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Pixies 'Doolittle' @ The Palladium 11/4/09
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The Bravery @ the Wiltern 11/05/09
Photo by fallsroad via Flickr
Here's a follow-up post as the job search horror continues. Not only was I duped once again by a recruiter (note to self: only interview for jobs to which you actually applied!), but this time, I'm pretty sure I was interviewed by Eeyore. I was contacted by a recruiter at a shoe manufacturer, regarding a position that she claimed involved Photoshop skills, and communicating with web people, sales people, and designers. Basically I would be responsible for the upkeep of charts detailing each shoe, but when I asked her "This isn't just data entry, is it?", she replied, "No, no. The job description isn't written very well; I know it involves a lot more than data entry." She went on to call it a coordinator position, and said they needed someone with good communication skills.
So I figured I'd go in and just check it out. I'm embarrassed to say how far I drove, but anyway, once I got there, a very casually dressed guy with a downtrodden expression emerged, and took me down the street to conduct the interview on a patio table. He said very little on the walk over, except to point out that he was tired of eating at the same places all the time in the area, especially since they were so expensive. Hmm...
Once seated, he took out my resume and said in a depressed tone that he was wondering why I was interested in the job, because my experience was all creative, and there was "nothing creative about this position". I was a little taken aback. I said meekly that the HR person had told me it involved some Photoshop design? To this he replied that I would receive sketches of the shoes and I might have to resize them to fit into the chart, but other than that, the job was straight-up data entry.
No, I insisted pathetically, I had asked the woman flat-out if it were just data entry and she had said no. He didn't seem very concerned by this, but went on to add in his downtrodden way that
I would just be filling out a chart of each shoe to fit into a massive book, reminding me of "the book" in The Devil Wears Prada. The "web people, sales people, and designers" would tell me if something was wrong with the data I had entered, and then I would fix it. Voilà, we have communication.
Eeyore also decided to tell me that the job really only involved a couple hours of work each day, and after that, there would be nothing to do. I started to look around to see if there were a hidden camera somewhere. But, he added, if I stuck the job out for a year, I could move on to other positions within the company, although apparently not to anything really creative, unless I wanted to actually design shoes myself. He said I didn't need a degree in anything in particular to work there - look at him, he had a film degree, and "nothing he did involved any part of his degree".
I wanted to cry for him. (I know this happens all the time and it's not always so bad, but I've never before heard it delivered in such wretched honesty.)
I thought perhaps he knew that I'd been tricked and that I wouldn't go for the job, and that maybe that was why he was laying on the grief. But then at this point, he suddenly seemed to realize he was losing me, because he started to explain that everyone there was pretty cool, although it was "kind of like high school, you know, there are some cliques" (yikes), and did I want to go back inside and check out the office? He pretty clearly wanted me to decide right away.
I gotta say, I didn't know how to say no to his sad face! I said I had to be somewhere in an hour so I would have to pass on the visit, but that I'd think about the position and let him know! I drove home thinking it's a shame he's stuck there. Just think of all the nice morbid films he could be making.
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If this is the sketchy company I'm thinking of and this is the job I'm also thinking of, you don't want it.
On the plus side, did you talk to them about their graphic design or actual design departments?
all i wanted was a pepsi.