Just a few more years till retirement ...

but I don't think I'm going to make it.

I'm looking for another job again. I hate looking for jobs. It's all a crap shoot.

1. You find a job ad that looks like it was written just for you. It has all your qualifications but your age and height. You wear your power suit and show up a few minutes early for the interview so the interviewer will know how eager you are. Somewhere in the middle of the two hour interview, you realize that you don't have any qualifications for the job. They just made up the job posting and they should have known from your resume that you weren't what they were looking for and vice versa.
2. You do your best at the interview and the interviewer enthusiastically shakes your hand and says, "You're just what we're looking for! We have to interview a few more people just for appearances, but you'll be hearing from us shortly" and then you never hear from him/her again. In case you haven't figured it out yet, if you hear "we have to interview a few more people", you ain't getting that job.
3. You do everything according to the book, dress professionally, show up on time, give a firm handshake, and speak confidently. The interviewer shows up in a wrinkled shirt and uncombed hair, 10 minutes late, and can't think of anything to ask you. You write a nice thank you letter even though you suspect he'll only use it to make a paper airplane. Then you never hear from him again. And you don't really care except if the "rules" say the interviewee writes a thank you note, why doesn't it say interviewers have to send you a note saying Thanks, but no thanks?
4. The interview goes OK and you get the job. It's even better than you imagined. You get a promotion and a raise before the end of the second quarter. The job ends before the end of the fourth quarter because somebody somewhere decides to re-organize the company, sell the company, or move to another state just because they have their head where it should be physically impossible to put it.
5. Everything at the interview goes fine and you get hired. One week into the job, you realize the interviewer lied about everything. Since the interviewer is now your new manager, you realize that you're going to have to start the job hunt all over again and you wonder if it would be too impolite to slap your resignation upside his/her lying face.

For many people a job is more than an income - it's an important part of who we are. So a career transition of any sort is one of the most unsettling experiences you can face in your life. ~Paul Clitheroe

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas. ~Paula Poundstone

Bumpity, bumpity, bumpity, bump

They are putting more speedbumps in my apartment complex this week. Between all the bumps here and the bumps (aka, hills) on the street to work my car is making strange rattlely noises.

I fully expect all the bolts to work loose some day and I'll find myself driving down the road with no doors, fenders, hood, trunk lid, roof - nothing but me, the seat I'm sitting on, and the steering wheel.

I'll look like a living cartoon.

On my way to work this morning I was followed by two of the stupid drivers that are responsible for the speedbumps. Two inches from my bumper was a little sports car and two inches from his bumper was another fancy car. In front of me? A school bus. It was a two lane road. Where did those idiots expect me to go? Through the bus? Over it?

When we got to the stop light, one car turned off and the other sped around me going about twice the speed limit, only to turn at the second right.

For pete's sake, it was 7 in the morning. Nobody should be in that big of a hurry to get to work.


Brookview cartoons are drawn by Raph Hagen He is available for hire by your company for going away gifts, corporate newsletters, safety brochures, etc, as well as personal unique Christmas and birthday gift caricatures and cartoons. www.hagenstoons.com

You're Rambling Again

It's very quiet here this morning. There aren't even any birds singing. No children yelling back and forth. No lawnmowers, cars, or trashtrucks. It makes me feel like the earth ended during the night, but nobody bothered to wake me up to let me know.

There's somebody stirring around upstairs. I can hear footsteps crossing the floor, but tentatively as if they don't know where they are going. It's almost like the proverbial waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop.

Last week, I hurt my hip or back or something that's connected to my leg. Funny thing, it only bothers me when I'm trying to do housework. I think the problem with my hip is that I need a new pair of tennis shoes with more arch support. But I can't go buy shoes untill I get new socks because my old socks are gray and thin from age. And I can't go buy new socks because the store where I bought them has gone out of business and they're my favorite socks.

Oh, well. Nothing last forever. Not the quiet, not the pain, not even my favorite socks.

Deja vu

Do you remember a little over a year ago when I talked about losing my job through no fault of my own? Well, it's happening again. Even though we are at a new company we got the same tired speech about "working hard" because if we do, everything will be all right. What a load of crap!

After more than 30 years working hard, I can tell you it ain't worth it. It has little to do with whether you get ahead, get a raise, get recognition, get peanuts for breakfast.

A sense of humor will help you get over the hard spots, but hard work will only make you bitter and give you blisters.

Time on My Mind

I got a new wall clock this week. It cost $3.98. Functional, but not pretty. It's most outstanding feature is the tick, tock. It tick,tocks authentically as it counts down the seconds of each day. For a cheap clock it does it proudly, which is to say, loudly.

I'm thinking of selling it to the secret service to use as a torture device. Just shove a spy into an isolated cell with nothing to hear all day long but TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.

Trust me. Even James Bond would be spilling his guts in an hour or two. Which is 30 ticks and 30 tocks an hour.