Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bruised Bananas

Ah, the bruised banana. Much like the too-soft avocado, which is really only good for guacamole, the bruised banana is actually good for eating. To a certain point. Once it reaches that point, it's really just good for banana bread. But don't discount the bruised banana. Good banana bread isn't truly good with the elusive PERFECT BANANA. Good banana bread NEEDS the bruised bananas of the world.

Which brings up my point.

The job market. It pretty much sucks right now. I've been looking for a job since January. That's SEVEN months, tomorrow, since I lost my job. Dang. And I haven't been sitting around counting my cash. Well, I've been watching it disappear, but I digress. I've been applying, and interviewing, and applying and after countless applications and interviews, I haven't even gotten a LOUSY offer. Believe me. I'd take a low offer, or even a contract position, just to keep my brain from turning to mush. I need to feel productive!

I've had some close calls. One, in which, the hiring manager was checking references, asking about salary requirements, and throwing about titles. Only to do a 180 three weeks later and say she wanted something completely different. Talk about frustrating. What's actually MORE frustrating is that I'm finding that she never actually contacted any of my references. Just kept giving them the run-around. Much like I was given.

Last week, I got more bad news. I'd applied for a job about 2 weeks ago. Actually, 2 weeks ago yesterday. That went well enough that I got a request for a phone screen with the recruiter. Those are usually fun, and give you insight into the company, while they get some info about you. It turned out to be a very entertaining interview, mostly due to my getting caught with food in my mouth. TWICE. After I got off the phone with her, she called back. Yes, I had ANOTHER mouth full of food. Good Lord. I really don't eat 24x7, but it was funny. That was a request for a phone interview with the hiring manager the same afternoon. Totally open for it. It seemed to go well, with a few misses, mostly just due to my rustiness on intense DB operations. He indicated it went well, and the follow-up email the next day indicated it as well, as they were requesting a face-to-face last week.

Fast forward to last week. No word. Nothing Monday. I figured that if I hadn't heard by noon Tuesday, I'd ping them to find out. I got my answer Tuesday. "On second thought, the hiring manager felt your DB skills weren't good enough, so he doesn't want to pursue it any further." UGH. Really? Such a shame, because this is totally fixable - immersion in the DB world causes things to come back very quickly, but alas.... it was not meant to be.

This made me think of the banana theory. Trying to find a job is like online dating. If you're not perfect, the date passes, or the employer passes. Does any perfect candidate exist, in any realm?

I felt like the lowly bruised banana. The banana with a small bruise, which lies in the banana bin, being continually picked over for the perfect, yellow banana. Only 1 in 1,000 truly appreciates the bruised banana, knowing darned well that it makes the perfect banana bread.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This just means the perfect job is still out there for you *smile*