My New Friends!

Right now I would say that the world is divided up between those who are lucky enough to still be working, and those who aren’t so lucky. For those of us who aren’t working we are now faced with an intolerable dilemma. If you are one of the thousands of Americans looking for a new job online you can most likely relate to what I am about to describe. If you thought it was hard to find a job when the economy was good, finding a job when the economy is bad is damn near impossible.

At my previous job I was asked to hire an intern. I posted an ad on Craig’s List and within minutes I had 20 responses. Over the next three days I received over 300 resumes. It was actually relatively easy sifting through them based on a few guidelines I had laid down. Here are a few examples of who didn’t make the cut:
1. Although the post was anonymous many took this to mean it was ok to leave the name of the person they sent their resume to previously, subsequently addressing me as Mr. Grinnell, Ms. Stacy Green or Ms. Levine. ELIMINATED
2. I am interested in Intern position . I hav marketing experience and knowledge of execution of the lead generation program and marketing research methods. ELIMINATED
3. I don’t care that you went to Yale, it still does not give you the right to send me a six paragraph single spaced 10 point font cover letter. ELIMINATED
4. When your resume covers three pages and each job description contains less than 20 words I think it’s safe to say you would benefit from reformatting your resume. ELIMINATED
5. If you were a manager or account executive and have been out of school for over four years, you are too qualified for an unpaid internship. ELIMINATED

I could go on for hours but I think you get the picture. Overall there were about twenty potential candidates out of 300 resumes. This was a little over 4 months ago. Today I am guessing that anywhere near 700 – 1000 people are applying to any given Craig’s List posting and they are most likely more qualified than the applicants I my posting attracted. Given that hypothetical statistic you would think that any potential employer would feel slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of sifting through almost 1,000 (300 of which are qualified?) emails. Rather than sifting through each and every resume it seems much more likely that the employer will begin with the first several hundred resumes received, find the most qualified candidates and hope that one of them works out. What this means for the potential employee is that it would be to your advantage to get your resume in as soon as possible to the time the posting was posted. There are several downsides to this though.

The time crunch you are now under to submit your resume leaves you with limited mobility. I leave the comfort and security of wifi and my laptop only to work out and take a shower. Otherwise, you can find me right here in my living room with my computer on my lap and the TV on as I don’t like to feel like I am alone for 8 hours a day. While many of you do not get to experience the unimaginable and unlimited plethora of amazing content available on television during the day, I do. I’d now like to take this opportunity to describe just how much the average working American is missing by waking up every morning and trudging through work all day television-less.

I like to start my day around 8 or 9 a.m. by tuning in to 1 hour of the 4 hour daily program The Today Show. Al Roker’s enthusiasm is almost un-humanlike and he always seems to have an interesting take anything he is reporting. Kathy Lee and Hoda have a great sense of humor and I think they work really well together. That was such a great idea for Kathy Lee to leave Live with Regis all those years ago. Hoda complements Kathy Lee much more than Regis Philbin ever did. I then like to move on to The Price is Right. There’s really nothing greater than watching overweight middle-Americans in tacky neon T-shirts jumping around the aisles of a TV set that hasn’t been renovated since the early 70’s. Last week contestants were bidding on a plastic water slide. The only person who came close to the actual retail price was a father whose bid was much higher than all the other contestants’ bids, and my own. It really made me second-guess my knowledge of consumer products, specifically the price of plastic. Some days I’ll get lucky and there will be an all day marathon of CSI: New York (never Miami or the original though) and I’ll get to spend my whole day with Mac, the hard-hitting, stern-faced lead criminologist/ rogue cop/ occasional action hero who struggles with a birth defect that makes it nearly impossible for him to smile.

If the TV schedule is devoid of a crime marathon I will usually flip through channels until about 1 or 2 p.m. when the really good stuff comes on. I’m not a big fan of the daily soaps; I think it has something to do with how slow the plots move. No matter how many days I miss, I always know that once I return the characters will still be struggling with the same problems I left them with and no where nearer to a resolution. I just want to scream “Yes, it’s ok to kill your ex step-sister and now step-mother who killed the biological twin you never knew existed and slept with your husband and is now pregnant with your husbands child but is telling your father that it’s really his even though he’s 80 and in a coma and hasn’t been able to have sex in 10 years! Just dump the rat poison in her whiskey, make it look like she slipped in the bathroom and hit her head, declare yourself the legal guardian of the baby and rewrite your fathers will to make you the sole heir of his coffee bean fortune! It’s not like it hasn’t been done before on One Life to Live!”

My elite palate draws me to the more in depth shows such as Maury or People’s Court. Maury is like the sole survivor of the afternoon talk show glory days in which Jenny Jones, Montel and Ricki Lake ruled basic cable. After frequent viewings I’ve come to the conclusion that Maury’s favorite topic is “Who’s the Baby’s Daddy?” Take for example today’s show, titled “I can’t be the Baby’s Daddy, I was in a Coma!” I kid you not.

What really attracts me to shows such as Maury, and particularly this topic is that the women who come on the show honestly do not realize the extent of their own promiscuity. If you are unfamiliar with how this particular show works let me shine some light on it.

Maury will start by introducing the mother; she will be sitting beside him while in the background a montage of pictures of the mothers’ fatherless child flash in the background. Maury then asks her who she thinks the father is, whereupon the mother launches into a heart wrenching story of stolen virginity, broken hearts, and forgotten I Love You’s. Eventually the alleged father will come on stage with his hands in the air in a failed attempt to subdue the outraged audience who has been a little too easily coerced into believing the mothers’ sob story of his infidelity. The alleged father is then allowed .25 seconds to defend himself from the scathing allegations thrown at him by the baby’s momma. When the fight between Mom and Pop reach its apex Maury steps in and pulls out a zinger telling the audience that he has conducted a paternity test and he has the results IN HIS HANDS which he will reveal to you…after this commercial break. It is now that the show really starts to take off.

Maury usually has about 4 women on the show each episode claiming so-and-so is the father of their child. Why these women would even want to admit that these men are the fathers of their children are beyond me because they are certainly not winners, yea I’m talking to you Silvio! After the commercial break Maury reveals the results of the paternity test with great fanfare. Although the mother has done a wonderful job convincing the audience of her disparity the paternity test is not as easily fooled. Once the results are revealed it almost always…reveals…that the alleged father is not the father! Now comes the time when the mothers stand up and shake their fists (and as a result their whole rather large bodies) at the OOOOOing audience. The wronged mothers steadfastly stand by their “expert” knowledge that the alleged really is the father and that he somehow cheated on the test just like he cheated on her. This happens to at least 3 of the 4 women brought on the show. It’s great and I think Maury should be touted as the originator of the menimist movement.

Maury is obviously the highlight of my day but Wife Swap definitely gives Maury a run for its money. I’m not a psychologist but I think it’s safe to say that the creators of this show had a strained relationship with their mothers when they were growing up. Regardless, putting a working atheist mother in a fundamentalist Christian household as a stay at home wife makes for some great television. Once my two hours of Wife Swap have ended I like to put a little substance in my life and tune into the local news…while I’m making dinner.

These examples are just some of the many captivating and exhilarating shows I am able to watch during the day time. In order to experience them all I recommend that you resign from your dreaded nine to five job and spend your days with me, on the couch. Just imagine all the laughs we’ll share with Kathy Lee and Hoda, the tears we’ll shed with Maury, and the many intellectual conversations we’ll have while watching Wife Swap. It’s quite a life indeed. So, if you’d like to join me and all of my new found friends, please be my quest. All I ask in return is that inform me of the job you are planning on leaving. I’m sure they’ll need someone to fill your shoes J