Month: June 2005

Categories
humor libraries work

Thank you for interviewing with us, you’re fired.

I was going to move to Tacoma.

I was going to work at the Tacoma Library.

It was going to be full-time, and I could have afforded to buy a kitten, eat two meals a day, and walk in the park.

But NO! My band of pirate lizards will make you pay, Tacoma Library!

In related news, I’ve noticed a trend, more and more, towards impersonal and graded interview techniques. No longer does it matter if you have a winning personality, or, frankly, what your interviewer thinks of you. First, before anything, you take a test which will determine your eligability to even get an interview. If you score in the top 16, of about 80 people, you will be interviewed. I scored 7, good enough, considering I forgot a calculator and had to do about 30 long math problems on paper. During the interview, they write down, nearly verbatim, all your answers. Later, this is run through an algorithm that will pull out certain “buzzwords”: welcoming, relate, cornucopia, etc …. These words will help in determining how precisely you answered the question like they wanted you to answer it. Each answer will then be given a score, and the talley will be the final score for your interview. Personality and desire, as long as they are not clearly unacceptable, are not scored. The score for your interview, indifferent to what your interviewers thought of you or how much you’d really, really, really like the job, will solely determine your success.

Soon enough, a robot will interview you, and record your voice. It will run the algorithm, determine eligibility and based on employment and interview history, the likelihood of any of the following interviewees doing better than you, and will tell you if you got the job on the spot.

“Thank you for interviewing with HAL 9000, your friendly interview-bot. You’re fired.”

Categories
love personal

The skunk thunk the stump stunk.

On being freshly single, meditations:

The first week, nearly every member of the opposite sex appears physically unattractive. Those that are physicially good-looking are obviously either very shallow, completely vacuous, or outrageously mean-spirited. The newly single despairs over ever again meeting someone who contains that perfect mix of inner and outer beauty that their recent ex somehow maintained.

The second week, nearly every member of the opposite sex seems to be a sex god(dess). Those not physically attractive obviously radiate an inner beauty, have perfect smiles, nice laughs, and save puppies from burning buildings. The universe seems to be mocking the newly single, who believes themselves unworthy of any of these avatars of sex and goodness. The newly single despairs that they will never again be desired as they have been desired, for the past was but a fluke which will surely never reoccur.

The third week, I suspect, involves drinking, swearing, and a general attitude of waving the middle finger at the dating scene and the opposite sex. This loud display will fool no-one, particularly not the newly single, who needs another shot of tequila.

—-

And that’s about as far as I’ve thought that through, so far. If you’d like to buy me a drink in week 3, I’ll take a rum and coke. Stroh 80 if you’ve got it, light on the coke.

Categories
libraries news poetic

I’d rather it get me hired …

Yahoo! Blog News Story

It’s a strange, new little thing, the blogosphere. Michael Gorman, the president of the American Library Association, made some general and negative comments about blogs and “the blog people”. He pissed a lot of people off, to the point that some librarians have revoked their membership to the ALA for as long as he is president. Blogs can be a good way to share professional information, especially for a group as concerned with information sharing as libraries are. However, whenever I write on my blog I always keep in mind that it could be read by anyone. ANYONE. And I assume the worst, that if I write something that a certain person shouldn’t read, then I shouldn’t write it, because they probably will. If people don’t follow those guidelines, then to some extent I believe they deserve what they get. Though as far as legality goes, I don’t know how strong the cases of those companies can be, at least without a written policy in effect.

Some people I know think blogs, and bloggers, are crazy. I think as a technology, it’s interesting, and that it will change (and already is changing) the way the internet works and the way information is transferred. It’s not always to the good, i.e. who the hell cares about the angsty problems of every 14-year-old in the world, but it’s not going anywhere, so we might as well get used to it.

Categories
cinema libraries work

O Monkey of Love, where are you?

In an effort to mix things up a bit in my life, I recently applied for a job at the Tacoma Public Library. For those not familiar with Washington geography, Tacoma is about 30 miles north of Olympia on the I-5. It’s a city known for smelling bad, but it’s also got some damned cool stuff going on, a much better darts scene than Olympia, and is half the distance to Seattle. So hey, why not!? I interviewed for the position yesterday, after taking an hour-and-a-half written test the week before, and I have to say that I think it went very well. The commute can be pretty bad between Oly and Tacoma, as far as traffic goes (perhaps even as bad as this), which is why I’m thinking of moving up there when my lease runs out the end of July. Whether or not I get the job. There are certainly more jobs available up there, so even if I don’t get this job, it seems reasonable to assume I’d be able to find something in a relatively short period of time. Right? Right.

While I was waiting to interview (I got to the library a good 40 minutes early), I walked around a bit. The main branch of the library has an art gallery, called the Handforth Gallery. The current exhibition is by a group called Beautiful Angle. I liked one in particular.

Random bits:

Daniel Craig is going to be the next Bond. After seeing Layer Cake, I think he’ll do a superb job (though he needs to darken his hair). Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Existentialism is, for me, a simple guideline on how to live. “Be.” Or perhaps rather, “You are, so you’d better be enjoying it.” I appreciate it as a philosophy in which people have to take responsibility for themselves, something which seems to be less and less prevalent in our (American) society. I’m curious what other philosophically-minded folks think about society’s views on responsibility, and what role existentialism could play in the modern world. Granted, as a philosophy, it’s a bigger word than most people would like to deal with. Much longer a word than, say, “God”.

Steamboy is playing downtown at the Capitol Theater. I wanna go watch it.

In parting, remember: the monkey represents sharing.