Failure – Chapter 2

Once again, I received a rejection letter from a Twin Cities suburban community for a position that I thought perfectly met my KSAs. Guess that city wanted someone young and stupid – emphasis on YOUNG.

What bothers me most about the reject letter is the abject bullshit contained in it. Please don’t tell me you were “impressed with my qualifications and interview” when you really weren’t. If you were, you would have hired me. You were impressed with the qualifications and interview with the person you hired; the rest of us bored you. Please come out and say it, OK? We’re adults; we can handle the truth.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the better I interview, the lower the chance for getting hired. For example, for the PT job I do have, after the telephone interview I said to my wife “I’m not getting THAT job,” Practically every response I gave was either “I don’t have any experience in that” or “It’s been 12-13 years since I’ve done that”. On the other hand, I’ve spoken at national conferences on code enforcement, and while I got an interview of the code enforcement officer position, I am led to believe that the ONLY reason I was interviewed was for EEO reasons – – the City was not interested in hiring an experienced code enforcement professional, only a hack.

The failure continues. I purchased a St. Jude medal a week ago when I was in Montreal. St. Jude is my favorite saint – – the patron saint of lost causes.

I received several comments from my previous post. While I understand and appreciate your intentions, truth be told meaningless platitudes do not help. I’m not going back to school – – I went back to school at age 35 in 1990 and went from zero to a master’s degree in 5 years – – while working FT and helping raise 5 kids. I’m not going to join some support group of people in similar situations – – trust me, I don’t need Dr. Drew at this point in my career.

Here’s what would help: seriously consider hiring me or my start-up business Zia Planning Systems. Do not interview me because of some objective score on evaluating my KSAs when you do not have any intention of hiring me. Do not interview me to meet your EEO quota.

I don’t know about state and federal government hiring processes, but I can tell you at the city and county level the hiring processes are woefully broken. Cities and counties do not hire the most qualified person for the job. As a matter of fact, quite often thye hire the least qualified person. I’ve seen it. One time I decided to apply for jobs that I have absolutely no qualifications for, just to see if I would get hired. Of course, I didn’t. Those must have been the exception that proves the rule.

Long story short – – So far, during the Obama Administration I have worked 0 days in FT employmeny. The hope and change he offered has been nothing but a house of horrors for me.

But what truly makes me feel I’m a failure is this: My wife was invited to travel to Italy with 2 of her friends this fall. If I was working FT, we’d have the $$$ for her to go. But, since I work for peanuts in a PT job that most people equate with a file clerk (city clerk), we can’t afford for her to go. (In case you’re wondering, someone else paid my way to Montreal and Boston). Also, I’d really like to study to be a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church. Since I’m only working PT, I can’t do that, either.

I believe it’s important for all of you to get to know me, as an example of failure. For some of you, my plight will make you feel better about yourselves.

I’d just like for some hiring authority to be honest with me. I want them to say “We’re interviewing you because we HAVE to; not because we WANT to. We have no intention on hiring you, regardless of your qualifications or experience. You might be the perfect fit for our organization, but we are blind to that because we are not goingto hire you anyway.” I’d respect an organization that said that to me. I do not respect ANY organization that spews out worthless platitudinal BS like “we were impressed with your qualifications and interview,” All of us know you weren’t.