is it just me?

For the past two days I was in job interviews for an open position in my department. This is the first time I have been to a job interview when I was not the interviewee, and let me tell you: it has been painful. Regulations require that we ask each person all the same questions, and somehow the list is 25 questions long. Do you know how excruciating this is? And do you know what crappy answers most people give? It’s dreadful. There were five people, two of which were qualified, two of which were nearly incomprehensible (unfortunately this included one qualified person), and one who already works here. Umm…yeah. That’s not awkward. We’re hiring a supervisor for this person because they cannot get their job done, so they applied for the new position and we have to ask questions like “Why do you want this job?” but what we want to ask is “Please explain, in detail, how you will not royally screw up this job, even though you cannot do an easier job.”

One guy gets humor points for answering “What are your career goals?” with “Get this job!” And this other woman should be in marketing and not finance because for one position on her resume which is clearly telemarketing it says “Achieving set targets by friendly persistence/objection handling”. Hahaha. That means she’s the person that when you say “I don’t want long distance” says “I understand that Ms. Lizard but what I need to tell you is that these are amazing rates that you really cannot pass up.” “I want to pass them up.” “Well, I can appreciate that but did I mention that it comes with caller ID? And if you sign up right now we will raise your rates at no extra charge to you?” We did not hire her but we did order $50K in home and garden supplies.

Remarkably, I think we found someone to hire. But the real issue is that pretty much we are on the Titanic here and the new person will be like the patch kit that comes with a rubber raft. I feel like chicken little because I try to tell everyone here that things are not going well and they act really interested in that fact and call me in for a meeting, close the door, pretend to listen, offer me a piece of candy, send me back to my office and promptly do nothing. I have been doing this for two years straight. So now I just send emails that say things like “In case you care, it’s your ass that will have to pay back that $150K accounting error, not mine. Have a great day!” Remember those commercials with the guy working with a bunch of monkeys? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. We had an extra hour in between two interviews because the person who scheduled them did not realize that 11:45 is not one hour and 15 minutes after 9:30. Which is funny, since I sort of count being able to tell time as one of life’s more basic skills, but apparently it is not required by the state worker aptitude test.

Brrr…
The weather here has been horrendous. Even for Wisconsin in winter. So, if anyone lives somewhere warm and has a room they would like to rent to me and the baby Lizard please let me know. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and the post office near my house. Unfortunately for me, these places are also close to several retirement homes, which means that there are often lots of old people shopping and generally milling about. Do you know how slowly old women walk in the snow? The only thing slower is old women driving in the snow. And to make things even more exciting, there is tons of rental property nearby which is inhabited by a lot of graduate students, including a lot of Asians. I find that many of these people are not that good at driving because they have only learned to drive recently and the best way to be a bad driver is to start when you are over 30. There is something useful about learning to drive when you are a foolish, reckless 16 year old. You know, build your confidence while you’re too dumb to be scared. Anyway, if one of your new year’s resolutions is to be more patient, I have a recommendation for you: drive around my neighborhood for several hours in the snow. Seriously. If you do not end up jumping out of your car and beating an old lady over the head with her cane and/or screaming ‘get off the road’ more than once then you have reached your goal! Congratulations!

It seemed like a good idea
Yesterday I was shopping for a birthday present for my mother. I bought her some books, and the bookstore was offering free wrapping. This seemed great! I could get it wrapped right away, drop it at the post office and be done. So I took it back there to three bored looking high school girls. I had three books and they decided to each wrap one. After much mis-measuring of paper and excessive use of tape, the packages were handed back to me. And, well, they looked like my kid wrapped them. Seriously. It was terrible. I dropped a few bucks in the donation box anyway (it was for charity, after all) and tried to decide whether I could send these kindergarten crafts projects to my mother, who is an impeccable wrapper. Upon weighing the alternatives, I decided to just go for it and hope she doesn’t notice, which of course she will. I also had something wrapped at a toy store the other day and it took them about 20 minutes. I have now learned my lesson, and will wrap everything myself even though I really hate wrapping. Or else I will skip the wrapping and hand out the presents saying “Surprise! It’s what it says on the box!”