Comparative Reality

Spell: Summon Loan Officer

Material component: Computer, internet access (possibly optional)

Verbal component: Speak the phrase "I would like to refinance my mortgage."

This spell summons 4d20x4 loan officers, all eager to point out that their company is the number one lender at some loan site, and suddenly very interested in chatting about the weather, your neighborhood, pets, or 2d6 other inconsequential matters.

All of them will offer identical interest rates, and claim that their offer is superior to all others.

Warning: Whether you answer their calls or not, they will continue to call you and leave messages. Forever.

Action Painters

Catchy indie rock which hasn't been overproduced into something bland, artificially shiny, and boring.

Listen to their woxy Lounge Act.

Not that I'm unemployed. Not yet, anyway. But as someone who is potentially soon-to-be-unemployed, I've been updating my resume on various job sites, and responding to a few job postings. Not that there are more than a few available in the Bay Area; although apparently people in Bangalore are looking for writers.

As a by-product of this, I receive wholly untempting offers to join some company or other as a "sales agent," or something along those lines, where I would get to work impossible hours for a microscopic commission. And then there are the ones that make those look good:

Personal message:
Dear, [Your humble blogger]

We analyzed your resume and see you as a potential candidate of our company.

You may learn about company business activity on our site. We'd like to offer you the Financial Manager position.

You may also hold a position in a different company as our vacancy won't occupy a lot of time.

Requirements for the Financial manager position:
- 2-4 hours of free time per week
- Over 21 years old
- THE CITIZENSHIP OF THE USA is a must.

Our company undertakes to cover transmission, check clearance and all other expenses at its own cost.

Hey! I have THE CITIZENSHIP OF THE USA! I guess I'm qualified to start a new career in money laundering Financial Management! Sign me up!

The message continues, badly spaced, with more information-like text. You'll understand if I don't post it all: I don't want any of you grabbing this job before I do.

After trying Monster.com, and being unable to log in with any combination of the likely email addresses and passwords that I've favored over the past 5 years, and then being equally unsuccessful at another site, it occurred to me that at least one career site is run by Yahoo. And I know my Yahoo login.

Success! There's a pre-current-job version of my resume, ready to be updated.

Of course, I thought of this after I had spent an hour building a new resume, starting from an 8-year-old copy that a helpful manager had reviewed, while that company was falling into the post-dot-com abyss.

Needless to say, I'm already making multiple copies of this thing.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to focus on writing. Plans are still being talked over, and that's all we know. And I can't even explain what's going on. A generally accurate summary would be: If a group upstairs picks choice B, my services (and the services of other people in my departmental sub-group) will no longer be required. Even with choice A, though, I'm really not sure how solid my job is. The long-term status of my department is unclear.

It's not even a question of finances: They don't need to cut anyone, but, basically, some people promised some things that we weren't able to deliver, and now my job is in danger. So I'm both worried and, at the same time, increasingly pissed off.

The best of the worst case scenarios is that I get laid off, and go back to work for the boring parts of the software industry. After being ruler of my own doc set, at an interesting company, that won't be easy. But the alternative (starving to death in the streets) is certainly less appealing.

Adding to the general hilarity, it turns out that I don't have a recent version of my resume. I lost it when a disk crashed a while back. And while I made multiple copies of doc samples, I didn't include a resume with any of them. Not the best example of planning ahead, unfortunately.