Intervews suck. I know this is common knowledge but still it bears repeating. For all you people out there that can just say "I'll do my best and there is no sense in worrying about it" AND procede to actually not worry..... I hate you. Die. Of course I say that with all the love in the world. But for those of us who are not Shaolin Zen Masters, interviews suck.
Who came up with this stupid concept in the first place anyway? Can a person really sum up all of their pertanant life/ work experiences along with demonstrating how awesome they are in just 30 to 60 minutes by answering a handful of quasi- random questions? Of course not. Furthermore, who is actually fooled by it? I have sat on both sides of the interview table many times. All you have to do is Google the word "interview" and you will be bombarded with links, sites and ads. They all say the same things and and give you the same advice. Well, actually, I have to admit that the advice does sort of work. I'm too much of an animal trainer not to see how it is all about manipulating perception. Oh, I don't mean lying..... just the "never say anything negative" stuff. Your skills and education and experiences are all valid and important but really it is just about thinking on your feet and making a good impression, isn't it? Which is freaking hard to do when you feel like puking through the whole thing! Of course you try to project confidence but, lets face it, you are willfully asking a random stranger to sum up, compare and rate your usefulness. You are nervous, they know you are nervous, but that rational thought doesn't necessarily cut through their gut instinct. Which really sucks for all of us poor test takers. I've known enough people whose nerves get the better of them that are awesome at what they do as well as good interviewees who spend their first (and last) day sitting on the floor in the middle of the isle for 3 hours just reading the back of the DVDs during the first week of December. At least I can say it wasn't *my* fault that one slipped through!
On a related note: Applying and interviewing are hard enough but it sucks extra for those of us with 'non-trad' jobs. I get that the masses work in offices (doing whatever it is that people in offices do) therefore the bulk of material is geared towards them. But does it ALL have to be? After days of searching for tips, advice, potential questions ect... the best I can find was "be confident- they already know what they need to from your resume." Wow. Nerves totally calmed.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Oh darkest of days
As they say all good things must sadly come to an end. The return is immenent and the days of peace and harmony are about to come to an end. I am being vauge on purpose but those who know will understand. I can only take solace in the fact that things are not what they once were. At least after tomorrow the fear of the unknown will be over (the fears will likely be born out but whatcha gonna do?) I had a whole bunch of psudeo- poetic crypticy things swirling in my brain on my drive home. Sit down to type? Gone. Eh, short post is better than none. I guess I'll just sum up by hoping no felonies are in my future. =P
Saturday, March 24, 2012
I'm sensing a theme
Hmmm... I hadn't intended to go with any type of "style" with my blog but I seem to be going that way. Oh well, I guess I just don't have that many insights that would give me more to write (which is why I am largely impotent when it comes to Facebook, too) Beggars can't be choosers, then..... On to more examples of society being doomed!
Today I have two. The first is a "coffee is hot"/ "here's your sign" type thing: Recently I bought a couple of small candles from Bath & Body Works. The candle is in a little glass jar with a plastic cover. The cover has 3 small holes so you can sample the candle's scent. The plastic cover also has printed on it "Please remove plastic cover before lighting candle." This makes me ask a few different things... 1. Who out there thinks plastic should ever be lit on fire in the first place? That is what a candle is for, after all. 2.The three little holes are not even over the wick. So how would one light the candle at all? (Although the image of someone trying to delicately thread a lit match into the hole and sideways to the wick is rather amusing....) and 3. WHY are we being polite to these people? Yeah I know we are a lawsuit happy society which is why there is a warning label on everything nowadays. I am a little surprised that water bottles don't make a point to inform you the contents may be wet. But nothing says we have to toss in the "please" and "thank you"s! I think it would be way awesomer if we could develop a way for the misused product to deliver a message afterwords instead of before. Like after you try to light the tropically scented candle and end up with the wonderful smell of burnt plastic instead the melted remains would twist themselves into words saying "well, what the heck did you expect moron?" I'm sure we have the technology.....
My second example: Recently we bought a container of juice. As with many food items oft consumed by kids, there was a game on the side of the carton. In this instance it was a word search. "Nothing wrong with that!" you say.... well you're wrong! It wasn't a word search but an abbreviation search- for texting abbreviations! Hey I am a fan of texting too. I don't have the phone glued to my hands but anything that allows me to talk without calling is fine by me (I've always had a weird anxiety inducing phobia about that.... even for stuff like ordering pizza or something. I know, I'm sad). But aren't social and grammatical skills deteriorating enough nowadays that we shouldn't encourage it at the breakfast table too? I grew up hearing you should eat a good breakfast before school to help wake up your brain and help you learn. Text lingo is fine for texting but when people start to think of it as real words then it has gone too far. One more thing for the list of "items my future children will roll their eyes at while thinking I'm being totally old fashioned and irrational about." Other stuff on there are things like 'reading an actual paper book' and 'playing outside.' Yeah, I know. I'm going to be the worst mom ever.
Today I have two. The first is a "coffee is hot"/ "here's your sign" type thing: Recently I bought a couple of small candles from Bath & Body Works. The candle is in a little glass jar with a plastic cover. The cover has 3 small holes so you can sample the candle's scent. The plastic cover also has printed on it "Please remove plastic cover before lighting candle." This makes me ask a few different things... 1. Who out there thinks plastic should ever be lit on fire in the first place? That is what a candle is for, after all. 2.The three little holes are not even over the wick. So how would one light the candle at all? (Although the image of someone trying to delicately thread a lit match into the hole and sideways to the wick is rather amusing....) and 3. WHY are we being polite to these people? Yeah I know we are a lawsuit happy society which is why there is a warning label on everything nowadays. I am a little surprised that water bottles don't make a point to inform you the contents may be wet. But nothing says we have to toss in the "please" and "thank you"s! I think it would be way awesomer if we could develop a way for the misused product to deliver a message afterwords instead of before. Like after you try to light the tropically scented candle and end up with the wonderful smell of burnt plastic instead the melted remains would twist themselves into words saying "well, what the heck did you expect moron?" I'm sure we have the technology.....
My second example: Recently we bought a container of juice. As with many food items oft consumed by kids, there was a game on the side of the carton. In this instance it was a word search. "Nothing wrong with that!" you say.... well you're wrong! It wasn't a word search but an abbreviation search- for texting abbreviations! Hey I am a fan of texting too. I don't have the phone glued to my hands but anything that allows me to talk without calling is fine by me (I've always had a weird anxiety inducing phobia about that.... even for stuff like ordering pizza or something. I know, I'm sad). But aren't social and grammatical skills deteriorating enough nowadays that we shouldn't encourage it at the breakfast table too? I grew up hearing you should eat a good breakfast before school to help wake up your brain and help you learn. Text lingo is fine for texting but when people start to think of it as real words then it has gone too far. One more thing for the list of "items my future children will roll their eyes at while thinking I'm being totally old fashioned and irrational about." Other stuff on there are things like 'reading an actual paper book' and 'playing outside.' Yeah, I know. I'm going to be the worst mom ever.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Who is a good monkey?
*note*- I'm going to talk a bit about behavioral conditioning. I apologize to the three out of the five people who check this that won't have a clue.
I have just spent the last week in San Francisco at a Giraffe conference. It was my first confrence and I thought it was great. My flight home is at 6am (because the lady in Admin must hate me, apparently). Since I'd have to be ready to catch my shuttle at 3:30, I figured it would just be easier not to sleep at all over just getting 2-3 hours. I guess all the TV stations got together and decided what insomniacs really need to do is get more exercise. I'm guessing it takes care of the "I just don't have the time" argument as well as the "you could tire yourself out more" argument. But I digress. Anyway, I was flipping thru the channels and I see an ad for an ab cruching machine that makes an audible click when you do the crunch "correctly." I found this to be intriguing timing as I had just spent 16 hours of the last two days in a training seminar/ workshop. The connection being is that clicker training is a widely used and accepted method of positive reinforcement training. On the one hand, it amused me to think of how people would react if they knew they were paying for the same basic technology that trainers use on dogs. I know it doesn't matter- people are animals too, after all. But as the highly evolved creatures we like to think we are, some people tend to get a bit uppity.
On the other (and more main) hand: in this instance the click is being used as a "good job!" or, to put it more technically, a bridge. (well, actually it is really just a marker signal but I won't try to hurt your heads that much. I am pretty sure no one has even bothered to read this far anyway). It is called a bridge (partially) because it links a good behavior with the promise of a reward. For that to ever truly work the reward has to be a primary basic reinforcer (usually food.... Which admittedly would not be ideal here) Thus the problem is you are getting clicked over and over for no reward. This is why this type of exercise stuff doesn't work generally. Weelllll...... I suppose you could say all the action you will get from your abtastic new physique is the reinforcer (sex is a primary reinforcer, after all). But that is crazy unlikely. A) the click isn't directly liked to that in the first place and B) that is so far temporally distant to the behavior as to be practically unusable. Basically if you had the dedication and strength of will to hold out for that uncertain reward two months from now then you'd already be going to the gym anyway.
So what do we take away from all of this? A) I was being capable of way too much rational thought at 2 am after sleeping for only six of the last 38 hours and B) my spell check had no prob at all with the word "abtastic."
I have just spent the last week in San Francisco at a Giraffe conference. It was my first confrence and I thought it was great. My flight home is at 6am (because the lady in Admin must hate me, apparently). Since I'd have to be ready to catch my shuttle at 3:30, I figured it would just be easier not to sleep at all over just getting 2-3 hours. I guess all the TV stations got together and decided what insomniacs really need to do is get more exercise. I'm guessing it takes care of the "I just don't have the time" argument as well as the "you could tire yourself out more" argument. But I digress. Anyway, I was flipping thru the channels and I see an ad for an ab cruching machine that makes an audible click when you do the crunch "correctly." I found this to be intriguing timing as I had just spent 16 hours of the last two days in a training seminar/ workshop. The connection being is that clicker training is a widely used and accepted method of positive reinforcement training. On the one hand, it amused me to think of how people would react if they knew they were paying for the same basic technology that trainers use on dogs. I know it doesn't matter- people are animals too, after all. But as the highly evolved creatures we like to think we are, some people tend to get a bit uppity.
On the other (and more main) hand: in this instance the click is being used as a "good job!" or, to put it more technically, a bridge. (well, actually it is really just a marker signal but I won't try to hurt your heads that much. I am pretty sure no one has even bothered to read this far anyway). It is called a bridge (partially) because it links a good behavior with the promise of a reward. For that to ever truly work the reward has to be a primary basic reinforcer (usually food.... Which admittedly would not be ideal here) Thus the problem is you are getting clicked over and over for no reward. This is why this type of exercise stuff doesn't work generally. Weelllll...... I suppose you could say all the action you will get from your abtastic new physique is the reinforcer (sex is a primary reinforcer, after all). But that is crazy unlikely. A) the click isn't directly liked to that in the first place and B) that is so far temporally distant to the behavior as to be practically unusable. Basically if you had the dedication and strength of will to hold out for that uncertain reward two months from now then you'd already be going to the gym anyway.
So what do we take away from all of this? A) I was being capable of way too much rational thought at 2 am after sleeping for only six of the last 38 hours and B) my spell check had no prob at all with the word "abtastic."
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
This is dedication!
Last week I heard a interesting news story that I must share. In Juarez, Mexico (which is right across the border from El Paso) a young man hit a SUV with his motorcycle. A police officer ticketed him with reckless driving, driving without a license, and driving an unregistered vehicle. The cop then impounded the bike. Oh wait, I almost forgot to mention that the bike was a toy motorcycle and the 'young man' was a 6 year old boy! A fine of about $190 (US) was set to get the *toy* bike out of hock. This hurts my head in a wide variety of ways. I must say, though, with all the crime, corruption, and the rampant drug war that has been going on for years over there, it is refreshing to see a police officer who has their priorities straight.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Then a miracle occurs....
A few years ago my mom introduced me to a new hobby of felting. You use wool and basically make stuff out of it. Some people use it to make decorations on sweaters or little toys or decorative items. I like making cute little critters. I don't know how else to describe them. Little animals and 3d versions of some of the pictures from the Munchkin card game. My friends like the things I make but no one can seem to understand how I do it. It is really rather easy. You start with some wool and a special type of needle:
You poke the wool with the needle:
Keep doing this until you end up with a cute little creation!:
Simple, huh?
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