In Which I Get a Job that I like!!!!

I have undergone quite the transformation in the past year and half.  I went from a highly professional job where I was valued for my knowledge and treated in high regards to some very different types of positions.  [It is funny when I think back to it.  Sometimes I remember events and for some reason everyone in my head speaks with an English accent and sometimes I am wearing a wig like George Washington.  Ok, so that is when I have dreams about my old job but still...it is kinda odd don't ya think, chap?  End Rant Here.]  I was a pizza delivery driver, pizza maker, house keeper and finally an overqualified butt wiper.  I know my last job wasn't really all butt-wiping but it was the part that I had NO IDEA about before I had accepted it.  Granted, it was only when I had to work the floor or as a last resort, but just not my cup of tea (see, the English thing again).

Overall the dynamics where I worked for 9 months were not ideal.  Many times I felt like Lloyd in Dumb & Dumber (*Note, to truly understand the torment please click on that link).  I could go on and on and I am sure over time I will post little snippets of the hellish ordeal but for now I am trying to remove it from my memory and focus on the good.  Which is why I am writing in the first place and it brings us full circle to one year ago........

Last year I interviewed for a position that I knew I could totally do and was offered the job in a round-about way.  They basically said they couldn't afford me.  They said what they could offer and I agreed with them because at that time, my naivety about how dire the job market would become was unfathomable.  I was still expecting to find a job that made within $5 and hour of what I had been making.  So needless to say, I went on my merry way and continued to drudge forward through unemployment for another 6 months {Rant--my husband continually said "I told you to accept that other job" whenever I complained about the job I had accepted. Rant ends here}.

Fast forward 13 months later: While perusing through Craigslist I spied the same job that I had turned down last year!!!!!   No way!  Could it be?!?!  Since I had accepted the other job and "settled" for a lower salary that was commensurate with what they had offered me I wondered if I should go for it.  When I told my husband about it his response was "I told you to accept it last year!"  So I contacted them and told them my situation: the past year was pure hell and I had kicked myself for not accepting it before and I GOT THE JOB!!!!  That simple!!!!!!  Holy buckets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I started at the new job about two weeks ago.  It is a job I can do.  It is a job that makes me happy.  It is a job where I am appreciated.  It is a job where I am no longer on call, ever!!  I can have nights and weekends and holidays free!  I can go out of town.  I can drink too many beers and not get a call that someone is sick or didn't show up or there is a major crisis that I can't deal with because I got my beers on.  I can take the kids to school in the morning and then go to work.  I can leave for a full hour at lunch and take my husband to work and not have to check out and let someone know I am leaving the premise on my own time.  Pay dirt baby!!!!

My new job is administrative--the kind of crap that I did before I went to college.  However, my experiences elsewhere have come in handy and I am actually highly-qualified!!!!!!!!!  My desk is behind a large counter.  You can't even see my head when you walk in unless I really sit up to peer over the ledge.  It is my happy place.  My very own happy place and I can't think of anywhere I would rather be from 8:30 - 5 pm, Monday through Friday.  Woot! Woot!

Welcome to Wal-mart where we only hire people who aren't you (as in me)

I have officially hit a new low in my job quest.  I am unemployable as a greeter.  I have to admit that it is true now that I have been turned down by Wal-mart.  Yep.  I was.  I can't believe it.  I feel like a tard.  It was the same feeling I had in college when my perfect 4.0 GPA (yeah, I was an over-achiever then) was marred with my first B.  I remember that I felt as if the world was ending.  The worst part was that my family laughed at me--much like my husband laughed when I told him I didn't make the cut for the Wal-mart job.  (I will say in my family's defense that they laughed at me because that B was issued in an art class, pottery nonetheless.  I sucked at pottery.)  I guess I suck at greeting people, being rude and dismissive and chasing carts, much like the people at Walmart except they get hired to do it.  

I suppose I will have to keep looking.  On the bright side, I didn't receive a rejection from Safeway (yet).    

In Which I Cry in my Car

Soooo, there was this really appealing job advertised.  It was with a company that manufactures mobile command units for emergencies.  They integrate GIS and GPS.  Perfect match for moi.  Here is when I mention my degree is in Cartography (map making) with my emphasis in GIS and plenty of GPS and remote sensing crap involved while I was in college.  As Ace Venture would say this job would fit me "like a glove."

This employer required Proveit! tests from Job Service. If you are not familiar with Proveit! tests they are tests that were most likely created by the devil and are typically utilized by companies who beat their employees or expect them to perform at a high level of efficiency with little compensation (same thing in my book).  Proveit! tests do not allow you to go back and change an answer.  You can not review anything.  If the little pop-up window comes up unexpectedly in the middle of clicking something else and you click the next question button, you are screwed.  You just answered a question and got it wrong.  These tests suck.  Bad.  You aren't allowed to repeat them.  Even the No Child Left Behind Act allows schools to retest where there were obvious errors.  That is a Bush-era mandate.  Even that administration saw the value of retesting....  Rant Finished****

There were tests for business English (in which I did not score so well...hmmmm), grammar, etiquette, ethics, Word, Excel, Outlook and typing.  They were obviously serious about who they hired as the only thing the company didn't require was a criminal background test, fingerprints, credit report, medical history, a copy of the book of poetry I wrote for the 1987 Young Authors Conference and my report on France that I wrote in the 4th grade.  Assholes.... 

Day 1: I go in and take two hours of tests and have to leave because I have an appointment.  Day 2:  I go in again and take another hour of tests and then in the middle of it....the power goes out.  Twenty minutes later the computers are up and running again but it messed up the test I was on.  As mentioned previously, Proveit! tests don't allow you to repeat or go back to questions so basically it screwed me on that test.  Oh well...Anyway, I finish the round of testing finally (another hour more) and go up to the help desk to retrieve my results and put in the formal application (as I was awaiting the required tests).  I have 4 hours vested into this job and I don't even know how much it pays...Out of the blue, a woman says to the guy that is helping me, "They closed that job early.  It was filled yesterday."  WTF!!!!!!!!!!  He was like "????" and I was like "????!!!!????!!!!!"  He says "I am so sorry. That job was posted to be open until June 6th."  "Yes," I reply "that is what I thought too. " *sobbing on the inside*

Side note:  The man was nice.  He praised my test results.  He said my typing was blazing fast.  I did 70 words a minute with 0 errors for 3 minutes.  Woot!  Woot!  I guess I can type.  :)  

Regressing a bit, after the initial let down I retrieved the phone number of the company who hired someone even though it said the job was still open.  I then went to my car and I called the company and informed them that the job was still listed as open and I had spent 4 hours taking the tests and they needed to fix it so it didn't happen to other people.  Honestly, the woman I spoke with was an unsympathetic beeeaaatch.  Not nice.  Not caring.  Probably because she has a job and doesn't know what it to be fricking desperate for a job.  I hope she gets laid off someday and learns what it feels like.  Maybe then she can be a bit nicer to the general public and at least pretend to care when she speaks to people via telephone.  After all of this was over that is when I shed a few tears out of frustration--I suppose desperation too, as some days I feel like I shall never ever find a real job again.  That is the central idea I refer to where I made an A.A. Milne-type reference in my grammatic pattern and entitled this "In Which I Cry in my Car."  

After a minute or two, I wiped my eyes, smiled at myself in the rear view mirror and went to Shopko to use a gift card I had been saving for some retail therapy.  It helped.  I felt much better and now I have two adorable black wrought iron lamps with micro-suede shades flanking the nightstands on either side of my bed. 

Follow-up:  The day after the incident in which I write about, I received a call from an employee at Workforce who had heard about what had transpired.  She apologized profusely for how it had occurred.  She also said that she had contacted the company with the job posting and read them the riot act as well about how it had happened.  She said it should not happen again.  There was one other person who also completed the tests the same day and suffered through the same hell.  *To whomever you are, we are united.  I feel your pain.  Good luck in your job search*  The good news is that whenever the offending company posts job openings Workforce will be overseeing them and will track it better so this will not happen again.  Hot damn!  Also, this lady said I should submit my materials anyway as I had completed all the requirements and they may have openings again in the next 6 months.  Blah.