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May 7, 2003
Watching the Detectives
I’m sure that anyone who reads this has grown weary of hearing of my trevails in the world of the unemployed and is probably wondering just what the hell is wrong with me that I can’t even get a job slinging coffee. I’m wondering myself. However, I just had the weirdest “pre-employment screening” experience that I must discuss. It was at a place that claimed to be a detective agency, but just looked like a security guard company to me. Of course, even that was a surprise when I went in. The job posting I read just said “clerical position.” I imagined a real estate company or insurance place, not a teeny office wherein all the walls were lined with black uniforms and everyone inside was a giant, mustachioed man bearing arms.
Not only did I have to fill out a very extensive application, in addition to giving them my resume, I had to answer questions about my gun permits and take two fun quizzes. One was to make sure I was semi-literate. It had a list of misspelled words that the applicant is supposed to correct, words like “batturee,” “victum” and “suspek.” The second quiz was trickier. It’s the sort of thing I’ve encountered before, and you would think I would have learned by now to not be taken aback or flustered by, but no. It was the employee morality exam, replete with true or false questions like, “A thief is worse than a snitch,” and “I often do stupid things.” I’ve been tricked by these sorts of questions before. I have a problem with them. Anyone who says they don’t often do stupid things is either a straight up liar, arrogant as hell or, at the very least, someone I wouldn’t want to be around very often. Aren’t those qualities nearly as bad as thief or a snitch? Anyway, I’m a terrible liar… So, it’s back to scanning the job postings for me.
I would like to take this opportunity to say here that I’m an excellent cook, terribly creative, a great reader of books and a loyal friend. In addition, I can type 55 words per minute, write readable reports, wrangle multi-line phone systems and refrain from stealing all the black ball points in the supply cabinet. Anyone in Austin need help with anything? Anything at all?
Posted by pogo at May 7, 2003 12:04 PM
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Comments
i’ve never been able to restrain myself from stealing office supplies. there’s some peculiar law of nature, though, that guarantees that i will never have more than three sharpies in my desk at any given time, even though i swipe them from the supply room every time they’re restocked.
you don’t want to be a private investigator; it’s not as glamorous as it seems. i know because i took a UT informal class about it. maybe you should write detective novels.
Posted by: jacob on May 7, 2003 12:14 PM
i kept trying to hold onto the dream that the place would become decidedly more raymond chandler if i worked there, but no, i don’t think that’s likely.
Posted by: tam on May 7, 2003 12:25 PM
Hello, my name is Sarah and I too have a problem with office supply lifting. Sharpies are wonderful but it’s the slender Uniball or fun to doodle GelRoller that gets me every time.
Posted by: sarah on May 7, 2003 12:51 PM
I only promised to leave the black ball points alone. I always get a little weak around Sharpies, especially red ones, and gelroller pens. My dream is to have both Sharpies and gelly pens in every color of the rainbow.
Posted by: tam on May 7, 2003 1:40 PM
when i temped at conoco in houston for a few days my boss showed me the office supply cabinet and told me to take anything i needed. my job? to help her pack and move her belongings to a new office across the hallway.
naturally i stocked up. sharpies, resume paper, business card paper, pens, scotch tape…
“this is where we keep the candy, candy monster. now… don’t eat any!”
Posted by: chris on May 7, 2003 3:48 PM
When I applied for temp positions through Manpower, they would escort applicants, one by one, into what looked like a converted supply closet for the automated portion of our screening. We would sit there and take interactive tests on various software packages, with pleanty of time between tests. Lining one wall were shelves filled with promo items with the Manpower logo on them, pens, umbrellas, travel mugs, etc.
The tricky part was, on the opposite wall was one of those emergency light deals, you know, they are supposed to come on and light your way out of the building in the event of a power failure. Only, if you looked very closely, this one had been hollowed out and a camera inserted, pointing to the wall of goodies. Pretty sneaky.
Posted by: Alan on May 8, 2003 7:15 PM
not as sneaky as Diamond Detective Agency! i had a phone interview with them last week and today there was a message from a woman wanting to “clarify a few points about the position” before scheduling a face-to-face interview. turns out, that even though it was posted as a clerical job, it’s really more like telemarketing and that in addition to doing all the admin stuff i would also have to make like 25-50 phone calls a day! grrr. i am so frustrated.
Posted by: tam on May 13, 2003 12:17 PM