Posted on 10/24/2011 8:58:48 AM PDT by Haiku Guy
He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask of a job seeker. A resume, a statement of salary expectations and a single written paragraph that answers a question like, “What do you believe a good customer service representative’s attitude should be?”
(snip)
Stories are legion of inept or half-hearted applicants who submit resumes marred by misspellings, show up at interviews dressed for a beach party, make inappropriate jokes, fail to learn basic details about the job and company in question, and otherwise leave hiring managers aghast.
(snip)
“Who the hell is going to hire these people?” asks Heinemeier Hansson. “Who is going to read some of these atrociously bad applications and say, ‘Yeah, that’s the person I’ve been looking for?’ ”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A few years ago I bought an item at a discount store. The young cashier did not have one of the smart registers that tells one the change to be given. First she gave me too little change and I asked her to calculate it again. Her face clouded up and her lip started quivering. She next gave me too much change but with a look of humiliation and silent pleading that this was right. I started to correct her again but her embarrassment was so painful I simply took the change, smiled, thanked her, and left. I have wondered since about thos young woman who couldn’t make change from a five.
“I wonder, if parents alone had to pay for schooling and there were no substantial student loans, how many students would get away with running amok instead of learning something valuable.”
If banks making student loans acted as if they really wanted to get repaid they might be a little more strict in what majors they allowed.
My close friend and I spend nearly every Sunday afternoon after chores drinking beer, and usually discussing politics. That sentence was the theme yesterday, the essence and enabler of socialism.
Socialism is not designed for the masses, because the rulers care. It is designed to enslave the masses, thus giving the rulers even more power over them.
It cannot happen when the voting populace is educated, and empowered to produce and succeed in life.
I recall making a purchase while on a visit back in Memphis, TN. The total was $5.10. So I threw a $10 bill and a dime on the counter. Cashier looked at the dime and said, “Whut’s THAT for?”
I instantly realized that no amount of explanation would remedy the situation, so I just picked up the dime and let the cashier droid do his thing.
Toward the end at Digital Equipment Corp., the company hired a squad like Henry Ford’s “servicemen.” They were allegedly there to ensure there was no workplace abuse going on. Instead, they spent their time threatening employees and covering-up some of the worst employer abuses against workers I’ve ever seen (including suicide and commitment to an insane asylum). I feel certain what became of DEC hastened the death of Ken Olsen some years later. People who knew him say that after DEC was stolen by a handful of criminal “managers” that rode-away with several hundred million in company former worth, Olsen never recovered.
One of my pet peeves also, but there is a simple solution.
Extend your hand with the palm FACE DOWN and grab the bills. Then turn your had over and accept the coins (after you have put the bills in your pocket/wallet).
Stops them in their tracks (almost) every time. I’ve gotten some funny looks as the cashier almost seems to wake up out of a daze they realize they can’t just plop a bunch change on top of the dollar bills in my had.
BTW, I have unsteady hands. Handling both bills and change at the same time is difficult for me (actually, it is a two handed exercise).
Doesn't help much when the ^&%#$&^%# cashier carefully places a stack of coins in the middle of a stack of bills, picks up the stack of bills by the ends, and hands the unstable mess to the customer.
Most such cashiers, FWIW, IMO, seem not to have been born in these United States, nor do they appear as though English were their native language. They also do not appear as though Spanish were their native language.
The most fun application I ever got was from a guy who was completely unqualified, but got huge props for entertaining me. He didn’t get an interview, but I had tears pouring down my face, by the time I was done reading it. Mind you, the position is technology instructor. He had worked at an assisted living facility and listed his job responsibilites as “feeding, transportation, and catheterizing”. TMI, dude. In the Skills and Abilities section he wrote “I know everything there is to know about computers,” which would have been ok, cocky in the extreme, but ok, except at the bottom of the application, in the Additional Comments section, he wrote, “If you want a copy of my resume, you’ll have to email me, because my A Drive is broken, and I can’t print one out.” I about died laughing.
In that case I just say “could you hand me the coins and the bills serperatly?”
No cashier yet has failed to do so, when aske polietly (some look at me funny, but who cares).
A bunch of us were sitting around a table, all anxious applicants for three positions open. We were making small talk in that polite sort of way, knowing that some sitting there would ultimately get hired, and... some not. I tried to gauge the relative competency and professionalism of everyone there, figuring that I was certainly more squared away then these clowns. I had to be...
My suspicions were confirmed when the HR lady came in with reams of paperwork and passes out forms for us to fill out.
The guy sitting next to me looks over and says “Hey, can I borrow your pen?”. (Never saw him again, I got hired)
We have stories about terrible cashiers, but I once saw a great cashier.
I was buying the paper at the newstand under the King’s Avenue Station in Brooklyn, and the guy in front of me tossed 65 cents on the counter. The cashier caught one of the quarters on the first bounce and put it in his pocket, and took another quarter out of his other pocket and put it in the register along with the other quarter and the dime.
I asked what that was all about, and the cashier said it was an old quarter that was worth more than a quarter in metal value, so he saved them. He took it out of his pocket to show me, and sure enough, it was from 1953. He said he could tell the difference from the sound it made when it hit the counter.
Now that guy could make change from a five!
I’ve had that happen as well. Someone will come in to fill out our application, then ask my secretary for a pen. I’d enjoy her comments on bringing the application in to me...
Back when I used to apply for employment (I'm now retired) I would not waste the employer's or my time with an application for a position that required a degree I did not possess.
Exactly! A dishonest person would lie about it.
This high school drop out opened her own business over 20 years ago, and yet I have received more than my fair share of good job offers from my clients. Not all successful people excel in academic settings. Rush Limbaugh quit "higher education".
It's said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while hoping for a different outcome. How many unemployed young people with $100K of debt do we need?
Mark
QTs are everywhere.
I know, it's really sad... When I worked at a chain drug store in NY back about 1979 or 1980, we used mechanical cash registers and were expected to figure out the sales tax in our heads. We had a chart on the register, but if you had to look it up each time, it would slow down the lines, and you'd be fired pretty quickly.
Mark
Actually, I don’t mind the coins placed on top of the bills. It’s easy to slide the coins off into my right hand which goes into my right front pocket, and the bills fold in half and go into the left front pocket.
I use a money clip for bills. The wallet is for credit cards, receipts and other miscellaneous stuff.
Yep, sound is the key. Nothing sounds like a real silver coin. Back in my bar-tending/waiter days, I got many silver coins that way, by the sound they made.
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