So for about the past two years or so I’ve been looking for work that pays a little better and offers more hours than my current gig. This is of course what everyone else and their mother has been attempting for about the same amount of time. To say that it’s maddeningly frustrating is the biggest understatement of the century. But I don’t have to tell my fellow job searchers that.
Worries and new insecurities are cropping up these days that never would have come up during other times when I was looking for work in the past. If I’ve been rejected for a position after an interview, I’ll often wonder about the little things first, like whether I should have gotten a haircut or hair color done beforehand. Oh but wait! I wasn’t… able… to… afford it! Arrgggh! Well, not much can be done about that state of affairs. At any rate, I figure I have a nice suit, and usually jewelry to wear that looks understated and appropriate for the occasion. I go over and over in my head what I must have done wrong. Was my voice too high-pitched? Was I too cheerful? Too serious? Too… myself? Not enough myself? Too casual or formal? It’s really enough to give any sane and civil person a serious mental illness. “Customer service needed in the mental department!”
Recently I went to an interview at YouTube. There are some details I won’t disclose, not out of any respect for them, but out of fear they’d sue me. Yes, they do things like that. They’re angry, deeply repressed yuppies – what do you expect? Prior to the interview, I had to do a homework they sent me that took at least a good three hours to complete. They said it should only take about two, but naturally I wanted to do a good job. Apparently this process is one that Google puts its candidates through routinely, and it owns YouTube. Since the position involved another language, I completed that portion in the other language I am fluent in besides English, which is Italian. I have to say, the questions were far from easy. Some even involved legal aspects of the department I applied to. When they finally approved my answers to all that corporate hogwash and mumbo jumbo, they invited me to an in-person interview. So I suppose that says something about my competence. Or not. You never know what will appeal to thirty-something overprivileged white dudes. And surprise! All three interviewers fell into exactly that profile. This is who works at a tech company overwhelmingly, especially here in the Bay Area. I should really know. I did work at Apple for close to three years after all. If they refuse to represent women and minorities in their ranks, which tech company will? Though my story with Apple is a whole other can of worms…
But I digress. Alas, I never did hear from Youtube after all my hard work. What could I have possibly done to not even hear a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ from them? It’s probably not a loss, as it was only going to be a year contract anyway. Also, during a break in between the interviewers on that milky white panel, I noticed a basketball court that was part of the facility there. The wall of the court was decorated in get this – yuppie graffiti art. There was absolutely nothing graffiti-like about it. It was too perfect. From this and a few other details, I concluded I would not have fit in anyway. I am not going to pose and pretend I’m ‘all street and stuff,’ when I work at a filthy rich company. Why do that? Do they do it to look like they've got their fingers on the pulse of what seems hip? Ignorance, misappropriation and entitlement to a form of expression that never has and never will have anything to do with corporate culture? All of the above?
Why is it that so many people like me, who are educated and experienced are being reduced to zero and outright dismissed in the current climate? I understand that the pool of jobs will be smaller in a recession. Totally get that. But for a good while now, I’ve sensed a mean-spiritedness in recruiters that I’ve never seen before. I know that I’m not a zero. Many things have toyed with my mental well being of late. But I know I have worth. And it goes beyond the strictly professional. Perhaps the real issue is that these companies know deep down that they are the real zeroes in the social equation. Less and less is provided to customers by them in terms of real service, and even less is granted to any given employee at these companies as far as pay and benefits go, unless they are in top management. And what does management actually do, if anything? I need to stop blaming myself for whatever goes wrong in my interactions with these fools, and assign the zero, nil, niente, nada, naught value to the appropriate party. We all do.
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