Thursday, July 19, 2007

Thanks For Playing

Wow, I've never been turned down during a job interview before.

Actually, it's okay. I was really unsure I wanted this position; great job, great company, I just wondered if I'd really be especially interested in the work. What killed me/saved me was the question, "Where do you see yourself in three to five years?" and I said I was still kind of unsure, but that I was thinking about arts administration. She was very nice, but she said she was looking for an assistant who really wanted THIS job and was going to stick around for a few years, and she wasn't sure that would be me. And I agreed. So, while it may sound harsh, actually, I'm completely relieved.

My current temp job drags on. They finally wised up and blocked all domains with ".blogspot" in them, so no more blogging or even blogreading while I sit there collecting dust at $17 an hour. I am so bored! (I can write this because now no one at the company can access my blog, anyway!) They've also blocked all internet mail and all job search websites, so I can't even keep up with the job search. This may put a major dent in the frequency and quality of my blogging for a while.

I spend my days filling out a few check requests, delivering the mail, making occasional copies, and answering the phones about once every three hours. Other than that, I toggle back and forth between CNN and The New York Times about every 30 seconds looking for something interesting to read. I knew about the steam pipe explosion before most New Yorkers did.

You can help me out by posting internet reading suggestions here or emailing them to me. I'm looking for SAFE FOR WORK news sites or political or religious things. I read Kevin Drum's blog and Andrew Sullivan (he's only half-right, all the time) and The Nation and occasionally Alternet. I just need something to keep my brain alive.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can see why the interviewer did that, but still, how incredibly unusual. At my previous job, I used to help in the interview process and we never rejected someone outright during the interview process. Even in the two instances where we knew we wouldn't be hiring the person less than five minutes into the interview, we didn't say anything and sent a "Thanks but no thanks" letter after the fact.

Anonymous said...

the British press doesn't think religion is off limits nor automatically laughable

the London Times, I recall, recently had some op-eds linked via my bioethics newslist (hence that fun photo gallery of Ascot hats for which I sent you the link ;) )

plus they culturally have such an interesting blend of "of course you should trust the establishment" and "of course you can't trust the establishment" ... Prince Charles shilling for organic farming is the poster image for me ... anyhow, weird tidbits that might actually be factual are less efficiently repressed in Britain I think. Perhaps due to their finely tuned sense of the absurd ... we are really too serious here. [Case in point: you read the NYT and CNN--to relieve work tedium ;) ???]

lu ;).

Anonymous said...

harpers.org
motherjones.com
iht.com
joelderfner.com :)

DJRainDog said...

Andy: Stop working for people who abridge your civil liberties while posturing as philanthropic organisations. Seriously. Can't you work for someone who doesn't SUCK, for a change?

Matthew said...

Try bloglines. It's a great way to keep in touch when big brother is watching.

tnfpb said...

you could customize an iGoogle homepage and load all of your feeds via their service. I am not sure if they load the content from their servers and them pipe it to you, or if they pull it directly from the websites. Anyway, might be worth trying.