The Job Search continues

As it has for almost 2 years now…

When I was notified that my Job was being outsourced, I started looking. Anyone with half a brain would have at that point. I was hoping to secure a position before the actual layoff, even though it meant that I’d be leaving money on the table.

We’re going to lay you off, but if you leave before we lay you off you don’t get this bundle of money we’re going to pay you if you stay with us so we can enjoy making sure your’e really fucked.

Corporate logic! How about you offer to pay a pro-rated amount up until the time you lay us off?

Ultimately it hasn’t mattered a bit. I’ve been looking and sending endless resumes and filling out online job applications until I’m honestly sick of it. I’m sick of being approached by strangers saying they’ve got the perfect job for me only to jump through all their hoops and then hear NOTHING!

I’m sick of calling to follow-up on positions I’ve applied for and not being able to reach the person, leaving a message, then never getting the simple courtesy of a return phone call or an email telling me what the status of the position is.

I’m sick of reaching out to recruiters that someone I know has dealt with, only to be ghosted.

There are those like my Mother who’d say, “Well it’s the COVID dear… “

No Mom, it’s not the COVID, this has been going on since well before the COVID gave everyone an excuse to be jerks.

Then there’s these websites like Glassdoor. “We’ve found a Job that we think lines up with you perfectly. Customer Service Representative for a Beauty Supply and Accessories company in Cupertino, Pay range 20,000 per year. Not Remote”

SAY WHAT?!!

You can’t live in Cupertino for 20K a year. Maybe if you lived in your car, and it was paid for and you had no bills, and didn’t need to eat.

If it was just a one off mistake fine, but this has become a constant. No where in my resume does it say that I have any idea about anything related to beauty supplies!

I’m a Software Quality Assurance / Software Test engineer. How do you get to Customer Service Representative from a 30 year resume that’s uploaded to your site, and then was redundantly filled in on your customized series of forms?

Glassdoor, you’re so out of here!

So I closed the account on that particular aggregator of jobs which hadn’t done me a lick of good anyway.

Then when I close the account which didn’t ask any questions about why I was closing the account, I get an email saying that a review of some job, [I hadn’t made any reviews in at least a year] suddenly violates their community standards.

The email rolled in within seconds of my closing the account, so it’s fairly obvious that they sent it by mistake instead of an email stating I’d closed the account. Hmmm. Perhaps Glassdoor could use my services? Just saying…

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve spent looking for a job. I no longer know how many different applications and forms I’ve filled out online. All for nothing!

I know, there are those who’d say, “Just keep trying, it’ll work out for you, you may fill out 1000 applications but you only need one to be successful.

I used to be able to have two or three offers, in recent years that’s dwindled to offering to suck cock for just an interview.

I’m not into the Pollyanna shit anymore.

The thing that gets me is that while I’m working with all these online job applications, I’m finding bugs in them.

In some cases it’s typos throughout the forms, in other cases it’s forms that don’t work properly on Mac or Windows. I seriously think I should be paid to do nothing but test the forms companies put out on their public facing web sites. At least then their company HR pages wouldn’t be an embarrassment.

I’d consider just going back to printed resume and good old fashioned US mail in response to Job postings. The only problem with that is hiring companies rarely post an actual address or phone number so that you could even go “Old School”.

There’s another site that’s really funny. They’ll post positions that say, located in Ontario, CA. What they really mean is Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The problem is that even on the description of the job they’ll still say Ontario, CA and it isn’t until you get to entering your information and the application won’t accept a US zip code that you realize the mistake.

Give me a good old fashioned newspaper want ad section any day. I know, you’d think, “Hey there’s an idea,” You’d be wrong. a large number of newspaper want ads simply direct you to their online resources like careerbuilder.com. Which puts you right back into a nationwide database that probably hasn’t been purged of erroneous records for a decade.

There are the other aggregator sites that post positions as “NEW” but when you follow the link back to it’s source you find that the position is already 3 months old and has been filled. The position may be “NEW” to the aggregator, but it’s really so stale you could grow penicillin on it.

There must be a better way. This online bullshit ain’t cutting it.

Deleted Parler Today…

Update: 3/5/2021

While Parler is indeed back. Apparently they’re Hotel California. I checked the site today to answer the question, “Why haven’t I gotten an email saying your account is canceled.” The answer to that question is that my account hasn’t been cancelled.

Turns out that going through the “Delete your account” isn’t working for me. I click on the button, enter the password and … nothing. The site just loops back to the page you were on. This isn’t unusual because lots of pages on the site do that right now but even though you’re on the same page with apparently no changes having been made if you exit the page and come back in, you’ll see the changes.

Evidently, the same is not true for the “Delete my account page”

So, for the time being, I’m still on Parler. I still have the same number of followers I had but all of my messages have been deleted. Sigh…

What I really want is for the entire account to be gone. I’m trying to be completely done with social media and all that encompasses. For now, I can check out of Parler, but I can’t leave.


Looks like they’re finally back.

Good for them.

Since Parler was the last of my social media accounts, when Amazon, and the Democratic Party (make no mistake, they too were complicit) took Parler away I was suddenly without any Social media.

After the initial shock and withdrawal, I found I was fine. After a week I didn’t care anymore, Whether by hook or crook, the Democratic Party won the day. Bitching about it, or reading others bitching about it, serves no purpose.

I don’t fear being labeled a conservative anymore. If the government wants to harm you, they’ll find a way. The people in power have demonstrated the lengths to which they’ll go to remove anything or anyone they find disagreeable. They’ve amply demonstrated that no abuse of power is too much.

At this point I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the DOJ assaulted Trump’s home in Florida in full on Waco or Ruby Ridge style. That is the legacy of the 2020 election for me. While I’ve always harbored a certain mistrust of the government. Now, I don’t trust our government or electoral processes at all.

The line, “Follow the money,” is more true today than ever before.

Couple corruption with the almost unbelievable stupidity of so many Americans and well… what you get, is plainly evident.

I’m not just speaking of the stupidity of America when it comes to questioning voting results, but the stupidity of well educated Americans in basic things like knowing how or why things work, (or don’t as the case may be).

Elements of our technology might as well be magic and fairy dust for far too many people. Apparently even the use of fire is beyond some people, as is evidenced by so many people suffocating in their homes across the South during this very cold series of storms.

Fire is not new, it’s been around since we lived in caves. We decry second hand smoke, but don’t think open a window? Uhh yeah, right! There’s gonna be a ton of “Darwin Awards” come springtime. Perhaps that will ultimately be for the best.

I’ve lost interest in Washington. For that matter I’ve lost interest in COVID, politics, social justice, cancel culture, sports, entertainment, and anything else that is not directly putting cash in my pocket, gas in my car, or food on my table.

I suppose, this is the new reality of many people. We’re all just tired of the bullshit. I know, I’ve got better and more important things to do.

Social Media doesn’t rank in the top 100 for me anymore.

Uhgggg! Reloading Software is a pain!

Several months ago I did my usual software update of MacOS.

Everything went perfectly… or so I thought.

Then about 4 weeks ago, my computer started acting odd. At first, it was just a minor issue here or there and all were easily resolved.

Then suddenly, my computer would go to sleep and I couldn’t wake it with the bluetooth keyboard. Annoying! After a day or two, my computer wouldn’t wake from sleep pressing a key on the built in keyboard. I had to press the power button. SUPER ANNOYING!

Then I noticed the backups that were supposed to be happening hourly, were sometimes happening 15 minutes apart and other times many hours apart. Strange!

Then my computer stopped unlocking with my Apple Watch. When I went to the control panel to find out why, it turned out that the option to even turn that on or off had completely disappeared.

After fiddling with things for a while, I called Apple. Nothing made sense and the system was behaving more and more badly as each day passed. Two weeks of trying the things that Apple Engineering suggested and sending them logs (sometimes multiple logs) per day and still no progress.

Yesterday, Apple and I finally decided to do the ultimate fix.

I wiped the hard drive and began again. I’ve managed to get most of the software back on the system and working again. There are a few bits that can only be described as, “The child ain’t right,” but it appears that I have a system that’s stable and working correctly now.

Why didn’t I use my TimeMachine backups? Because I didn’t trust them!

After reinstalling the operating system, and while I was moving my documents back onto the machine. It occurred to me that this computer had been restored from my MacBook Air backup in 2019. That system had been in continuous use through 9 versions of the MacOS.

God knows what leftovers were on that machine!

I noticed while I was poking around trying to fix whatever problem this MacBook Pro had, that there were preferences and bits of software that hadn’t been touched since 2012. I dunno, I somehow thought Apple did a better job of cleaning up.

On the other hand, there had been 9 operating systems on the Air and I’d never had to reformat the drive in all that time. DO THAT WITH A WINDOWS MACHINE!

My machine is once again “happy” and I’m getting there myself, even though I’ve been in digital hell for the past 36 hours.

It’s coming together, but you never realize how much crap you’ve got until something like this happens. Once I’m finished, I’ll probably wipe one of the backups and start fresh.

For the time being, I’m running backups OFF. Until I get the last bits of software working properly. VMware as usual, is being a pain, (Actually VMware is fine, Windows is being snotty,) Another application that I downloaded from the Apple App Store, doesn’t want to reinstall its license so it’s not fully operational yet.

I think that may be a delete and reinstall situation. I’ve had to do that before with this particular application.

If you’re having weird problems after upgrading to Big Sur, you might want to go nuke on the system. Since I’ve done that, I’ve noticed a lot of little things that are working. These are little things that you don’t notice until they show up correctly, and you say, “Oh, that’s what they meant…”

Anyway, back to it…