Week 1: Life is Good

Losing my job: Sucked.

Being unemployed for 6 months:  Worth it

This week I began my gainful employment with a company who shall remain unnamed unless you know me personally and then I will whisper it to you because I prefer not to say on the internet--now people actually search the web to see what their employees do/say/print/post/blah blah.  Must maintain mysteriousness.  So anyway, my new job = awesome.  I love it so far!!!!!!!  The best part = smiles.  I get to smile often.  I am expected to smile at people.  People smile at me.  Life is good.  Flowers and smiling are my two favorite things.  The only way to up this one is by working in a smiling flower shop.  Not gonna happen due to my stupid allergies.

I am still keeping an eye on job openings.  There are some promising ones in the planning field but I would rather be run over by a truck with a steamroller following behind it than be a planning director.  I now realize how  unfun planning can be.  The best thing that happened to me in a long time was being laid off.  I have my garden, a clean organized house, read books, went camping, swimming, shopping, walking but no singing because that requires karaoke and karaoke requires really being liquored up....

This weeks scam job:  One dorky get rich quick ad caught my eye so I went to it.  I clicked on it because the picture for it was a dumb looking dipwad with two thumbs up and he was super excited.  Upon further examination, I am confident he was also high on cocaine as no one can be that happy without illegal drugs or really heavy anti-despressants.... Since it is a scam, it must be illegal.  When I looked at the idiot's picture I drew a parallel to the Fonz which I jotted down on the screen shot.  After that....I realized it was more reminiscent of Steve-o's tattoo of himself.   Definitely not a way to make money in my book.  Looking/acting like a poser usual ends up badly....

The Fonz is cool

Steve-o's dumb-o tattoo
He is still cooler than the dorky stock investment guy....

Striking Gold

Wowsers.  I struck it rich on Craigslist today.  After a very long dry spell of any amusing job postings, I found two this morning-- ripe and ready for the picking.  La-di-da!

First up is a continuation of our old friend, Edwina, and her property preservation request.  I have no doubt that this has been posted by the same bottom feeders willing to pay a whopping $7.50 for a site visit!  (Gas is $2.89 a gallon right now, barely covers gas.  Idiots.....)  Funniest part is how they ended their posting:  "If you are insured, and honest, we should talk," as opposed to "If you don't have your own worker's comp policy and are a liar..."  Der....  That "we should talk" part should be a red flag that this is not the most genuine posting.  Maybe they should have ended it with "Lets do lunch, dahhhhling," in order to have a higher response rate since only a newb job hunter would respond to this one and, hey, free lunch!

Second idiot posting of the day comes to us from Sarah and Kent who feel that they have discovered the key to success and happiness and therefore must advertise it on Craigslist instead of late night infomercials.  They begin their post with an extremely annoying headline:  "Do you desire a change?"  Answer:  "No, I just look for jobs because I enjoy it."  "No, I just peruse job postings as a way of making myself feel better since I already have a job and want to laugh at the lack of good jobs available."  Why would they include that rhetorical question as their lead-in!?!?!?!  Of course I want change!!!!! Why would I be reading wanted ads online if I wanted to stay all caught up in the usual rigmarole of being unemployed.   For gods sakes alive!  This just really annoyed me but not as much as when I visited the website.  The website was so bad and I became so frustrated by the ambiguous phrases hinting towards financial freedom that I couldn't even post a screen shot here.  It made me so disgusted that I vurped.  I then took some Tums and only posted a screen shot of the ad.  Aaargh!!!!!!!!!

I am not sure if it is the weather, the moon cycle, my female cycle or the fact that I am entering into my 5th (yep, that is right) 5th f'in month of unemployment that is making me sound more like Maxine in those grouchy cartoons than sounding like myself (see dumb cartoon below).  I am also getting so distraught with my lack of leads that becoming an alcoholic or collecting disability pay for doing nothing is becoming more appealing by the minute.  If you are an alcoholic there are recovery services available for you and they will help you find a job if you go into "recovery."  If you are disabled, you can either get free schooling to be retrained or just collect money each month from your mailbox job.  You don't really have to be disabled in the usual manner of loosing body parts either.  You can just have a mental illness.  Mine is unemployment.  It is driving me crazy.  Grrrrr again.

Hungry for Money????? This job is for you.

I saw an interesting post on Craigslist for a job that was titled Financial Sales.  When I clicked on the posting I was not really surprised to see what I consider most likely a scam type job.  There seems to be quite a few scam jobs listed at any one time.  The dead give-aways for scam jobs almost always utilize the word "self-starter" and/or "motivated."  This job didn't require motivation just a self-starter for selling something to public companies as opposed to private companies.  Not sure of the difference.  The other interesting thing about this particular post is they only want to hire a hungry person.  I am unclear whether they are referring to hungry for knowledge, work, money or food or if they mean all of those.... Hungry is not typically a word used in job postings unless the position is for a professional eater, food taster or restaurant mystery shopper.   For some reason it reminds of "Angry for Coins" with Coinbird  (which I still think is the most brilliant piece of crapanimation on the web--shout out to Will Smith, one of the funniest people I have ever met).  Also,  if they want hungry people I would recommend tacking the posting up on the bulletin boards at Weight Watchers meetings or churches where they have those TOPS meetings as well.   There are probably many hungry people at those diet meeting centers.....

Overall, this job posting does include the usual descriptive terminology one would list in a legitimate advertisement--yet it still reeks of direct sales such as Amway, Quixstar, Avon or Tupperware.  I am not clear which of those direct sales companies would be marketing public companies so maybe there is a new one that sells pens and pencils, printers, paper or other happy and interesting office supplies that will make your life that much easier with things you didn't know you needed before you purchased them.  The posting also uses double spacing between sentences which is a plus.  It lacked commas and hyphens where I feel they should be included.  The posting also leaves out pertinent information for contacting the poster other than the blind email and omits hours of operation or status as full-time or part-time.  I would grade this posting as a "B".  Good job poster.  This is a better than average scam job posting.

How Do You Think They Intended To Use the Word Intercourse?

Today I opened my email and was delighted to see that I had a response from my resume posted on CareerBuilder.  Finally!  Woo-hoo.  Upon close inspection of the email I found I had some lingering questions regarding the possibility to work out of the home so I sent a response email.  I am unsure if I will receive a reply to my inquiry.  I shall keep you posted.  Below is our correspondence.  I have highlighted that area of concern in the original email.  As the email did not have a signature, I sent the correspondence to the name of the person who sent the email. Have a Blessed Day!  *Note: I included screen shots as to verify the validity of this post. 

Dear Nicole 
Sirius Business Research LLC. EU Company is seeking an Operations Contractor. 100% Home Based opportunity is available in April 2010.
The Company renders risk management researches and consulting services for Iron and Steel Industry.
Descriptions include but are not limited to:

• Cooperate and forwarding client on the Web, by phone or personally
• Paper trail, records and accounting
• Continuing education and training
• Analyzing client's demands and requirements

Wages: $400+/week after short probation period.
Requirements:

• Verbal and written intercourse skills
• Computer skills(Internet, Office)

To apply please send this invitation on leader.mtl.co@gmail.comHr Dept.
Wagramer Str. 4
Hochhaus Neue Donau
Floor 7, office 708.
1220 Vienna, Austria
Sirius Business Research LLC.


Here is my reply:

Dear Priscilla:

In response to your email of April 23, 2010 I am bit concerned that this may not be a legitimate offer. Please reply to this email so I may verify the validity of your offer. As for the required skills, I have been told I am very adept with intercourse in many different manners including both written and verbal.  Whenever I am away from home I engage in verbal intercourse with my husband via telephone.  Sometimes we communicate in that manner via email.  Is this the skill you are looking for?  If so, I would be very interested if it involves my husband.  If not, then I am not interested in having verbal or written intercourse with anyone else.  I made a vow when I got married to be true to one person. Engaging in intercourse with others appears to void this arrangement.

If your email refers to verbal and written skills pertaining to office correspondence then I do believe I am interested.  Please let me know in which manner you are referencing intercourse.  I do not have any interest in becoming one of those phone operators on a 1-976 phone number even if it is a home based business.

Regards,

Nicole