Posted on 01/30/2011 6:21:25 AM PST by lowbridge
“I’m ready to offer my services for ur project. Contact me at ur earliest convenience 2 arrange for interview. Thanks in advance for ur consideration.”
That’s a real cover letter from a real person claiming to be a real professional, who thinks she can get a real job. The letter was fielded by publicist and trend-spotter Richard Laermer, who gets so many of these he collects them and, when asked, forwards them to reporters for fun.
The letter “just made me shake my head till it nearly fell off.” But it isn’t rare. In fact, Laermer says, it’s typical.
“Lazy is the new professionalism,” he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Your very observant.
;-)
Rise of the illiterati.
On time for work is at least 15 minutes early.
It can also be spelled "stuned." Why waste the extra keystroke? :-)
My company does not use outside recruiting agencies. In fact, managers are expressly forbidden from using outside sources. I’m torn in my reaction to this policy as I think both can be of value depending upon the situation. I do respect the company’s intent and the fact that they network within the organization for new hires and try to promote from within.
I routinely review resumes in my position and my Manager asks me if they are worthwhile to schedule an interview. Unfortunately, most of the resumes I see are complete crap. It’s not necessarily the job experience, but the quality of the writing itself - bad grammar, spelling errors, etc. I’ve even scheduled interviews with candidates who obviously needed a job and they just didn’t show up or called with ridiculous excuses.
So yes, I have to agree that laziness is a real problem in certain segments of our work force in our society. Laziness and surprisingly little mastery of basic English and math.
A couple of nights ago I was channel surfing and ran across a night show (Leno?) speed contest between Morse code hams and texters. The hams won hands down. Much faster than texting! The kids who were up against them were flabbergasted.
There was also short hand that secretaries used in the old days, and more recently brief hand became poplular. For those of you not familiar with it, briefhand uses the alphabet, but eliminates most of the vowels and has a set of one letter abbreviations for commonly used words: “The” becomes e, and of becomes f, etc. They actually taught briefhand cources when I was in college in the 1970’s and a lot of students took the course so they could take class notes faster.
What's so difficult about typing the words "Very respectfully?"
You can even set it in your auto-signature.
"Brgds" for "Best regards" bugs me, too.
OK, I'm done venting one of my pet peeves. :)
Seriously though, we had the same kind of dichotomy when I was in college. We dressed like ditch-diggers for three and a half years and then donned suits for our job interviews in the last semester.
Similarly, if the people doing the hiring continue to discard this nonsense, the applicants will have to comply with the prospective employer's standards. So today's and tomorrow's "yutes" will need to understand enough grammar, punctuation and vocabulary to get through all the written portions of the job application process.
By the way, my protest against this kind of laziness is to spell out words and use proper grammar when I text or IM. Takes a bit longer but it makes me feel like I'm fighting back.
The current practice is from typing on very small keyboards to write text messages on phones. That and inventing new abbreviations so your parents won’t know what kids are texting.
I see you worked for Ray too! Yup, on time was not at the top of the hour, the top of the hour meant in place and ready to begin. Same at closing, the top of that hour found you beginning to put your stuff away, not at the door.
1. With respect to the food that doesn't need to be pealed, so what? That isn't a sign of laziness anymore than its a sign of laziness that we don't chop our own wood and build fires to heat our homes. If a capitalist can sell pealed fruit cheaply, great.
2. The real issue is a breakdown of self-discipline. In part it happens in any wealthy culture. The population loses its drive. But it doesn't have to happen quickly—Rome lasted for centuries as a wealthy superpower. In our case, the 60s resulted in culture that told everyone it was OK to not take care of yourself. Obesity is part of the problem—being fat isn't looked down on. But as bad as it is, that is the least of our problems. A fat person can still support himself or herself (no pun intended). The worse problem is people who think they don't have to work. And I'm not just talking about people on Welfare or public assistance. I'm talking about adult men and women who mooch off their parents or spouses or others in their lives to live the life of Riley. People in their 20s and 30s who live with their parents. Men who are long term unemployed and perfectly happy to have their wives support them.
Then there is the professionalism issue. Most people should be embarrassed at the emails they send. I know smart people—one a managing partner at a law firm who makes well into the six figures—whose emails look like they were written by a six year old. Same with work around the house. Not to stereotype but it seems that older people are more likely to fix smaller problems around the house than younger people. Young people just don't want to put the effort into fixing a toilet. Same with cleaning. I'm shocked by the number of middle class people I know who have someone clean their houses. Cooking too—younger moms would rather take the kids to McDonalds or some other restaurant than take the effort to cook.
It all adds up to personal and ultimately, national decline.
Funny
The short hand your refer to is stenography. I won awards in high school because I could take dictation by stenography so fast. I think my fastest was 100 WPM where I could type it back, but thats been 30+ years ago.
I blew it....
u r funny
How do you handle it when you are interviewed and your cover letter and resume are well written. Your speaking skills and vocabulary are superior. Your test results from the test they gave you indicate perfect scores in math, critical thinking, and language / comprehension. The problem to handle is that they now think you won’t work well as part of a “team”. The team members would think you come accross as an outlier.
I learned that at a very young age. I also learned that in todays society, those who are late for work on a regular basis live the closest to the place of their employment. The ones who are always on time live the most distance.
In my view, V/R should be replaced with “respectfully” and “very respectfully” should always be spelled out. Most emails that I receive that end with V/R have some trivial topic and are not being sent to upper management or have some other reason to have a very respectfully close.
OMG WTF LOL. NO YOU CAN’T HAS APPT. KTHXBAI.
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