workingfortheman.com

I have spent the better part of the last several months looking for meaningful employment after college. Needless to say it has been less than fruitful.

I have been getting several calls and emails from potential employers that throw around words like "growing company" and "marketing opportunity" and "self-starter." These bastards basically found my resume off one of the dozen or so sites I've posted it on and thought, "Hey this guy looks like a real sucker, lets give him a call."

To be honest, I have actually made the mistake of meeting face to face with these jokers. More often than not you're dressed better than your interviewer and the "corporate headquarters" is located in between a Great Clips and Great China Buffet making the ambiance of the place about as professional as a VFW fish fry.

Your interviewer is usually about twenty-seven and extremely hung-over with a hair style that is reminiscent of a sixteen-year-old Corey Haim. He is the C.E.O.

By now you are sick to your stomach either from the scent of the businesses that cohabit the strip mall you're in or from your own sense of failure for getting sucked into this trap.

Run! But you don't. You stay, out of politeness and your own sick curiosity of what this chop shop actually does. More often than not you're just as confused at the end of the interview as you were at the beginning. Somehow these weasels managed to make a work-at-home cold calling nightmare still sound like an admirable gig.

But you know better than to accept a job with an ambiguous description from a man who got a ride to work from his mom. You politely write his number down on the back of a Post-It note (because he doesn't have a business card) and exit the building. You're lucky this guy didn't have two thugs waiting in the closet to beat you senseless and steal your wallet.

Maybe that is what I can do as a business. Send out glitzy emails and make promising phone calls to entry-level suckers like myself then rob them blind when they show up.

In all honesty maybe some of these guys aren't as bad as I make them out. But if you're looking at a company that can't afford a website and your first interview is for a non-specific position yet to be determined, then maybe this isn't the right company for you.

Since I wrote this I have found meaningful employment with an office and everything giving me the privacy to surf the web and make personal phone calls. I reside in lovely but chilly Minneapolis, MN. For any future warnings for job hunters or just for a laugh you can check out some of my other stuff at www.theskinnyonline.com.

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