Interview, Yes. Audition, No.

Dateline: November 6, 2020.
This blog post will deliberately ignore the top two headline-grabbers today, because news on those topics is as common as pinecones on the ground. You can fall over 'em anywhere, even if you aren't looking.

So instead, I'll rant, rave and whine about job interviews. 

A year or so ago, I was laid off from an office job I had held for 13 years. Fortunately, there was some severance pay, and when that ran out, a retirement account to roll over. Then came a couple of months' work for the Census, and early next year, I will become an official old person by collecting Social Security. 

Social Security recipients can work to supplement the income. They just can't earn barrels upon barrels of money -- Social Security is designed as a "safety net." I think the annual max is something like $18K. I am quite sure that sooner than later, I will be out looking for a job. The Census made me happy. It got me out of the house; I met new people and explored the surrounding area, and there were some manageable challenges. And the pay, of course. I miss that job; it was quite possibly the best one I ever had, even without benefits. Next time I get a job, I want it to be something like that one. My office will be my car, and anytime I walk into a building, the people inside will hail me like a conquering hero. I'll work a few hours a day and spend the rest of my time just being old, broken-down me.

Another great, great perk to part-time, non-office jobs is not having to interview. Well, you do,. but the conversation goes something like this:
Employer: I see by your resume that you've been in the work force a long time. Okay if we contact your last employer?
Me: Certainly.
Employer: Do you understand what the job entails, and do you think you can do it?
Me: Yes and yes.
Employer: Cool. We're offering $__ an hour, plus some piddly, meaningless benefits. After your 3-month review, we'll probably give you a laughably small raise. Is that acceptable?
Me: Absolutely.
Employer: Well, welcome to Acme! Can you start Monday?

I'm old enough to remember when interviews were more or less like that. If you had a pulse and didn't do anything weird during the 30 minutes with Personnel (what they used to call Human Resources), you were considered qualified. If you turned out not to be able to do the job (which they trained you for), or if you flouted too many rules, well then, you were out. But getting hired was a relatively simple matter.

Two things about work have changed in the last 10 years, at least judging from the way things went at my last job, and conversations I've had with others.

First, it's become increasingly difficult to know precisely what your job is. You can't just sit down at a desk and balance the books or make payroll or send emails or train groups or proofread documents. Or you can try to do these things, but you'll be called into at least 3 meetings a day, where you're told what the company's grand new vision (GNV) is now. No more can you just do the damn job. Now you have to "add value." All this means is, you're put on notice that if the CEO doesn't feel like he's got enough money, he'll fire you - despite having been told that you and the CEO are "all part of the same family." You'll get disapproving hints about your substandard performance, and probably be sent to at least one training seminar or asked to fill out personality tests to find out what your "strengths" are. It would be more reasonable to find out what your weaknesses are - then you could avoid situations that call for those abilities, or at least try to improve on them. Eventually, you'll get voted off the island and the company can hire someone to do twice as much as you did, half as effectively, for half the pay.

Second, and this is the worst part, it's now become outrageously difficult to get a job. Not because the job calls for special qualifications. The job (at least judging from the pay rates offered) is basically the same old stuff. But the job descriptions are increasingly vague. They make it sound like they're hiring you to sit on the roof of the United Nations with a pair of high-powered binoculars, keeping tabs to make sure the folks in Uzbekistan, Namibia, Little Rock and Pago Pago aren't trying to start a war, and sending daily status reports to God.

The job descriptions are bad enough, but the interviews are The. Worst. Because they're no longer job interviews. They're auditions. The objective is to see how much BS you can stand to listen to while still behaving as though you're being serenaded by angels. Sometimes you'll be told in realistic terms what the job really entails, but more often than not, you'll be told about how they're looking for a team player, a visionary, someone who's truly, truly passionate about the GNV that they share with the company, someone who can give 400% and never lose that smile. And if you can't hold the smile and beam the BS right back at 'em, you can forget about being hired. The job itself is far down on the list. You have to sell yourself. This is pretty daunting when you're an introvert who's used to sitting unobtrusively in a cubicle, occasionally sharing the lunchroom with some other employees for 15 minutes or so. It's especially difficult when your best accomplishments have come as the result of determined laser-focus, where you shut out all the distractions and zero in on getting that report done before the deadline. 

A lot of companies love to tell you that the job is play, play, play all day. Don't believe it for a second. The ulterior motive of all the mandatory "fun" is to see if you can still do the core job amid all the distractions (such as meetings and amateur psychoanalysis). It's a test -- like the beach ball that came sailing over the top of my cubicle one day, while I was trying to line up catering for a training class. I absently batted the ball back in the general direction from whence it came, only to be visited by the department head. "What's wrong? Can't you take time out for a little fun? Don't work too hard!" He had walked away before I could tell him about the class participants who had notified me of their gluten-free diets and allergies to dairy. 

They will claim that the "play" is to help you relax or boost morale. In reality, it's just one more hoop you have to jump through. If you dare to slip out of Game Day to go back to your cubicle and tidy up a few loose ends before the weekend, so you can really relax, it will count against you, no matter how many items you checked off your to-do list, and no matter how many co-workers you helped.

I never got invited out for wings & trivia by my Census supervisor, and for that I am grateful. The joy of the Census was knowing, every day, exactly what the objectives were. And they never changed. The benefits of the population count were easy to explain and articulate. I am looking for that type of job. 

A friend suggested merchandising -- you get a batch of candy, greeting cards, cellular accessories, or potato chips, and stock the shelves in a way that attracts customers and moves the goods out the door. That sounds like it would work FINE for me. I can do it wearing a mask, too. Just have to wait till more stores can open back up without putting anyone in the hosp--

Whoops, that's a headline-grabber. I forgot. Sorry...