What's in a Job? Not a lot.

I'm working on a series of "How To's" for work right now. 

....You know, "How To Write an Introductory Paragraph", "How to Write a Conclusion", "How to Make a To-Do List"... that sort of thing. All educational, all rather tedious to write. I have to spell everything out step by step, and put it all in an organized outline form. My most current "How To" that I'm authoring is titled, "How to Use Webspiration to Write Your Paper". It's a pretty detailed tutorial with examples of paper's I've written, and other crazy shit.

These "How To's" are funny because they put me in this position of authority which I haven't done anything to deserve. Who am I to tell people how to do anything? Are people going to listen? What do I know? Not a whole lot...

I guess you've just got to trust me. 

That's the cool thing about having a job, the trust factor. The moment you sign your job contract, you're being awarded a certain level of trust. Trust which isn't awarded to just anybody. You have been carefully screened (although sometimes, not carefully enough) through multiple interviews, resumes, and simple meet and greets. Your employer gets a feel for you (shut up, you dirty mind!) and if the boss is feelin' it (again, not meant to be dirty) you're in.

What's interesting to me about this process is that interviews and resumes really tell you very little about a person. And what they do tell you has only marginal truth to it. For example, my resume says that I worked every summer for the past 5 years at Inspiration Software Inc. It says my supervisor was Mona W. And this is all very true, but what it doesn't disclose is that Mona W is actually my mother, and I completely 100% only got these fantastic internships based on nothing to do with skill, but because my parents own the company. Lucky for me, my mom has a different last name than I have, so no-one would ever expect a family relation... Shhhh...

You can train yourself pretty easily how to preform well, and bullshit, in an interview too. Some people are naturally born with this skill, and for that (directed at those lucky few) I hate you. I'm not one of those people.  I can talk your ear off, but I've never been good with answers on the spot. Needless to say, interviews are not my area of expertise (maybe "How To Lists" are where my only strengths lie)? For unfortunate people like me, there are classes to teach you how to be a good interviewee, and even a much cheaper alternative, which I took advantage of this summer: Google.com. Just look up "Top 25 Interview Questions", concoct and memorize answers to them, and you're good to go. However, at the end of the day, being a good talker and knowing what answers to give says very little about your ability to do a job well. Is this a secret that employers don't know about yet? If it is, another "shhhh..." is in order at the end of this paragraph.

With that being said, one of those annoying cell phone stands in the mall (you know, the obnoxious sales reps that try to get you to switch services as you walk by) was dumb enough to hire me. I tried the googling approach and memorized answers to an array of questions varying form "What can you bring to the team, here at (insert companies name)?," to "If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?"... A flying squirrel, duh!

They ate that shit up. Wow, the world is a joke sometimes. I get hired for some job I don't take, and people who really need jobs are still out of work or working minimum wage jobs, barely being able to support themselves or their children. I didn't even want this job. I interviewed with them for the sole purpose of practicing my interview skills in a real life situation. But they hired me. Who woulda thunk it?

Honestly, I'd be an awful salesperson. I don't know how they didn't pick up on that during my interviews. I'm nowhere near pushy enough, and way too frightened of rejection to approach strangers.

My point? The whole job getting process is a lot of BS, and luck. 

Luck in my case, being that my parental units are connected enough to hook me up with a legit job. Legit enough that I'm blogging instead of working... oops... you see my point?

Just something to think about... It's back to work now for me,

Sarah