Todd Stadler's blog

they call me the contract-working man

Yesterday was the first time I worked outside my house since I left Intel.

My roommate's sister's company needed some people to come in for a few weeks to update their mailing list database. Which means I'm spending the next several days doing data entry. But it also means I'm getting paid. And right now money is worth more to me than time.

I'm interested to see how much of this brainless work I can put up with. My increasing desperation has led me to seek and apply for jobs that don't require a lot of intelligence or skill. I think such jobs really might not be so bad, as long as they allow me enough non-work time to do the things I love.

Of course, my engineering background (and, in particular, a job in which I earned more than twice what these low-level jobs pay) instantly marks me as "overqualified" to any hiring manager, which is a bit unfair, really. I honestly believe that if the work is interesting enough and the money pays the bills, I don't care what I'm doing, whether it's a "step back" from engineering or not.

But such an attitude is rare, I'm sure. Who wants to make less money, after all? I do, if it means I don't have to be an engineer out in the suburbs. But I remain alone in that mindset.

And so I have been unable to test my theories about enjoying brainless work. Until now. If it turns out that I can't stand hour after hour of correcting mailing addresses, at least this job self-destructs in a few weeks.

However, today was passable. I popped some Beethoven into my CD player (mmm ... 7th symphony) and ripped through a pile of paper. I also got free cookies.

In honor of this momentous occasion (that of positive cash flow, however temporary), I would like to reflect on the highlights of my job search thus far.

• Asking myself if I really wanted to dress up in a "Chipper the Squirrel" costume for money. Cons: sweating, wearing a musty suit, getting hit in the groin by vengeful kids. Pros: the stories, the stories! And, of course, the pictures! Sadly, the cons outweighed the pros.
• Recognizing the abundance of irony (Alanis-style) in my search for office work. Examples include:
  • A job posting that stressed the importance of "correct grammer[sic], spelling, punctuation".
  • A skills test with the question "the best method of checking detailed clerical work for accuracy compared to the orginal[sic] is ______".
  • My favorite, a typing test that had me repeatedly typing paragraphs about the nature of creativity.
• Realizing that the job I was interviewing for was a complete scam. Of course, I knew from the outset that something was odd with the job, but my curiosity led me to figure out what that was. Highlights of this experience include:
  • Classified ad included the phrase "must be crazy to work here".
  • Upon arriving to office, was greeted by jambox blaring Green Day.
  • The "secretary" quickly ran out of job application forms, so she used some from the business that had previously (and recently) occupied the same office space.
  • Was initially interviewed at the same time with two other people, a day care attendant, and a former line cook. They were told to call back later that day to schedule the second interview. After they had left the room, the "manager" told me she was impressed by me, and the second interview was actually in ten minutes in the other room.
  • Upon entering the other room, was forced to watch The Mask while waiting for twenty other "second-tier" candidates to show up. The "manager" and "secretary" would pop in from time to time to tell jokes, with topics ranging from Viagra to sexual positions.
  • Was told that the company web site was the only reliable source of information, as other web sites tend to "lie and manipulate".
  • When someone asked a question during the presentation, the reply was, "if you f***ing interrupt me one more time, I will ask you to leave."
  • I eventually left, when the fun of getting to the bottom of this scam was outweighed by hearing quips like "'job' stands for 'just over broke'" and "a goal is just a dream until you write it down".

After reading this entry, you might think that I would be depressed, but I'm actually rather upbeat. Perhaps it is my ability to step back and observe the humor in all this. Perhaps it is that after many prayers, I now have at least some sort of job, and I thank God for that.