Three Down, Four to Go (DRAFT)

draft

This post is being rewritten, I would wait for this notice to go away before reading.

I applied for seven jobs at a large very successful animation company where I have lots of friends. Each of these jobs was what I call lower-middle-class technical jobs. Two were in production and five were in R&D.  I could probably do any of these jobs with skill and style. So far I have been rejected from three of them and I expect to be rejected from the other four. 

I have assurances from friends inside that I am not lost in the HR maze, but that the real hiring managers have seen my paperwork.

What I find outstanding, and discouraging, is that this company has not contacted me once on any of these jobs to clarify any points, or ask any questions, or schedule some sort of telephone interview.  In other words, I am not really being considered for any of these jobs because if I was, there would have been some sort of contact (even if, ultimately, I did not get the job).

Let us all remember that this animation company is overwhelmed with suitable and qualified candidates and that no doubt they will have no trouble filling all the positions without my contribution.

Nevertheless, I find this disturbing.  All fields are competitive today, from web programming to cyber security. There are no non-competitive fields to the best of my knowledge.  But the only field I really have credibility in, that is that I have a real history with, is related to computer animation (could be VR, AR, games, traditional CG animation, etc).  If I can not get to first base in that area, what makes me think I will be considered in any field?

Internet Provides A New Way for Human Resources to Confuse Victims

When I first worked for a large corporation, I had a very benign view of Human Resources.  I assumed that HR was there to help everybody get their job done in an organized and civil manner. Yes I was so naive that I believed that HR had the employee's and potential employee's welfare in mind as well as that of the corporation. Of course as years went by I realized that this was rarely so, and that HR was there first and foremost to protect the corporation and nothing else.

Nevertheless, in spite of our experience, most American's seem to have a very naive view of various elements of the HR process.  They believe, against all experience, that many HR mediated processes are fair, that there are rules to the game and that the game is not entirely crooked.   They believe that people only get fired for just cause, that everyone gets the same shot at opportunities, and that corporations work hard to get the best person for the job, not merely the one that has surface validity or who expresses the same corrupt values as the people they will work for.

Of course the reality is different.  And not all of these differences are necessarily bad.  For example, one reason that not everyone gets the same opportunities, is that for most people I know at a fairly senior level, their jobs are created for them, in some sense tailored to the person who is being hired.   That has often been the case for me in the past, and is very much the case for many friends who are further along in their career.  Of course one side effect of this is that not everyone gets the same opportunity.

Related to that is the phenomena where jobs are not listed until there is a candidate in mind, or that a job is listed but will not be filled, or that the real qualifications are not the ones that are listed, or that the job is listed for pro forma reasons only, or that the job opening(s) is/are created as a way of gathering data about one's competition.

The single biggest lie is that people get hired without having contacts at the company that hires them.  In other words, that it can be done anonymously via the internet, a cover letter and a resume. It turns out that there are people for whom this has occurred, but it is not very common in my experience.  Usually you need someone inside pulling for you.

But even if the above is all true, it is certainly not a new phenomenon.  All of these issues have existed for years and decades and maybe even longer.

But there is one part that is new.  It used to be that there was a job board that was never quite up to date, with job openings tacked to the wall.   Or a book of job openings at the corporation that was unwieldy and difficult to use.  But now all corporations have Internet job boards online and what is great about these job boards, which the potential job seeker is required to use, is that they, in my humble experience, are rarely up to date and often are just wrong.

For the last several years, I have at irregular intervals, and purely manually, reviewed the job boards for a series of companies that are on a select list. In some cases I am interested in jobs at that company, in some cases I am just interested in the kinds of jobs that they advertise and what skills they need. There are a variety of reasons for this research, if that is what it is, and one of the reasons is to see to what extent companies perceive computer animation as a desirable skill.

But for whatever reasons I do this, I have noticed the odd situation where jobs seem to appear or disappear on a daily basis. One day here, one day not here, and seemingly at random. At first I just thought that the job opening had been pulled, or was filled, or some other normal explanation.

But recently I had a very egregious situation and proved to myself that the job listing did exist, but only if you knew the correct term to search for.  If you just did a general search for all job openings, it might or might not appear.

In other words, the Internet has helped create a whole new dysfunction for Human Resources to exhibit: the database-backed web page that is broken.

Is a Worker With Baggage Like a Plant That Has Bolted?

In this post, I want to ask the deliberately limited question of whether or not a “more experienced worker with baggage” is similar in some ways to a plant that has bolted.

First lets define our terms. To a human resources person, a potential employee with baggage is someone who has accumulated behavior, ideas, concepts and so forth during his or her previous employment or personal life which might complicate their working smoothly in the present situation. This is my impression of what the term means, it is not a formal definition from a human resources guide.  God only knows what these guardians of corporate propriety think.

On the other hand, everyone who has had a garden know what “bolted” or “to bolt” means. It means that for one of a variety of reasons,  usually water stress or change of season but sometimes just maturity, a plant enters a different stage of life that is usually not very useful to the gardener.  Generally, the plant prepares to get the hell out of there by preparing to generate seeds. It is very similar to the concept of “going to seed” and it implies that the previously useful plant is now nearly useless unless of course the goal is to generate seeds. Lettuce, which previously was great, is now bitter. Basil, which was amazing, changes flavor to a much lesser form, and so forth.

Is this romaine lettuce about to become unemployable because of its work experience?

In other words, our theory goes, that instead of becoming more colorful, more experienced, more valuable because of things that one has learned that only life can teach you, the potential employee instead appears to be bolted, too concerned about past battles, too filled with preconception about certain types of people or certain businesses, that it interferes with getting the job done with enthusiasm and initiative.

This is an important question because pretty much every interesting person I know who has worked in a field for a while, all of these people have experience that is very real and which will affect their future work. Is that experience positive, or does it make them bolted, or appear bolted?

Furthermore, the judgement, the final judgement of whether the experienced worker unit has value is made, and must be made by people who have neither the experience or knowledge necessary to make a judgement as that might be conventionally thought of.  Rather these keepers of the just and the right have a HR handbook and relevant HR experience to be able to judge.

Sadly the experienced worker comes in with about 10 strikes against them as they have almost certainly been guilty of the unforgivable sin of not making enough money in their previous endeavors.  This is self evident because if they had been successful, defined in the beautifully elegant American manner of accumulating cash, they would not be applying for a job here, but would be in Paris or Bangkok or Manhattan or Aspen managing their certificates of deposit or frolicking with splendid examples of the appropriate gender or genders as the case may be.

The issue of whether experience is the same as baggage, negative and not positive, is just one of the many issues that the meta-concept of baggage brings up.   Can baggage be turned into useful experience through a change in attitude?  Is it fair to attribute baggage to someone without understanding what led to this belief or issue which is now being called baggage?   Is learning from ones experiences baggage?  Is what the human resources person or corporation looking for is not really a person without baggage, but someone who is merely naive?

Indeed, naivete might be the very greatest virtue in a situation like this.  The work output of the virgin is all too likely to be more effusive and extravagant than the work output of the jaded or the sophisticated cosmopolitan who has seen it all.   Those who have not been wounded in love and life are perhaps more likely to go over the top with a rebel yell onto the killing fields and the line of bullets then those who have been there, done that, and knows how much it hurts.

Once a person has this real experience, are they irretrievably "bolted" and unfit for duty in the Globalized Workplace?  Is work experience necessarily a form of disability?

One thing is certain.  In America, business has no responsibility to this wounded and arguably disabled victim of the workplace.  Having fallen in the field of battle but not having the decency of dying and / or going away, he or she degrades themselves by attempting to return to the front lines attempting to fight, that is, to get a job.  Why don't these wounded soldiers just go away and die?  It would be better for them and far less embarrassing.  Business owes nothing to these impoverished survivors.

In America, at least, that much is clear.

Coming Soon on Global Wahrman

Coming right up on Global Wahrman: an essay on what Baggage means to a Human Resources person and why nearly all, or all, experienced workers have "baggage", an essay on the literary genre of entertainment fiction known as predicting the future, and an essay on America's slide into failure, poverty and submission to the new world leader, Communist China.

Also, in the cyberwar between the US and Russia, we have new news on Russia's paid trolls and the stupid morons in this country who believe and enable them.   My goodness, when you need a stupid American, it isnt very hard to find one, now is it?

Not to mention a post about what Nina Z (Miles G's significant other) told me about middle class values.  Its very interesting, you will want to know this.

And the passing of Tanith Lee and Christopher Lee.

Also, a post on a distant colleague who committed suicide and what a surprise it was. Yeah, right, bullshit. Even I knew she was depressed.  Maybe her death is more about our community's failure to act proactively to help those who are in distress, he wondered, out loud, sarcastically.

Where is Anne Graham of after science when I need her?   I am looking for that pure spirit of inspiration that comes from the untainted.  Anne ?

I appreciate all of you out there who do seem to be reading my blog, even if I do not know who most of you are.  I do wish that you would comment more as I have a feeling your comments would add a lot..

We just ran an unscheduled experiment on my brain by going off all ADHD medication for several weeks, and the results were very surprising.  You see, even though I slept most of the time, and could not do even the simplest tasks that needed doing, in certain very important ways I was very productive, more productive than I normally have been in spite of my reliability and calm demeanor brought on by the ADHD medication. This is a real problem.   What do I want?  Creativity or stability?

The Hills Illuminated by Fire and the Esoteric Prophecy of Human Resources

draft/in progress

At 2AM last night, I walked out onto my patio to check on my garden, where to my surprise I saw that the nearby hills were on fire. A layer of smoke lay over the valley. “Is this the time, Oh Lord”, I thought to myself, “Is now when the world will be cleansed of the sins of the wicked biped mammals who have turned away from the path of righteousness and wallow in the filth of self-aggrandizement and narcissism?”

As I watched a fire seemed to explode on a hill to my left. When I ran to get my camera and returned it had diminished to nothing much. So will the wicked explode, I thought with grim satisfaction, when they are touched by the vengeance of the Lord. A burst of flame and then nothing much.

Is this a sign that the End is near?

As I watched the hills burn down around me, my thoughts turned to happier times, years ago, when I consulted for Viacom in New York. There I made friends with a beautiful woman who was consulting for Human Resources on a special project.  Although we did not know it, Cindy and I were working on different pieces of a much larger, more important,  project than the one we were nominally working on.

We both thought we were on very different aspects of the Interactive Television AT&T Castro Valley Test but in fact those differences were irrelevant.  There was a real project that underlay the apparent project, and this was the project that was truly driving events.  You see, Viacom is a cable company, it exists and profits in a beautiful monopoly ordained by the Lord and granted by Our Government to those who are Worthy.  And in the interests of the Public, these monopolies are reviewed from time to time by the specific agencies of our government that hand out these monopolies to the rich.   Viacom's monopoly was up for review and as part of that review we demonstrated advanced technology in the public's interest, we had Sumner Redstone speaking at the Washington Press Club, I even contributed to the signage of a third party industrial press firm who was working on the publicity for this event.

But soon this very long process that the three of us, Cindy, Sumner and myself, had been involved in would be over and the monopolies given by certain agencies of our government would have been reaffirmed, the little theatre of interactive television having played its part, the forms having been observed, the lobbyists paid.   Then the blessed bloodletting could begin to sacrifice those who would through their wretched jobs stand in the way of the profits that rightfully belonged to the shareholders. 

Some might think that because these types of companies are in fact government created monopolies in their region and sector, that there might be some rules such that some of the money extracted from the consumer might also trickle down to the workers, perhaps in the form of employment.  But such a thing would be anathema in America.  The poor can go fuck themselves for all the government cares as long as they pay the taxes on their pathetic wages.  That is the way it has always been, that is the way it must always be. Anything else would be to turn away from the values that have made this country great.

Because Cindy liked me, she let me see the real Human Resource manuals, not the ones that they let the uninitiated see, but the secret one, the one reserved for the Elect.  She turned to the section on Layoffs and told me that it foretold the future and talked about the end times. She asked me to read it to her out loud.

I turned to the first page and read

The fire of God's vengeance will burn away the corrupt flesh from the body.

“Hallelujah!”, she said, and laughed.

____________________________________________

Great Performance Reviews in History: Lawrence of Arabia

Since employment and the search for employment seems to be on so many people's minds, I wish to share with you what I believe is one of the best "performance reviews" in film.  There are a few others, some more comical than this, but this is perhaps the best of the serious reviews.  It may even have some basis in fact.  That is less clear.

In this sequence, T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, has just come out of the desert and announced that he and the Arab Revolt have taken Aqaba. He is escorted into the presence of his commanding general, General Allenby, who is many levels above Lawrence's nominal chain of command.

Of course, this is from David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) starring Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence. 

The sequence is here, until Youtube takes it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CsUOYazQQU

 The Review

Allenby reviews his file, questions his actions, promotes him, and builds up his morale to motivate him to go back and continue his work. How many of us can say that we have had as well-informed and insightful a review, or one designed to help us do our best work?

Lawrence, who of course realizes he is being manipulated, tells Allenby to his face, "Youre a clever man, sir", and through his presentation makes it clear that he is accusing Allenby of doing something nasty by rewarding Lawrence and making him like it.   I don't know about you, but I think that is pretty funny.  

Allenby manipulates his employee by telling him he has done a good job, promoting him and buying him a drink.  What a tricky, low down thing to do!

As background on the film, many of the key plot points in the movie are historical.   Which is appalling when you think about it.   Of course any detail or dialogue or colorful incident at an oasis or whatnot is certainly fiction, at least to some degree.   I am not sure if Lawrence ever met Allenby or if Allenby invited him for a drink at the Officer's club.  I would tend to doubt it, but I do not know.  But I think that we can be certain that if they did meet, whatever they said to each other was different than what we see here.

The performance review:

Allenby: (reading from a file) Undisciplined .... Unpunctual ... Untidy ... Several languages,

knowledge of music, literature, knowledge of ... , knowledge of ... You're an interesting

man, there is no doubt about it. Who told you to take Aqaba?

Lawrence: Nobody.

Allenby: Sir.

Lawrence: Sir.

Allenby: Then why did you?

Lawrence: Aqaba is important.

Allenby: Why is it important?

Lawrence: Its the Turkish route to the canal.

Allenby: Not anymore, they're coming through Bathsheba.

Lawrence: But we've gone forward to Gaza.

Alleny: So?

Lawrence: So, that left Aqaba behind your right.

Allenby: True.

Lawrence: And it will be further behind your right when you go for Jerusalem.

Allenby: Am I going for Jerusalem?

Lawrence: Yes.

Allenby: Very well, Aqaba behind my right.

Lawrence: It threatened El Harish and Gaza.

Allenby: Anything else?

Lawrence: Yes, Aqaba is linked with Medina.

Allenby: Do you think we should shift them out of Medina now?

Lawrence: No, I think you should leave them there.

Allenby: You acted without orders you know.

Lawrence: Shouldn't officers use their initiative at all times?

Allenby: Not really. Its awfully dangerous, Lawrence.

Lawrence: Yes, I know.

Allenby: Already?

Lawrence: Yes.

Allenby: I'm promoting you Major.

Lawrence: I don't think that's a very good idea.

Allenby: I didn't ask you. I want you to go back and carry on the good work.

Lawrence: No, thank you, sir.

For those who are interested, the scene where Allenby announces Lawrence's promotion at the Officer's club is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=0VGBDYeEAVk

See also:

The Arab Revolt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt

General Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Allenby,_1st_Viscount_Allenby

Thomas Edward Lawrence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

Some Modest Suggestions for Human Resource Departments to Help Make the Internet Job Application Process Even More Pointless

We here at Global Wahrman believe that online Corporate Employment and Career web sites can do a better job at taking an unpleasant and difficult situation, looking for work in a down economy, and making it not just unpleasant but also hurtful to the worker as well.  We believe that Human Resources Departments must recognize that they have a responsibility to make the job search experience as negative, stupid and damaging as possible.

As we all know, the new way of getting a job is to apply through the Internet.  No other ways are permitted.  This is an excellent improvement for society as a whole over the old and discredited way that people got work: through colleagues who recommended them. This old way was very inefficient because it allowed employees and friends who knew the skills of individuals and the needs of corporations to find a match that was good for both parties.   With the new system we can depersonalize the process, fail to get the information necessary to find that match,  and destroy the self-esteem of the job seeker all at the same time.  Clearly, this is a great improvement.

J. Pierpont Finch reading about how to get a job on the Internet.

But some web sites for major corporations have failed to completely embrace this new paradigm, and still make modest efforts to do a good job of hiring people.   This is completely out of line with the Internet paradigm which works so hard to use technology as stupidly as possible in order to make life as unpleasant as possible.   This post serves notice to those archaic practitioners of the old, bad ways to get with the program.

To make their job of crafting an unpleasant experience for the job-seeker easier, we have compiled a series of suggestions based on our examination of the Career sections of major corporate web sites as well as some selected smaller companies.  We have also personally tested many of these web sites.  Many corporations are making excellent progress along the lines of making the online application process both self-defeating and destructive, but clearly there is more to do.

Here are some specific suggestions:

1. Do not permit the work candidate to upload a cover letter.  A cover letter can be used to defeat the process of depersonalizaton by providing information that is useful to the hiring process.  Therefore, cover letters must not be permitted.

2. Do not permit the work candidate to upload a resume for each job they apply for. The work candidate must acknowledge that their resume is generic and has no useful information that could contribute to the hiring process.  One resume should be sufficient no matter what job it is, or when that resume was created.

3. Do not permit the work candidate to efficiently upload information, instead demand that information as if they were a disabled child, and make them fill in endless categories about education, skills and so forth no matter how well that information is presented on a resume, it is important to waste their time and badly and stupidly elicit that information on a case by case basis.  We are not going to use that information, it is only there to waste the candidates' time and that is why it is important.

4. Do not allow the candidate to know whether or not they have successfully applied for the position. To do so would be to give the candidate some degree of reward for going through the immensely stupid process we have had them endure online.  Much better to not acknowledge whether the job was applied for and leave them in a state of uncertainty.  By frustrating the candidate in even this basic way, we can contribute to the psychology that nothing they do matters.

5. Do not allow the candidate to be able to contact anyone at the company in order to be able to ask questions or seek points of clarification.  That would be inefficient and far too expensive.  The work candidate is not interesting enough to be worth providing this kind of individual treatment.  In fact, the work candidate should realize that they are worthless, faceless garbage.   Allowing them to ask questions and seek clarification is counterproductive to achieving that realization.

6. Do not permit the worker any choice in the format with which documents are prepared.  Thus if they are permitted to upload a resume at all, make certain that you do not accomodate the standard formats of text, html, doc and pdf, but at most one of them, or better yet, none of them.

7. Make jobs come and go and make it very difficult to return to a job listing once found.  In this way, the job seeker can experience character-building frustration as he or she tries to find that previously listed job (which probably wasn't real anyway) and fail to find it.

8. Do not in any way serve notice to the applicant that the job is no longer available, or give him or her any useful information about how the job was filled, or even if the job was filled.

9. Do not in any way indicate that the job applicant's paperwork or application was in any way looked at by a human, but rather give the impression that they were dismissed without consideration.  Even better, is to not reply in any way at all, and thus they do not know whether they ever successfully applied and got rejected or have any other information.  Under no circumstances give constructive feedback.

But more important than any of the above is the following hard and fast rule: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LIST ANY GENUINE OPPORTUNITIES ON YOUR WEB SITE.  The only jobs that are permitted to be listed are (a) entry level jobs, or (b) jobs that are already filled and are being listed in pro forma compliance with law, (c) as a way of getting information about your competition and (d) as a way of misleading your competition.

The candidate must understand in a deep and meaningful way that any real opportunities will never be listed on your web site, now or in the future.

Remember, your employment web page is a way of communicating to the worker what the company thinks of their workers and that by treating them with contempt at this stage you accurately and efficiently communicate Corporate policy. More than just a human resources department and web site, you are an instrument of the Corporation's desire to demean and destroy the worker.

This is an important task you have been given by the Corporation, remember that, and work as hard as you can to achieve it.