Remote Printing

My work and play space is in the living room where, from my desk (a gift from Mom and Dad when I was stationed in Montana decades ago), I can hear the garbage and recycling people, and sometimes the neighbor chickens, the sound of Annie's Corgi nails clicking on the kitchen floor as she looks for food scraps, and the distant neighbors using their chainsaws and leaf blowers.

You can't really see it, but among the books behind my laptop is the AP Stylebook. Once hooked, there's no going back.

It was a productive morning in an applying-for-jobs kind of way. I found two, both part-time and both through Craigslist, worth throwing my hat in the ring. 

 DISTRACTION ALERT!

Curious about the origin of that phrase, I find that it began in the 1800s, the action being a taking up of a challenge in the boxing ring. I'm no boxer, but I do remember throwing my hat down in the barrel racing arena before starting the course. We all did it. Whether that was a protest of the protocol of  having to have a cowboy hat on to enter the ring or a misguided assessment of aerodynamic is lost in the hoof-generated dust of history.

Back to the jobs. One was to be the remote "right-hand gal" for a marketing woman based in Mendocino, up north in redwood country. Another was for an outreach manager for a non-profit that trains and stages productions with 50+ aged people. I thought I was pretty clever in my application transmittal email to note that, not only do I know how to work with old people, I am one.

When I apply for a job, I often send the advertisement to the printer, located next to Maureen. From her computer quadrant, she hears everything I do and more. The more being the sound of the printer coming to life all on its own. I holler back to her before committing the job to the queue to avoid startling (aka, "Scaring the shit out of....") her. She's taken to looking at what comes out of the printer, ignoring the recipes but typically saying something positive about the job and my perfectness for it. 

In the immediately previous post, I did not remember to comment about how unusual it is to actually hear back from a hiring person in response to a job application. With the growing stack of jobs I've applied for, I've only heard back from two. Whether that is a function of the utter decline into chaos of basic professional manners or a sign of the applicant-saturated times, I do not know.

Classifieds

I wondered if newspapers still ran classifieds so, when our local Montclarian appeared in our driveway, it seemed the perfect moment to satisfy that nugget of curiosity. We haven't had a newspaper subscription in years, you see. 

At first, we both grew weary of the general lousiness of the "local" papers - the San Francisco Chronicle and Tribune (before they became one), and the Oakland Tribune (which never really amounted to one newspaper at all). Maureen grew up reading the Chicago Tribune, I dallied with both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Small wonder, then, that we were print journalism snobs.

Given my accidental career in public relations, I've long been an armchair follower and critic of trends and developments in journalism. It seems to me that the consolidation train was on the tracks long before Internet news caused print media's ultimate derailment. All of the local East Bay papers, some that published Pulitzer prize reporting, folded into the Bay Area News Group in 2006, after the Alameda News Group acquired the San Jose Mercury News (and decimated the ranks of its talented and decorated reporters). That was only one year after the birth of the big mama of news aggregators, the Huffington Post.

I still read analyses from the Pew Foundation, Columbia School of Journalism, and others, about how the stodgy mastheads of the ships of information freedom and democracy failed to adapt to the new age of infobits and infographics. Much hand-wringing about the death of print journalism contributing to, if not causing, the polarization of the body politic and even some hints that we, the people, have chosen the fork of the road taking us to diminished critical thinking capacity.

It turned out that the Montclarian had a story about the reopening of a quasi-public horse riding stable near our house. Maureen and I rode there together decades ago in what I described as a condo horse arrangement. For $150 a month each, we got a couple of private riding lessons and weekend trail rides. We enjoyed the experience, and our horses Two Story and Doc. So sad when the concession folded. Given Maureen's passion for all things horses, the stable's reopening seems a wonderful employment opportunity for her. Not the classifieds, but any job lead works.

The Montclarian did have job classifieds but nothing like those I remember reading when I first moved to the Bay Area in the mid-1980s. Then, it took a long time to get through them. Every job and potential career was there for all job seekers to consider - from artists to xenophobes. Okay, I made up the xenophobes and it only phonetically fits the A to Z pattern desired. Still. 

Yesterday's classifieds surprised me. One, that there were any at all. Second, that almost all fell under two first letters: E-ngineers and T-echnology. Not a bartender, cook or domestic help job listed at all. I'd hoped that hyperlocal jobs might be listed but no. Why the likes of Intel, Hewlett Packard, and Apple would spend any money to purchase classifieds in a newspaper with a circulation approaching the hundreds is lost to me.

Time to dive back into Craigslist and Indeed.com.

Expertise, Or Not

The past few days have been hard. Reminds me of once when I was really, really sick and opened a bottle of cranberry juice only to find, "You are not a winner," imprinted on the inside of the bottle cap. I burst into tears and took to my bed.

Observations from Craigslist:

• I appreciate job notices that make it clear this silver-haired white woman need not apply: Women and men of color, bilingual candidates, and first-generation college students encouraged to apply.
• It is sometimes a good thing to not be qualified: Do you suffer from bipolar disorder/schizophrenia/depression?
• If only I didn't live in Oakland and was not such a scaredy cat: Many pleas for drivers from Uber and Lyft, the new entrants into alternative urban transportation. I know someone who recently used the former to get around Seattle and found it to be the way to go.
• I'm running into some that I just can't figure out what qualifications are hidden in the job description: native american proofreader. On further investigation, the poster was not looking to recreate the Navajo Code Talkers. 
• Finding out what knowledge and abilities I don't have: Expert knowledge of The Chicago Manual of Style (what's wrong with the global standard of the AP Stylebook, anyway?), Adobe Creative Suite (at work, first we had to go with Corel Ventura, much more publishing capability than we needed to produce four- to eight-page fact sheets, then we all got trained in the aforementioned Adobe Creative Suite only to then find that there was no money to buy the licenses).

Somehow, I stumbled across Elance, What Wikipedia describes as, "... an online staffing platform." (So glad that the AP Stylemavens finally consented to "online" and "website". Much faster to type than "on-line" and "Web site" as it originally ordained. I signed up, worked a bit on my Elance profile, partially populated by my LinkedIn profile, then took a number of the imbedded expertise tests.

It turned out that I scored barely proficient at all the stuff I fancied myself to be quite the expert. Okay, I had mononucleosis when I should have learned the terms for grammar (what the hell is a predicate, anyway, and why should I care?). I am also way behind on the current jargon for everything. Who knew that a journalism "deck" is a subhead? I figured it was a couple of PowerPoint slides breaking up the text, infographically. 

Bring back the second space after a period and a colon, gonzo journalism, and the Oxford comma.

I need a nap.

Distractions

Now including this blog. Consider this a true confessions post. 

I usually wake up (sometimes for the fourth or fifth time) between 6 and 7 a.m. Or, as I'm told it is said in SoCal, "Before Jesus and the Mexicans." So inappropriate in so many ways but makes me laugh. Merlin and I stumble out to do our morning stretches and eye rubbing before I get coffee and settle in at my desk to check in on what my Facebook pals have been up to.

I like Facebook. Maureen, my dad and niece, and many non-virtual buddies want nothing to do with it. I not only like it, I consider using it to be professional development; you see, I have a certain persona or reputation on FB, as any good public relations practitioner should. I like to (in no particular order):

• Crack myself up telling tales about myself
• Crack myself up observing the inane and absurd in the world around me
• Crack myself up asking questions about obscure subject matter
• Let photos do my talking, and amuse or inform my friends
• Support my FB friends with likes, words of encouragement and private messages 
• Avoid creating political firestorms on my wall, except with one Republican/Libertarian friend 

I also read some of the stories people link to. A not-so-secret science and technology geek, I will look at almost anything having to do with space and technological advances. And dog stuff, like a recent post from someone about the structure of the German Shepherd Dog.
 
Here's the darker part of my FB habit. I spend the next hour or so playing my four games. Bubble Safari, and Bubble Witch, Candy Crush, and Pet Rescue Sagas. Terrible and shameful addictions. At least I don't spend actual money buying level zaps, charms, extra lives, or any of the other boosters and such. Then I check back in on my how my FB friends' mornings are going. More likes and comments and sharing ensue.

Next, I'm off to email. First, look for and respond to mail from friends. Second, breeze through Indeed and any other employment feeds I have. As previously discussed, my personal filters make that go pretty fast. I get an email about retired annuitant jobs (aka double-dipper jobs) but there's never been a position anywhere near here. Hurlong, yes. Hurlong, Calif., 70 miles north of Reno, population 298, home to the Bible Baptist, Assembly of God and Southern Baptist churches, prisoner population 1,658 with some in a minimum security satellite camp. Oh, yeah. I'm moving there. 

Third should be Craigslist, since that's where I can find part-time work. But it isn't. Then I look through my email for more interesting things. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) usually has two or three items about my profession worth reading. I sometimes share those, as I did just this morning with the Forbes list of top 50 global green companies. Similarly, AARP almost always has tidbits I want to look at. "Avoid These 10 Money Wasters," "13 Shows Not To Miss This Season," etc. I like those lists and AARP seems to do the best, presenting them in slideshows with minimum explanatory text. I tried the, "55 Must-Read Cleaning Tips," but 55 is too many and I had to go through three long-loading clicks to get to any one of them.

Seems everybody does, "Check out this X facts/things/ideas to know/avoid/pursue." What's up with that, anyway? I am a sucker for lists and, since I'll distract myself by researching anything, I found a great post on the "lisicle" practice, It's All in Your Head:  9 Reasons You Can't Resist a List, by Dan Lyons on Hubspot. My personal favorite:  Because PowerPoint has turned us all into mindless corporate zombies. Oh, and Hubspot is an inbound marketing company. Whatever the hell that is. 

By now, my butt is numb and my mouse wrist tingles. I sail back to shower, on the way announcing my intent to Maureen (who is reading everything she can about thoroughbred horse racing or playing her own games - Spider Solitaire, Hearts, all stuff on her computer, not online). Unless I have an appointment somewhere, as I do today with a lunch date, the back yard and my mournful looking puppy await me.

My Job Filters

I just sent off an application to be a part-time receptionist for a foundation that governs what it refers to as "America's premier active adult community." I've been at this job hunt and application gig for three months. Actively, at least. It has been an interesting journey.

First, I haven't applied for a job in more than 20 years. I had a sense that we wouldn't need to subscribe to any newspapers to look at the classified ads. That's good because our newspapers are pretty awful. What to do? AARP to the rescue. You see, ever since I've retired, I've followed select organizations. AARP is one. Others have to do with my own professional development, such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), from which I am accredited in Public Relations (proud of that - the pass rate when I took the exam in the 80's was 30 percent) and the Pew Research Center, because there will always be an anthropologist in me.

It was reading one of the AARP aggregated news emails that I found Indeed. I love that you can set up filters to look for work near you. Every morning, after satisfying my Facebook craving, I peruse through the emails from all the various feeds. Sometimes - it varies day by day and week by week - I send off a cover letter and resume. I have two resumes now. Maureen told me that my "real" resume made me appear to be so overqualified as to be intimidating. So I wrote one, in fits and starts, that focuses on writing.

Which brings me back to the title of this entry... job filters. Early on, I made the conscious decision that I wasn't going to cross the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge to go to work. Too expensive, parking's a nightmare, and there are those small matters of earthquakes and firestorms. That one decision allows me to breeze through job postings pretty quickly.

Over time, a month or so, I realized that my Indeed filters (communications, presentations and, most recently, environmental) pulled up a ton of jobs I was either not interested in or qualified for. By interested in, I mean my own screening for what organizations might hire me. I smoke, get over it. That means applying for work in or near a California health care system is out of the question. By qualified for, I mean that hiring officers seem to throw in references about being good at communications. You can be sure that I am not an engineer (nor have I ever met one who could communicate worth a damn, so good luck with that, hiring officer). 

Then, frustrated that all of the jobs were full-time I realized how little I wanted that. So off to Craigslist, on the advice of a previous coworker and current friend. I've found that to be quite useful. In fact, Craigslist is where I found today's job possibility.