As a grateful beneficiary of this fine country’s system of . . . well, let’s just say it rhymes with “bemployment binsurance", I got to attend a mandatory “how to get your ass back to work and off the government dime” information session presented by the government. The following are some of my notes from the session. Some of them are useful in a career planning sense and others of them are useful in a . . . comedy sense.
* The session starts with all of us filling out a yellow sheet of paper which outlines our basic skills for HRDC stats collection. They tell us that filling out this form is “voluntary” but when Bonica tries to exercise her right not to fill the form out, she gets the smackdown from Trainer B or “Napoleon Complex". Her rebellion crushed, Bonica fills out the form, but proceeds to spend the rest of the day actively and obviously not paying attention.
* I know that you can be prosecuted for fraud if you falsify your bi-weekly reports, but having Trainer A, “Steely Government Employee", look me in the eye like she already knows I’m a reprobate really drives it home. I decide against asking my “hypothetical questions” about reporting and vacation pay, because SGE knows where I live.
* Authority figures make me nervous. I like to think that I’m tough, but if the cops brought me in on a trumped up charge, it’d take, like, an hour before I was giving up your mother. My tendency towards keenerness in these situations identifies me as a narc. After the break, no one sits next to me.
* At the break, I notice some flirting going on by two of the younger, more attractive attendees at today’s session. I also see the EXACT moment the flirtation fizzles, when the girl realizes “Wait a minute. This guy doesn’t have a JOB.”
* Napoleon Complex delivers the next part of the session - how your appearance affects an employer’s impression of you. Being a creampuff, I try not to criticize the appearance of others, but looking around the room - Bryan, the sullen ponytail guy who clears his sinuses every few minutes, Bary Boyce, who’s wearing too short shiny plastic pants, a t-shirt and runners and Batthew, who’s actually sleeping - guys, this part’s for you.
* Searching for jobs on the internet has a 4% success rate. 4%!!! Who knew? Cold calling out of the Yellow Pages, however, has at 69% success rate! NC tells us we should practice making these cold calls, before we allow ourselves coffee in the morning. We all stare blankly back at him and the guy behind me whispers “blow me".
* The most successful job search method is networking. I want to ask if they had any stats on “nepotism” but I don’t want to draw any further attention to my keener narc self.
* There’s this one woman, Barie, who keeps answering NC’s partially rhetorical questions REALLY seriously. As an example - NC is talking about how when Hypothetical Guy makes a New Year’s resolution to work out, he goes to the gym and runs for an hour, then does an hour of weight training and then does an hour aerobics class! How’s he going to feel after that huh, hahahahahahahahahahah!!!!! (NC laughs at his own “jokes"). We all laugh quarter-heartedly, except Barie, who says, very seriously, “Well, after that much exercise, he would hardly be able to move. He would be very stiff.”
* Interview techniques - many employers now (including the government, I believe) are employing this behavioural interviewing technique during which you may be asked to recount a tale of a time when you faced a challenge, what you did about it and what the results were. The acronym - CAR (Challenge, Action, Results) - was quite helpful. The CAR example given by NC, however, was of a fat man who, after being teased at work for being fat . . . confronted the teasers? Launched a grievance? Stood up for his rights as a HUMAN BEING? No. He OVERCAME HIS FATNESS SO THAT NO ONE WOULD TEASE HIM ANYMORE. You know, I think it’s great when people do things to make themselves healthier and happier. And if the story about about an out of shape guy who wanted to run a marathon and he did it, then that would be a good CAR story. But to hold up the story of a guy who was discriminated against, who then decided that as a fat person he DESERVED to be discriminated against and lost weight, as an inspiration tale of challenges faced? Fuck you, NC. In the words of the guy behind me - blow me.
* Tiger Woods’ game really went downhill after he married that supermodel.
* Resources - the government offers lots of cool resources for people in “job transition". And once I write my angry creampuff letter, I plan to take advantage of as many of them as I can! Yeah!
Obviously, there was other knowledge gleaned from the session and I didn’t even mention Trainer C, “Patient Teacher", who was very nice, had a good presentation style and knew that none of us wanted to be there. But overall, these are the things I remember. At a later date, I’ll no doubt be posting an entry about the government-presented self-employment workshop I’m planning to attend, where I hope to meet people with crazy small business ideas, like mail order meat or sweaters made from pet hair.
