Post 165: Worst Mistake to Make When Applying for Jobs

There are many mistakes that you can make when applying for a job. There is one that is particularly bad because it will stop you from even getting an interview nine times out of ten. What mistake is it? Not having the proper contact information done on your resume.

This is a mistake I have made three separate times in different forms.

The first is not having the correct phone number. Now, jobs will either email or call so having the correct number, but wrong email or vice versa will not always lead to a missed opportunity. However, it will from time to time have the potential employer calling the wrong person or sending out email correspondence in vain. And unless you are very high quality candidate, they will have other people to contact and move on to without trying to contact you other ways. 

I have done this. I got a new cell phone and my number did not carry over. I forgot to change it on my resume for one job, thankfully I caught it after I PDFed it. 

Another mistake is to put an email that you do not often check. I used my University email when I applied for jobs at the university, but when I switched from a student to an alumni they stopped forwarding to my main email. I almost missed an email about coming in for an interview because I don’t often check in as I assume it forwards. I realized that I hadn’t received any notifications that I applied and signed in to check. Thankfully, I didn’t miss anything but junk mail. 

This is the worst mistake because it is the most likely to keep you from getting a job you are qualified for. It is likely shooting yourself in the foot even before the interview happens. So, when applying, make sure your contact information is not only correct, but the ones that you will actually check. 

Post 164: Counterpoint - Flight Plan

The movie has a lot of plot holes. A lot. But the biggest or most commonly picked at one is the end of her searching for witnesses so soon.

The main plot of the movie revolves around the idea that the main character believes her daughter is on the plane and went missing. The pilot calls the morgue and says that he heard from them that her daughter died too. The main character then doesn't bother to call anyone else. Not her daughter's teachers or her neighbors or other family members. No one who could have backed up the fact that her daughter was, in fact, alive. 

This is thought to be a big plot hole in Flight Plan. While it is true that she could have called others, I doubt the pilot would continue to let her call people. No one saw the daughter on the plan. No one remembered her. The pilot is saying she was never on the plan. The pilot is saying that the morgue says the daughter is dead. It isn't like some stranger is saying it. 

Then she continues to act more and more erratically. She clearly didn't seem stable. You can only give in to the demands of someone acting irrationally for so long. Not to mention there were multiple people in on it. So, who knows if they hadn't influenced others in her life. 

She also seems like she had gotten more standoff-ish. She probably withdrew from her friends and family. Also depending on when her husband died, which probably was not far too long before considering she was flying with his coffin on the plane, is a sign it was pretty recent, the daughter may not have returned to school yet.

After a significant death, like the death of a father, kids and students are often encouraged to take time off. So, they also may not have seen her since her dad's death. 

So, it makes sense she didn't start calling other people. She probably didn't have too many people to call. She also was paranoid, quite rightly. And she had no way of knowing who was in on her daughter's disappearance. Maybe they were all involved. Maybe the pilot was involved. Maybe every single person was involved. She had no way of knowing.

So, it was best to go off and do her own thing.

Post 163: A Post from Unfamiliar Territory

I am currently in the Sprott Shaw College student lounge. There are two tables. Two! Which is not nearly enough as they are smaller than your standard dining room table. They are also both full. There is a giant made couch in the shape of an 'L' made of small seats. There are 6 rows with 4 computers each. There is honestly more computers than there is convenient places to sit. Which must explain why there are no "no food or drinks at computers" signs and trash wrappers abandoned on desks. It is fine with me. I have dinner to eat and it is easier sitting at a desk than trying to balance my food on my knee.

The computers seem to require some sort of log-in information, but some of them are also signed in. Which is how I got on to this computer. They seemed to have left a lot of things signed in. But I don't care really so haven't checked. And being that I am already taking advantage of the fact that they forgot to sign out to do my own thing. It seems like it would be wrong to butt into their's. I will sign them out when I am down.

But they should really have more tables. What kind of student lounge cannot accommodate more than two groups of people at a time? I mean, it seems like one of the professors/instructors has actually sent the two groups out to discuss things. So, it isn't even being used as lounge space but as classroom space. That is a little unfair to students that would like to actually use the lounge, as a lounge.

That being said I cannot talk too much considering I am not actually a student here. I am a student at City University, which is their neighbor upstairs. There is actually no lounge space that I saw up there at all. There are a handful of classrooms, but it is lacking space the same way I am lacking a place to put the shrimp tails from my dinner.

It seems so weird eating here. I am trying to keep my food on the window ledge and off the desk. It is weird, in general, not to see any cameras anywhere. SFU had cameras everywhere.

You know, it occurs to me that I have taken classes at five separate Universities, four as a University student. I took classes at Alfred University. I attended University of Victoria, Simon Fraser, University of Copenhagen, and now City University. (Since I didn't previously say, I am now taking classes).

That's kind of weird.

I don't think I took enough classes at really any of them other than SFU to do any sort of real, fair comparison. And I have always found classes to be very dependent on the professor. I loved my Philosophy class when I had it with the professor who put on Beyonce and Lost and made everything relatable and often humorous.  Meanwhile, when I had the professor that put up those old clear sheets on a projector and either read straight from the or from the book, never adding anything or expanding...well, let's just say if the grading had actually required I show knowledge of what we learned in class I would have failed. Thankfully, it was 6 4-page essays where we were given the discussion question relatively early in the year so we could look up anything we needed to know ourselves. And he was hardly a tough grader. I vaguely remember having difficulty coming up with word length for one and spending a page and a half relating the material to Harry Potter.

It is about time to start wandering my way to class now. Ta-ta for now.

Post 162: Navigating the Job Market with an English Degree

It has been some time now since I graduated from University. And I have entered those years where applying for jobs is sort of awkward, because you might have both too much and not enough experience for the jobs you are looking for, assuming you don't just dive into minimum wage retail positions (that even for entry level still often asks for 6 months or even a year of experience). 

I have worked in lots of different jobs, though they probably aren't as diverse as the Job Titles would make them seem. They all boil down to some sort of personable attitude (either with coworkers or customers), tech skills of a basic to moderate level, and daily Spam emails.

I have to say, looking back, I may never have really loved any of them (I mean, obviously or I'd likely still be there) but I don't think I really disliked any of them. It was generally not even that I wholly liked or was ambivalent about any particular job. It was just a varied extravaganza of pros and cons. 

None of which is relevant to today's topic, which is basically "I have an English degree, now what?"

Well, there are lots of ways to go with an English degree, but today's main focus is going to be writing jobs that would be classified as weird or obscure that you might not even know about, like Fortune Cookie Writers. 

Fortune Cookie Writers:

I'm going to be honest, I never really thought about who was writing the messages that turned up in my fortune cookies. There are post generators and content generators galore out there, so I think I always just assumed that is where they came from and that is why they are often random. I think the strangest one that I can recall was something along the lines of "May a bird nest in the tree of your heart" or something like that. It seems very poetic, but also pretty weird to me. 

But it is a job, a writing job, with the potential of being pretty entertaining. 

Website Content Writers:

Do you know who aren't writers? Engineers and scientists. Now, not all of them struggle with writing. But most that I know struggle with writing in a way that is interesting or comprehensible to non-STEM scholars. So, they often pay writers to write or re-write content for them. Technical writers are given reports and help, essentially, translate them into a more everyday level. But, as we further delve into this digital age, more of these non-writing types are starting websites to explain what they do and why. 

For example, these quotes taken from a website about colors and psychology:
"When red is placed on a black background, it glows with an otherworldly fire."
"Could mellow yellow be the color of insanity?"

Now does that say writerly or what?

Ghost Writers:

There are a lot of celebrities out there that have "written" autobiographies. And by that I mean, there are a lot of celebrities that shared their life story with writers who then turned them into autobiographies. But the thing is, ghostwriters get 0 credit. As in nada, zip, nothing. 

By definition, it sounds like plagiarism. Hiring someone to write something, so you can sign your name on it and get the credit? Sounds sketchy. But its actually very common. And if what my one and only ghostwriter friend says is true, it pays better because you are signing away credit. 

Now my lovely dears, it seems as though I have run out of time to keep going. But those three strange but English major appropriate jobs will hopefully at least inspire you to check your options.

Post 161: Story Prompt

This Story Prompt was shared by my friend on Facebook (she's my friend in real life, she just shared it via Facebook):

"Its 3am. An official alert wakes you up. It says 'Do Not Look at the Moon'. You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending, 'Its beautiful tonight. Look outside.' "

And I wrote a short little story blurb on the train in response:

It is almost 3am. My phone is playing part of the Muppets song on repeat. It has fallen between my bed and the wall. Mah Na Mah Na can be heard faintly every few minutes. Is it worth the search? Surely the texts will stop?

But they don’t. I roll over and grope blindly feeling the cold wall against my knuckles. I say a silent prayer along the lines of “dear god, please don’t let a spider crawl out.” Finally I find it and look to see who is dying or is losing a friend.

It isn’t one text, but many. None of the numbers are associated with names. I have a new number. The owner of the old number told no one it wasn’t his number anymore. His car is ready for service.

His friends must be texting him. All the texts are the same, “It’s a beautiful night. Look outside.”

There are so many messages. It must really be beautiful. It is supposed to be a full moon tonight. I put my phone on silent and close my eyes to go back to sleep.

But I can’t. I’m too curious. And all I have to do is get out of bed and open the curtains and I can see for myself if the moon is out and full.

I throw off the covers and get up. I trip over my desk chair on the way before grabbing my phone and putting on the flashlight.

Just as I reach the window I receive an emergency alert: “Do Not Look at the Moon.”

I look up at the window. The last thing I see before darkness overtakes the room is my hand on the curtain illuminated by my phone’s flashlight, it has switched to camera mode. The room is dark. I am going back to bed. I have to be up for work in two hours. It is Monday.

Post 160: En Route - Melanie Martinez, Social Media, and the Law

Recently there have been scandals abounding of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual coercion accusations. Most towards men, but not all of these accusations have been directed at men. One famous, or rather infamous, accusation was levied against Melanie Martinez by her long-time friend, Timothy Heller. Heller is accusing Melanie of getting her intoxicated and then performing sexual acts without her expressed consent. 

Now this has been particularly notorious as many fans stick by Melanie, while many people are upset by this as they claim that the men who are being accused are being assumed guilty when they have the same amount of proof. While this isn't exactly true, as many people denied the allegations brought forth against such celebrities as Michael Jackson, Kesha's manager, and LeBron James, it is getting a lot of attention. 

Part of the reason fans of Melanie are disputing the allegations is because of Timothy Heller's social media presence and her use of the scandal to bring herself notoriety. Shortly after accusing Melanie she used her increasing fame to start marketing herself and her concerts to her increased fan base of supporters. Now, maybe they're right, maybe she is using this as an opportunity to gain more fame and publicity. That being said, just because she has made the accusations shouldn't mean that she has to stop living her life as a person and make it all about being a victim. Could she have waited a few days before advertising her concerts? Yes, but should she have to? Why can't she use what she has been through (assuming her accusations are true) to help her? Turn lemon into lemonades, as the saying goes? 

Melanie's usage of social media during this time was far more questionable. She released a statement which basically encapsulated the age old sentiment that many people accused of rape use, "she didn't say no". Now, her statement does expand on their friendship  and a few other points. It was a brief statement, but it does seem to suggest that a)something did happen between the two and b) clear consent was not given. Melanie didn't confirm or deny the accusations that she got her drunk or high.

This was an incredibly poor move by Melanie. There are riots across the nation and in other countries happening with increasing frequency where the message is "only yes means yes". Her friend, Timothy Heller, not saying no was not the same as consenting and she should have known better, both in the situation and in posting her response.

While it is hard to say how many, if any, of these cases will actually be taken to court, especially after so much time has passed for many of them, this case would be difficult to prosecute without blood tests to corroborate Heller's story. And even then, it would be a "she said/she said" situation as Melanie would likely be at same levels of insobriety and could say that it was Heller's idea. 

Just some thoughts for the train ride. Until next time!