Craigslist: the last resort for the unemployed.

Craigslist provides endless time-wasting/cultural anthropological observing opportunities. The personal ads have supplied me with many hours of amusement tinged with horror, and the best-ofs....well, some of them are really good.

Then there are the job ads. Fabulous entertainment if you are already employed, a freakshow of despair if you are not. It is the absolute last place anyone with a modicum of intelligence should spend time searching for possible employment opportunities.

But still, it is a part of my hire-me-goddammit job searching rounds. You never know, right? I've had two interviews for positions posted on craigslist -- interviews that went so well and which I felt so darn GOOOOOOOD about that I was kind of rather devastated when neither of them worked out. So, it's not totally useless. And because I've been checking it since February, I've noticed certain businesses post there very regularly. Too regularly. Same with apartment rentals. You get to know who to avoid, after a while.

My favourite ads are the anonymous ones: businesses that don't actually state who they are or where they are located, but state that you won't be considered unless you submit your references, your contact information, your cover letter & resume.

One ad clearly stated that "cover letters and a resume" should be sent to them. Not "a cover letter" but plural: letters. How many "cover letters" must one write to be considered for a job? Should I send them 2 or 3 cover letters for that minimum wage job? And who do I address the letters to?

One ad insisted that applicants "Must speak english as a language".

It almost - almost - makes me want to go to the effort of writing random cover letters and submitting my resume with no name or contact information, blot out all my former places of work, and all of the generic ideal employee qualities stated in bold:


Dear Anonymous Craigslist Poster,

I would love to work for you; I am THE ideal employee for this position. I find your spelling mistakes charming; your typos whimsical and rather adorable. Luckily, I DO speak English as a language. I speak it as other things too, but mostly as a language.

You have a long list of demands for a job that you are only offering $10.00/hr for, but I am confident that my skills and education will be an excellent fit for your team. Let me highlight my unique qualifications:

- team player who also works well independently.
- self-starter.
- welcomes challenges.
- adapts quickly to change.
- excellent organizational skills.
- multi-tasks like a motherfucker.
- enjoys providing professionally friendly customer service: I live to serve!

I look forward to meeting your anonymous self in person, so that we can discuss my suitability for this job. Let's wear disguises to make it more fun, okay? Please don't draw attention to the flask that will no doubt be peeking from my briefcase; I've noticed that potential employers like to offer water or coffee, not the stuff I really need.

Talk soon?
C

there is something very wrong with your valuation.

During the month of October, I attended a full-time, 3 week long program called Transitions. And every single time I say or write that word, I immediately think of a boardroom filled with transgendered folk sitting around discussing the issues surrounding transitioning into their Desired Gender.

I also accidentally invented a sing-songy soap-opera style jingle that immediately plays in my head while visions of the boardroom filled with pre- and post-op trannies entrance me: Traaaannnnziiiiishuuuuuuuuuuns. [Audio file unavailable due to sheer lack of desire to make or post such a thing.]

Except we weren't gender transitioning, we were career transitioning.

When I explained to one of the archivists at the place where I have been volunteering my very expensive archiving skills (my graduate degree is my financial albatross) that I had been at this career exploration thing 'lo those few weeks, he responded with:

"Career exploration? You don't need a new career, you just need a job."

Followed by:

"Nobody knows what archivists do anyway!" (And something about there being no jobs. Oh good. It's not just me. How comforting.)

Then I learned that there isn't even a direct translation of "archivist" in the Chinese languages. Which is just plain bizarre, because China was an archive keeping country long before the western world caught up -- they had moveable type before Gutenberg ever got busy. Still, no word for "archives" or "archivist". At least I'm not alone in facing blank stares every time I try to explain to someone what I do...... or, uh, what I'm capable of doing.

So at this career exploration thing, there was a lot of soul-searching: identifying life and work values, examining goal-setting and methods we had used in the past to achieve goals, determining what is oprah to us. I mean: determining what is important to us.

It was 3 weeks of being in a live-action self-help book. There were good times, there were bad times.

What I found the most interesting out of the whole thing is discovering how easily I am able to ignore or override my "values". I am very much a talk talk talk talk kind of person, with absolutely zero walk behind all that talking. For example:

I like coffee. I like good coffee. My definition of good coffee is fresh-ground espresso. Drip coffee gives me stomach aches and horrific belly bloat. On my more organized mornings, I would fix myself a thermos of café au lait, using freshly ground beans & other espresso-snob tricks. But I only did that for maybe 4 or 5 out of 15 days. The rest of the days, I bought lattés or cappuccinos at the local Starbucks. I didn't even bother bringing a travel mug. Throw away cups every day. Just like every other asshole out there.

I don't like Starbucks. I don't like their business model. I find their marketing campaigns repulsive (did you know you can get a Starbucks VISA card? To earn points towards Starbucks purchases?), their café interiors offend me with their blandness & lack of imagination, and I don't like the way their coffee tastes. Starbucks has mangled independent café culture; it is a corporation that has created a thriving dysfunction of over-priced caffeine products masquerading as quality goods. There is something very real-world zombie about seeing hordes of people marching about with their disposable Starbucks coffee cups -- not to mention the environmental cruelty that corporate café culture breeds.

So, I don't like Starbucks, but I like coffee, and something is better than nothing, so I had a lot of Starbucks espresso beverages during the month of October. I completely dismissed my anti-Starbucks stance and gave them too much of my money (which really isn't even my money, as I am fully surviving off the generosity of family, so there's a whole guilt/shame spiral in the mix, too! fun fun fun!) because I don't take my own values/beliefs/morals/whatever seriously.

I used to be able to describe myself as an anti-chain/anti-corporate café person who is also an environmentalist, but clearly I am full of shit.

If I really truly believe that Starbucks is corporate greed at its worst, why didn't I get up earlier in the morning to make sure I had coffee using beans I like from companies I like?(Well, companies I like for now -- the more I learn, the less consumer options I have.) Why didn't I spend my evenings making baked goods, instead of watching TV, so I would have snacks the next day? Why am I thinking about applying for jobs there?

Because values and integrity don't pay my rent?

Because I am a false person? A walking dichotomy? A pussy unable to stay true to my ideals?

Because values are a social construct and are defined through convention, status, and general conformist agreement?

Because I don't actually believe that integrity and hard work and staying true to one's values leads to 'happily ever after' or some vague definition of 'success'? oh, I think we've got a winner with that last one!

zombies are so 2004.

warning. warning. miniature plastic glow-in-the-dark zombies dig cameras. warning.

skeletal postal greetings

There is one thing in the world of blogs that has perplexed me for quite a while. The pictures. Some people seem to take lots and lots of pictures and post them, daily, on their blogs. Where do you people FIND THE TIME???

The posting of pictures is a huuuuuuuuge time sucker for me. The downloading to the computer, the re-sizing for publication, etc. Maybe I'm being too complex. And my elderly laptop seems to have quite a few problems with having Photoshop open. And it just gets worse when ImageReady is opened. It has taken me almost an hour to download and compare shots and re-size and blehhhhhhhhhhhhh

And now Blogger is telling me a couple of my files are corrupt and I think I must have screwed up somewhere, editing in Photoshop and resizing in ImageReady or vice versa. And now Photoshop has just conked out. And did I mention it took me an hour? And now a few of my shots won't be uploaded. Because of some software inconsistency. ugh.

I think I need to change something in this uploading process.

I had this big! huge! bright! idea! that I would take pictures of the things I send in the mail, maybe even stuff I get in the mail. As something to do, you know? Because I haven't been in the writing and whining mood lately. But I'm just totally pissed off about how long this all takes. too much time. I gots things to do, you know. Things that don't involve developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

But, as promised only to myself, here are pictures of a big envelope with some little envelopes inside for some people I know in Montreal. All blurred/stamped/somewhat disguised. I could write entire massive epistles in the time it takes me to piss around with this computer. ugh.











At the top of the last 2 pictures, you can see piles of envelopes dedicated to the sending of our official moving announcements that I made. Maybe by the time you read this, I will have already put the announcements in the mail. I'm making myself DO things instead of just THINKING about doing things. It's a nice change. At least it gives me something to do. I'm all "productive" and "motivated" these days. I am very interested to see how long this phase lasts -- so far, much longer than it's usual 2 or 3 days.

And you can also see in a couple of pictures a peek of a card I bought from noncompos cards. Because it actually made me laugh when I saw it AND the ridiculousness of sending a greeting card for Halloween just could not be passed up. Even though I really should be spending my money on rice and beans and heating bills, not cards and postage. But, well. It's done, and done.

birthday card project reciprocation #10 & #11

same same but different.

2 cards going to the same person.

birthday card project reciprocation #9

birthday card project reciprocation #8

Nadine sent me the coolest damn thing in the mail. While it is completely and totally true that every single piece of mail I got through this experiment thrilled me to pieces, Nadine's cardboard contribution had a door that opened and had a doll inside. And while I was rummaging around for things to put on cards, I noticed that this postcard had a section that had become unglued, creating a pocket. An envelope postcard pocket. So I put a little something extra inside the pocket. Call it a bookmark, if you like.

birthday card project reciprocation #7

birthday card project reciprocation #6

the demise of Shitty Book Club

I know there are hordes of people out there who have been impatiently waiting for news about Shitty Book Club. Hordes. Throngs. Mobs, really. Clamouring for more information.

I was serious about Shitty Book Club. I was even going to attend a workshop thinger at the library all about Starting Your Own Book Club, except the kindly librarian type at the info desk didn't know what I was talking about and sometimes I get gripped by a grand Monster of Insecurity and thought that maybe I had read the web site wrong. Even though I knew I hadn't. So I ended up walking away, unsigned up, and wondering why I am such a complete pussy.

But what really killed Shitty Book Club is that I started reading Twilight. The grand dame of Shitty Books everywhere, or so I have been told by multiple sources. I even made notes! If not for Shitty Book Club, then I thought that maybe I would review it for Satan's Book Club. Because I'm all tight with that book club's main administrator and we have had real-life discussions about Twilight.

Well, it just so happens that I cannot be bothered with finishing the book. I don't actually want to waste my time on shitty books. I have recently been reading a spattering of well-written books:

Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking
Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead
Mary Roach's Spook
Sarah Dunant's In the Company of the Courtesan

and I have too little time to waste on shit. So fuck that shit. Fuck Twilight. Fuck Stephenie Meyer's boring adolescent diary narration, fuck her lack of respect for her readers by writing sentences like "I could hear people shouting excitedly to each other" and "I walked alertly to the cafeteria..." WALKED ALERTLY? bleh. I made it to page 254, which is slightly over the half-way point. It's a very poorly written book.

Not to mention the fact that Bella has no personality and is in love with an asshole who treats her with cruelty: ignoring her, insulting her, stalking her, ignoring her again...

Maybe I'll try and find a non-shitty book club. A book club where the participants pass the bong while discussing...... um. What do people talk about at book clubs, anyway? Themes? Foreshadowing? The influence of Samuel Richardson's Pamela on contemporary epistolary novels? Are there any contemporary epistolary novels?