copy and paste" it in. Seriously? For a professional job I have to copy and paste my cover letter into a tiny text box?  With no formatting or anything?
• After I submitted my cover letter to the tiny text box, the HR portal gremlins told me I was done.  I had applied.  What the what?  Usually there's some sort of confirmation page that lets you review everything and make sure it's correct.  Not here. I "submitted" before I even knew what was happening. Screw you, we got your materials!                

I was so angry after filling out that application that I didn't even want the job anymore. Don't they have people who test the usability of their online applications?  If their HR department is so inept, how would the rest of the university be?

I don't want to work for him.

Needless to say, I never heard from them.  

Two-Minute Connection

Sarah Vowell's latest book, Unfamiliar Fishes, is ostensibly about the history of Hawaii, but the first part of it seems to be more about American cultural imperialism in the 19th century, and how WASPy New England missionaries tried to educate the heathen Hawaiians.  As I read [listened to] accounts of the missionary organization that trained Hawaiians and Cherokee on how to spread the Word among their people, I thought, "Holy shit, this book is totally my ex-wife's dissertation!"

+++++

I haven't had any contact whatsoever with my ex in more than four years.  She's so far removed from my life right now that I hardly ever think about her, and when I do it's more of an abstract, "Oh, yeah, I used to be married."  In fact, I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to thank her for leaving me, because it allowed me to find someone much better suited to me.  Almost.

My ex's dissertation (which she wrote, I might add, with my emotional and financial support) was about 19th-century missionaries using manual labor schools to educate and "civilize" African Americans, Native Americans, and Hawaiians.  She even went to Hawaii to do some of her research.

I'm researching my dissertation!

So of course I wondered if my ex had read Unfamiliar Fishes.  She has to know about it, right?  Surely someone in her life has read Vowell's book and told her how much it overlaps with her dissertation.

Part of me wants to call a time out and be friends again for like two minutes.  So I can say, "Hey!  Have you read Sarah Vowell's book on Hawaii?  It totally deals with your dissertation!!"  Then she'd say, "Yeah, I know!" Or, "Not exactly, Vowell focuses more on blah blah blah and my dissertation was more yadda yadda yadda."    

And then we'd resume our non-relationship.

Evolving Advice

For generations of newspaper readers, Dear Abby and Ann Landers were synonymous with advice columns.  Like Kleenex and Coke, they were the brand names that represented the entire industry.  They were also highly competitive twin sisters who for large parts of their lives were estranged from each other.  But I've already written about that fascinating feud.

They may have been the voices of several generations, but I'm realizing that those generations were way before my time.  The Dear Abby I knew growing up wasn't even the original Abby, but her daughter.  The Friedman twins who would become Ann and Abby were born almost 100 years ago.  By 1965, Ann Landers was a grandmother in her mid-40's who had been writing her column for a decade.  Both twins were already huge media sensations. 

I learned all this because I've finally got around to reading their twinography, Dear Ann, Dear Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren.

Despite its titillating title that makes it sound like a trashy expose, and the fact that it was written 25 years ago, there is some interesting stuff in it.

But what I'd like to focus on, and what this blog is about, is how dated these women's lives seem.  It's kind of like reading science fiction from the 1950's:  you know they meant well, and in their time they were progressive, but every once in a while something happens to shock you into the realization of how different times were back then.

Here's a horrible little story of how Abby ("Popo") met her husband, Mort Phillips:

Henry Ginsburg, a young man from Sioux City, invited Eppie [Ann Landers] to a Sigma Alpha Mu dance at the University of Minnesota.  Obviously, one twin wasn't going to an out-of-state dance without the other, so Ginsburg asked a frat brother, Mort Phillips, to escort Popo.  According to Popo, when she got to Minneapolis, "Morton had decided he didn't want to take me.  He said, 'I want to see the girl first.' " Ginsburg got another friend to take Popo to the dance.  "Anyway, I went to this dance," Popo continues, "and Morton cut in on me, and I... was... in... heaven. I don't usually do this, but I made a late date with Morton that night."  

So she finds it not rude and arrogant, but charming that this man, 1.) refused to be her date until he got a look at her gams, and 2.) cut in on her date when he saw what a doll she was.  I have to hope that this is a generational thing, because I truly can't see how that's the meet-cute she makes it out to be.

Many years later, when both twins are blowing up as advice columnists, Abby gets interviewed on national TV by none other than Edward R. Murrow himself:

Murrow asks Popo why she puts her typewriter away at six o'clock each night.

Perched on the edge of a metal swivel chair, knees pressed primly together, Popo demurely replies, "Are you kidding?  I never work in the evenings, Ed. I never work on my family's time."

"You mean you don't let being Dear Abby interfere with being Mrs. Morton Phillips, wife and mother?" Murrow asks in mock wonder.

"No, Ed," says Popo, repeating in singsong cadences her well-rehearsed credo.  "What you might call my career is actually my hobby.  My number-one career is my family, and I never let my hobby interfere with my career.  That's how I keep my career and hobby apart, and both successful."  

While I can admire Abby's commitment to her family, and I'm pleased to see that she appeared to be genuinely in love with her husband for their entire lives, it's striking to me how little regard was given to women's careers at the time.  In the climate of the 1950's, even a national media figure like Dear Abby had make it clear that her career was always secondary to her husband's.   

Perhaps it is a credit to their progressive nature that both columnists changed their positions on many social issues.  In the beginning, Ann Landers "maintained a hard line on interfaith and interracial dating and marriage, and still disapproved of premarital sex and divorce."  But she would change her mind on all of those issues eventually.

Maybe that's not so much progressive as adapting to the times.  After all, these popular media figures couldn't have stayed so successful for so long if they hadn't been able to gauge their audience and adjust to prevailing attitudes. The book also suggests that as Ann gained more personal experience with these issues, and heard more first-person accounts from her readers, she realized it was more complicated than she'd thought.  In essence, the less ignorant you become, the more you're open to social issues. 

+++++

Ann and Abby were pioneers of advice writing, so I don't want to bash them too much for the attitudes of the age that produced them.  Advice columns have come a long way since then.  When Ann Landers died, her writing desk was bought at auction by Dan Savage, one of my favorite current advice columnists.

To show how far that desk has come, Savage is a gay man who writes a sex advice column that routinely uses acronyms like DTMFA (Dump The Motherfucker Already) and concepts like "pegging" (a woman using a dildo to penetrate her straight male partner.)  Savage's column would surely shock the pantaloons off of 1938's Friedman twins.

Margo Howard is Ann Lander's daughter, who had her own advice column.

 
And even Savage gets attacked nowadays for being too conservative.  So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Or something like that.

++++

Incidentally, what I consider to be the pinnacle of advice giving these days is Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post.  In Dan Savage's book, The Commitment-- about whether he and his boyfriend Terry should get gay married-- he writes about doing his own un-scientific comparison of current advice columns.  He writes to three popular columnists, laying out the issues and everyone involved, and asks them, "Should we get married?"  Here's his analysis: 

Like all good advice columnists, Amy and Margo [Margo Howard, incidentally the real-life daughter of Ann Landers]  instinctively side with the author of the letter, me, in my dispute with my mother, boyfriend, and son.  This is as it should be. So long as the person who asks the question doesn't come across as crazy or self-destructive, an advice columnist's job is usually to divine what it is the reader wants and to do and advice him or her to do just that....

Carolyn, however, doesn't bite.  Instead of telling us to do what we want, instead of offering us any advice at all, Carolyn puts a pair of questions to us.  And while her words are less comforting, she does manage to get to a little closer to the heart of the matter: "Do you believe in marriage, or don't you?  Do your values demand it, or not?"  

So it's official: Carolyn won Dan Savage's advice columnist throw down.  That's why she's my favorite.

And I've never even seen her gams.

Same School, Different Worlds

Here's a fascinating story from the mountains of West Virginia:

A Charleston high school brought in an abstinence-only speaker to tell the students how dangerous premarital sex is. Among the many factually wrong and inflammatory things she said was that condoms don't work and that every time you have unprotected sex, you'll get an STD.  Fliers for the event said it would focus on "God's plan for sexual purity."  This was in a public high school. 

A senior at the school refused to attend the event.  She contacted the ACLU and spoke out publicly against the speech, saying that it was inaccurate, offensive, and nothing but an attempt at "slut shaming." 

The principal then had a private meeting with the student, wherein he tried to intimidate her by threatening to call the college she was going to and tell them she was a "backstabber" with "bad character."

The student then filed an injunction against the principal.  (I'm not sure exactly what that means, and none of the news stories explain it, but I assume it means she wants him reprimanded or fired or something.)  

+++++

The funniest thing about this whole situation?

The student is going to is Wellesley College.

If you're not familiar with Wellesley, it's a famous all-women's college outside of Boston with a very strong reputation for feminist education.  It's one of the Seven Sisters schools.

Lisa Simpson dreams of going to a Seven Sisters school.

Wellesley's most famous alumna is Hillary Clinton.  (A less famous one, but equally important, is my Betrothed.)

A high school principal threatening to call Wellesley because his female student is speaking out against abstinence-only education is kinda like tattling to a young boy's mom that he won't stop eating all his vegetables.

It would actually be a really entertaining conversation to hear, kind of like Who's On First.

Principal: She has bad character.  I brought in a speaker to tell the students that God's plan is for them to remain celibate until marriage, and she was mean and called the ACLU on me.
Wellesley:  Who has bad character?  The abstinence-only speaker?
Principal: No, the student.  She's a backstabber!  She can't be trusted!
Wellesley:  Because she was spreading misinformation to other students about sexual health?  She wasn't slut shaming, was she? 
Principal: No, she wouldn't listen to God's Word!  And she wouldn't behave. 
Wellesley:  Um, we're fine with that.  We like independent and strong women who fight for equality.
Principal:  ??    


Frankly, it boggles my mind how a high school principal can be that ignorant.  It reminds me of the time I gave a ride to a vice president at my college, and during the conversation it came out that she didn't know the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr.  How can any educator be THAT ignorant?

"I Have a Dream" or "95 Theses"?   

In such situations, I try to figure out the thought process of the baffling person.  This high school administrator clearly inhabits a different world than I do.  A world where an authority figure in a public school can coerce a student with threats.  A world where ANY respected university (much less a liberal arts feminist college) would take seriously a principal who uses words like "backstabber" to describe a student.  A world where a college would reject a student after they've been admitted because a school administrator tattled on them.

Or maybe I have this principal all wrong, and he's just a naive yokel who sincerely had his feelings hurt.   He never meant to call the college, but he doesn't understand why this young lady has to be such a troublemaker.  He's trying to appeal to her sense of fair play.   "You called the ACLU on me, how would you like it if I called your college on you?"

Whatever the case, he doesn't come across as very smart, mature, or knowledgeable.  And I'm pretty sure he doesn't discuss issues of "slut shaming" in a feminist deconstruction group.  But then, what would you expect from a principal who hires an abstinence-only speaker?