dismalnow

joined 2 years ago
[โ€“] dismalnow 6 points 2 years ago

Even without the politics, the Peter Principle all but guarantees incompetent leaders.

 

There's not very many billionaires, and they seem to be dying with increasing frequency.

[โ€“] dismalnow 4 points 2 years ago

I liked the star system, too. As the site grew in popularity, people just ended up 1 or 5 starring stuff.

For the same reason - the "useful content" and "not useful content" buttons were dumbed down to "agree" and "disagree" buttons on reddit.

Agree that you can't really ask people to use a star system for message boards. Much less microblogs.

[โ€“] dismalnow 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's always good to hear that there are still people who see fair treatment!

Your field can make a difference, but I think it really depends on the breadth of your skillset, timing, luck and location if you're an office drone.

This happened to me several years ago, and the conditions weren't the best because I had recently decided to change careers. I had low experience in my chosen field, but it ended up being worth the pain.

Doing well now, and the combination of career experience opened a lot of doors. Mom would be proud! :)

[โ€“] dismalnow 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Appreciate your idealism, but this is the ugly new reality in the US if you're not adequately situated to tell them to pound sand.

There are very few people in that position, and they gotta eat. The economy is bad, but it's trending toward perpetual dogshit for an overwhelming majority.

The bigger the company, the more I find that they rely on desperation to keep costs low because they can take it a bit further than they used to.

Believe me.. I once had the opportunity to take a year off. It was glorious, and I'lL f'N dO iT aGaIn.

[โ€“] dismalnow 1 points 2 years ago

Really depends. All they're using is LexisNexis data, but it's tiered access - which comes at greater cost for greater detail/veracity.

When you're not reporting a job or have no income, there's a gap. Since some employers care, it's best to plan for it.

So voila! Gap explained! Can I please have some income at this hellhole until I find something better?

[โ€“] dismalnow 13 points 2 years ago

I follow some pretty niche topics, and have had to make an executive decision regarding indifferent behavior from those who moderate discussions in those areas: Talking about a specific crypto, or a style of painting takes a backseat to my politics.

This was the final straw for me, and I feel that a collective lack of participation is the only recourse to assist those who are indifferent in generating an opinion.

Not only that, but I extracted (and continuously delete when they reappear) my contributions to those discussions, reposting them elsewhere.

[โ€“] dismalnow 5 points 2 years ago

No time to talk! I'm in latex now.

[โ€“] dismalnow 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I unironically pondered this approach, but came to the realization that the background checkers would still see a gap. (And that it wouldn't create intrigue as much as it would frustrate the interviewer.)

[โ€“] dismalnow 19 points 2 years ago

Appreciated. This happened many years ago, so I'm used to my new normal.

I posted this here because I was going through my exported posts/comments from reddit, and realized that I have a ton of intellectual property that I feel can be shared with others without their involvement.

 

Why YSK: Interviewers like to weed out people who have gaps in their employment history for myriad nonsensical reasons. If you remember that this is all just a game to the employer, you can play to win.


Fill the gaps with a story about a failed foray into entrepreneurship in a related field.

I had a massive gap and this worked gangbusters after six months of constant rejection. The gap was caused by my mother's health rapidly deteriorating, and my sense of responsibility to care for her - which became a full time job until she passed.

After that, I went through the dehumanizing experience of dozens of interviews where I was asked about the gap. Describing why I took the time out of the workforce was hard enough - adding insult to injury was the homogenous reactions among all interviewers. You could watch them mentally write me off in real time, and then go through the motions before sending me off to wait for a "the organization has interviewed several great candidates" email.

It occurred to me that instead of baring my pain for callous interviewers, what they'd rather hear about was a "go-getter" whose spirit has been broken enough to come crawling back to the rat race. So I concocted a story about a failed attempt at being an entrepreneur in their industry.

Lo, and behold - After I stopped telling the truth and started telling people about Vandelay Industries` mighty struggle to remain solvent due to market forces, I found myself with three offers in the same number of weeks.

The difference in interviewers` whole demeanor between "took care of dying mother," and "had to see if I could get Vandelay Industries off the ground while I was young enough to be able to recover from a failure" was night and day.

Read about failed startups. Rehearse.

Everybody lies in the corpo-world. Lie better.