Another Job I Could Never Do

I could never be a headhunter. You know, those people from staffing agencies who circle prospective applicants like sharks circling the lone occupant of a dinghy in the middle of the Atlantic.

Yup, the job search is officially underway and I thought I'd speed up the process by posting my resume on a job site. It was akin to the dinghy-occupant getting a huge paper cut (you know - those ones from file folders where you think "how on earth did I slice myself open with *that*?!" and then wonder where the nearest urgent care centre is) and then languidly trailing her hand into the shark-infested waters. Three calls in less than twenty-four hours - fresh meat!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to let someone else do the looking for me. But one cannot be choosey as to which someone else is doing the looking. My first call yesterday was from someone who was, shall we say, quite enthusiastic that I apply for the position he was looking to fill. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm did not help me to understand his heavily-accented-English-as-a-second-language. In fact, it made it a bit worse, as he tried desperately to convince me to apply for a contract position and that it was not, in fact, too far from my house as he was typing the address into GoogleMaps as we spoke.

(At least, I think that's what he said.)

Now I know that he is only doing his job. And I know that those jobs are cut-throat and that he likely has tremendous pressure to meet targets. His mother loves him very much and he is, after all, made in the image of God.

This does not change the fact that I understood only 10% of the conversation and, while I thought that my resume would only be sent on once I had confirmed I wanted the job by email, his reply to my email to him indicating that I do not wish to apply for a contract position was to tell me that he had indeed sent on my application based on our prior conversation.

So now I'm screening my calls for over-zealous headhunters and I can cross "staffing agency" off of any possible career lists!

In other news, we have a new member of the family. Behold the "before" and "after":

Before - notice The Girl doing her best to mimic the "big screen" experience with a 12" screen
After - no need to pretend - *that's* a really big screen!

Yes, The Husband's "Congratulations to me for getting a new job" present arrived a couple of days ago. I spoke previously of my battle with avoiding the seductive blue glow of the Idiot Box (is it still a "box" if it's a flat screen? Perhaps it's an Idiot Panel?); I have now raised the white flag of surrender and declared the entire war lost.

Finally, your daily dose of sweetness. Yesterday on the way back from the park, The Girl told me a very long and intricate story about (I think) various animals and some garbage cans. 1/3 was told using various French words, 1/3 was in "Frenchified" English words (apparently you can just throw a Parisian accent into the mix and call it another language - kind of like the Star Trek Universal Translator) and 1/3 was pantomime. The pantomime came because she was trying not to use English and instead shouted "regarde! regarde!" so I could guess which kind of animal she was being. Very sweet. And my pride suddenly made me a tad less begrudging about the cheque we write each month to her school.