Whoops

What a lovely day Saturday was. Sunny, warm, beautiful. All Spring days should be like Saturday. It was so nice, I left the moonroof open on my car. Early Sunday morning, it rained. For a couple of hours. I even ventured out into it to get my paper and to wander down to my neighbor's house to drop off the paper. I passed my car a grand total of three times. Did I notice the moonroof open? We even had a dry period of several hours, when I could have gone out to get the cat litter out of the car that I had been too lazy to bring in Friday. Never happened. Even as the cold front passed through the area around 8 PM Sunday, with its thunder, lightning, wind and, oh yeah, a 45 minute deluge, it never occurred to me that there was something amiss with my VW that could have been easily corrected by a more diligent owner.

This morning, as I ventured out again to get the paper, I noticed condensation on the inside of the windshield. I wandered over to check to see if I had left a window open. Golly, I finally noticed I left the moonroof open. Talk about a soggy interior. The front passenger seat had been spared to some extent by all the crap that tends to accumulate in a car owned by a single driver who rarely has passengers. But, there was still the wet and sloppy mess of papers, newspapers, mail, and seat covers to deal with. I'd leave the car open, but they're forecasting showers for this morning.

Oddly, I'm not upset. I'm not mad at my neighbors for not noticing before I did, since my moonroof being open isn't an obvious sight. I'm not mad at the weather forecasters for not being psychic enough to know that winter-weary people might need to be reminded to close their windows, etc. BEFORE the rain cleanses the inside of their car. I'm certainly not mad at my Creator for deciding we needed to have over an inch of rain yesterday. I'm not even mad at myself. Okay, I called myself an 'idiot' once during the hauling of newspapers that only needed some glue added to make great papier mache. But for the most part, I giggled my way through it and am still laughing. I think I'll have it dry soon enough that I won't have mildewed everything, so I don't think I'll regret my humor. Sometimes you just have to appreciate the absurdity of the moment and the actions (or inactions) that led to that moment.

Now, to go throw some towels down on front seats.

The Sounds of Employer Silence

I'm in the process of applying a for part-time position to supplement a take-home income that looks, well, like it needs help. I know I'm not alone in this. There are those who have been out of work for only a short time, those who have been out for what seems like an eternity, full-timers who can't make ends meet on what they make and part-timers who need to be making a full time wage just so that one nostril is maybe above water. The competition for any job -- best paid to worst, 2 hours to 40, monstrously successful to seriously menial -- is fierce, with the applicant to job ratio anywhere between 5:1 and 200:1, depending on the position. Tough times, indeed.

When I was unemployed for a year four years ago, I sent out resumes and filled out applications to the point where I literally had a stack of copies of each one (or a paper I inserted indicating that I had filled out an application in person) that was just shy of 1½ " tall before I started working again; I had a ceremonial weenie roast of the papers at the end of it all. Of that stack of over 200 attempts at making employers sit up and take notice, I had less than a dozen acknowledgments that I had even sent in anything. I had no way of knowing if my application or resumé had been received unless I called. Yes, calling persistence can pay, but not when the personnel office won't answer any questions or worse, you can't contact them at all because you've responded to a blind ad.

I'm fortunate in that I have two interviews coming up for the just under a half-dozen applications I sent out recently, but it doesn't change how I feel about the silence, especially in the hard times we're all going through right now. I understand that potential employers are potentially overwhelmed by the number of applicants they're getting for a single job opening right now, but does that mean that the niceties need to go out the window? A simple, "Thank you for your application, but we've hired someone else for the position" now takes too much time, effort and money. But, even an automatic, "We got your application/resumé and will contact you if we wish to interview you", as cruel as it seems, is nicer than silence. I'd rather know that they at least got what I sent and took the time to read the name and address or e-mail before they filed it away, tossed it away, or hit the delete key.

And I know I'm not alone in this, either.