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We realize that it is a tough job market out there. Really, we do. Some of us are among the unemployed at the moment. It is not pretty.
Having said that, we also know there are many strategies for pursuing gainful employment. One method is to contact a company offering work via a posting on their website. Often times this is done my using the employer’s info@business.com address. The following exchange is one individual’s attempt to find work with a company using this method.
I’m really interested in this position, and open for learning. Having a degree enables me to think and learn faster to comparison how I use to be-before college. Podunk, is not far for me to commute daily. I have attached my resume and work history. Give me a cal at the phone number on the resume if you are still looking for someone for this position.
We happen to know the worker bee employee who received this little gem. Being a true knucklehead, our acquaintance sent the details above to the HR department with the following note as a preface:
Good luck with this one – His English not so good.
Have you ever had one of those mind numbing sessions on email etiquette where they tell you all the things you should not do when emailing? Well, this is an example of why mind numbing politically correct nonsense is dreamed up in the first place
You see, our witty email reviewer, the one commenting about English being not so good? Well, instead of sending the email to HR, it was sent as a reply to the original sender. Oopsie!
Isn’t that embarrassing? Yes, it sure is. Fortunately for our entertainment it did not end there! No, our intrepid job seeker felt it necessary to reply.
My English is fine, maybe you should go back to college. I’m at the BBA level.. I might of made some grammar errors, but I can rest assure you when comparing my IQ with yours my would exceed it.
At this point we do not know for certain, but we are fairly confident that this applicant will need to look for work a little while longer. Anyone out there looking to hire? We have a candidate for you.
Click on the picture to go to the spiffy slideshow.
We have never heard of Portfolio.com until today. Given this little survey that they published we do not feel like we have missed much. Of course using one data point to reach this conclusion makes us no better than them, but we are KnuckleHeads so what do you expect?
From the article on the website: “Portfolio.com devised a formula to rate the brainpower of U.S. metropolitan areas.” Sounds interesting. We wonder what the formula is based on. Oh, here it is:
“Factors: Portfolio.com established scores for five levels of educational attainment, based on the relative earning power of adult workers (25 or older). Scores were determined by comparing the 2007 median income for all workers ($33,452) with the median income for those workers at a specified educational level.”
“Educational attainment” you say? What we see is schooling attainment. You know, school, where they tell you when to show-up, sit down, shut-up, and do what they tell you until they say you can leave. Portfolio.com reviewed how long people went to school. As the three people who read this site know, we do not consider going to school the only way to receive an education. We went to school for 16 years. So what? It seems the vast majority of our education has had little to do with what we were specifically taught in school. Where does that fit into this study?
They also use “median income for all workers ($33,452).” Is that the national median income? If so that would mean that the higher cost-of-living areas will have a better chance of reaching the top of this list. So basically, if your city is a college town or really freaking expensive to live in you can call home one of the Brainiest Bastions.
We have a different take. Our guess is that the authors of this survey happen to have gone to school for many years and are trying to figure out a way to justify all the time and money they spent while hoping to convince others that they are brainy and live in a cool neighborhood. But we are just KnuckleHeads so we may be way off. Keep your chin up Merced, CA.
We all know someone like this. No matter how many times or different ways we attempt to explain something to them they simply will not understand or do what we are saying. It can be very frustrating and we often wonder how people can be so dense.
Recently we had yet another of these situations.
Us, “Did you hear us?”
Them, “Yes.”
“Well, are you going to do it?”
“No.”
“Your problem is that you can hear us but you do not listen. Hearing is the physical side of it and apparently you are capable of that part of the communication process. So now try engaging your brain and listening so you understand what we are saying.”
“Is it possible I heard you, engaged my brain, listened to you, understood what you said, decided I did not agree with you, and then did not do what you said for me to do? Is it possible that your definition of ‘listening’ is confused with the definition of agreeing?”
Soap. It seems innocent enough. Cleans. Deodorizes. According to some it is even decorative. We want you to know it can also have a dark side.
When recently on a trip out of the house, we were visiting a customer on a business trip. The meeting was progressing nicely and reached a point where it was time to take a break. Beverages were offered, phone calls were made, and we decided to visit the little salesman’s room.
As we prepared to exit the facilities we heard the familiar voice of our caring mother in our head – wash your hands or you might die or kill some one. Wait, maybe that was the voice of the Health Secretary or head of the World Health Organization during their Chicken Little flu episodes. Oh sorry, we got distracted for a moment there.
Anywho, we wandered over to the sink and proceeded to turn on the hot water. Hands now appropriately watered, we reached for the pull lever soap dispenser below the mirror. Did we mention that we wore tan pants for this particular visit? Well we did – wear tan pants that is.
One little flick of the fingers at the soap dispenser and …. BAM … soap shoots off the hand .. through the air … directly onto the front of our pants … landing in a few sizable spots between our zipper and pocket.
Evil liquid soap? Rocket powered dispenser? Gremlins? Karma for some past life misdeed? We don’t know. What we do know is what we would think if we saw someone looking as we did after this incident, so perhaps we need to be a little more wary of our “friend” soap and a little less quick to jump to conclusions.
In our experience the more we get to know about people the more we realize how much people like to delude themselves. Of course, some people are more delusional than others. Two gentlemen named Clarke and Dawes do a fine job of illustrating how large groups of people (e.g. government, countries, corporations, etc.) win the top prize for defective thinking. Enjoy!
**You will have to do some extra work and click on the link below since we are not smart enough to figure out how to embed the video. Of course if you are one of those types who enjoys reading then you can just refer to the trascript below the link.
Today we were enjoying our weekly lunch meeting at our favorite South East Asian cuisine restaurant. We were discussing recent local events and theorizing what is wrong with the world. Biggest problem? Inconsiderate oblivious idiots.
About half way through the meal we noticed a car sitting in the intersection across the street that proved our point. The car sat in the right hand lane at the stop sign while the woman who was driving proceeded to get out of the car and spread out a blanket in the grass on the other side of the sidewalk not far from the vehicle. At this point no traffic approached the car, so there was no issue – yet.
The woman unloaded a toddler from the back seat as an older woman (we were guessing grandmother to the toddler) in the passenger seat worked her way over to the shady-spot blanket and took her place with the child. We looked on in disbelief as the woman went and turned on the hazard lights of the car and then helped a second child move from the back seat to the blanket. Next, a picnic basket/cooler magically moved from the car to the blanket.
We were stunned. Does she have any idea she is blocking traffic? Why didn’t she just pull into the parking lot mere yards away? Are you kidding me – a picnic basket? Amazing.
Next was a trip to the trunk of the car for a plastic bag and then a call on the cell phone while the car still sat in the middle of the intersection. Wow, she must think she owns the world.
At this point a few cars had pulled up behind the parked car, waited, realized the car is actually parked in the intersection, and then pulled around and proceeded on.
This scene went on over the last 15 minutes of our lunch as we theorized what possible mental defects this woman could have. As the bill for our meal arrived, we looked back over to the intersection and watched as the woman got back into the car and we were certain she was going to move it. It was about time!!
At this point we noticed the hood of the car move ever so slightly, then the woman got out and put the hood up. Ohhhhhhhh. Whoops!! WE were the inconsiderate oblivious idiots!!
The more considerate person in our group proposed that we go over and volunteer to push the car back out of the intersection. We crossed the road and asked the woman if she was setting up a yard sale (one of our many hilarious jokes cracked while sitting watching all of this unfold.) She told us that they were on their way to have a picnic and the car broke down as they came up to the stop sign. She figured she would make everyone as comfortable as she could while she called AAA and waited for help to arrive.
She accepted our offer to get the car out of the way while commenting that there had been some pretty rude comments from the other drivers. Ouch. Once the car was in a less precarious spot, we wished them good luck and headed on our way thinking that maybe the good deed would balance out the karma points earned while trash talking earlier. Here’s hoping!
We believe the most effective means of educating is through stories. Everyone loves a good story. And most people love to tell their own story when given the chance. A few quick questions though. Do you tell your best ‘growing up’ delinquent stories in your most colorful language to your grandmother? Is your ‘creativity’ in finding a way to stay home from work after a long night out something you want your boss to be aware of the next day? How about those bachelor/bachelorette party stories – you want everyone to know all those details? You catch our drift?
These here intranets offer a great opportunity to share. That is both a blessing and a curse. We can share our stories with a ginormous number of peeps. Unfortunately, we can not know at all times exactly the peeps on the other end of the sharing. The latest sobering thought – some of those peeps might be the fuzz (aka constable, deputy, donut chaser, fed, flatfoot, g-man, pig or such.) Case in point: When tweets can make you a jailbird.
Our suggestions? Tell your stories that will help educate others. Be aware that your audience can be just about anyone (or no one). Learn the words ‘I know a guy that …’ or “I heard a story that … ‘
And of course if all else fails you can adhere to the motto of Sin City – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Just do us a favor - next time you go on a story worthy adventure please invite us along. We promise when we tell the story we will change the names to protect the innocent. Scouts honor!
Paul Kedrosky (http://paul.kedrosky.com/) tells of a recent waltz through Security Theater. We feel his pain.
The absurdities of security theater continued today as I crossed back into Canada. Security rules mean you have to get to the airport two hours before departure, which meant leaving the hotel at 6am for an 8:30 flight. I got there, printed my boarding passes and prepared to go thru the first of, I think, thirty checkpoints at which someone checked to see if my boarding pass had aged at all since someone checked it thirty seconds earlier.
Having cleared that initial carbon-14 hurdle, I hit a new hurdle. Checkpoint guy 1B says, “What’s that on your shoulder?”
I say, “My laptop bag”.
“You have too many bags”, he says.
“But”, I say, “I only have my laptop bag and my roller bag, both of which fit”.
“Too many bags. Check one”.
I splutter a little. “I just crossed into the U.S. in Toronto a few weeks ago and they had all the new post-underwear guy rules, but they let me bring the roller bag and laptop bag”.
“They may have different rules in Toronto. These are our rules here,” he says.
That brought us to this Sir Ken Robinson talk: Do schools kill creativity?
We thought about it for a second and decided, yes they absolutely can. Not always and everywhere, but way too often in our humble opinion. We think our educational system has made and is making mistakes every day and like the way Sir Robinson tells it.
*The title of this post will make a lot more sense if you actually watch the talk.
We just watched a talk by Stefana Broadbent titled How the Internet enables intimacy. Many ‘business types’ would say that instead the internet makes slackers. This leads to the general policy of ‘the beatings will continue until morale improves.’
We here at KHU tend to go with the philosophy “there are no employee problems, only management problems.” Happy people tend to be more productive people. If the people are not happy and productive, then something needs to change. Check out her talk and see what you think.
