JOBQUEST 2010: jobdance number one

I had my first close encounter with a company interested in hiring me over the past couple of weeks. In the end, they went in a different direction. It's okay. It was a fun process. I'm going to recount the steps of the job dance here over the next week or so.

The job was with an awesome brand development / social media company.

I'm going to examine my experience not getting a job in some detail. Probably too much. Here's a sneak peak:

--what is a brand development / social media company?
--developing a winning attitude (or RADitude!)
--video introduction production
--sneaky maneuvers
--shopping for interview pants
--my feelings
--waiting
--shopping for second interview pants
--waiting
--my feelings
--maintaining a winning attitude (RADitude!)
--the healing process
--onward, upward, everything happens for a reason, total positivity wrap-up /// joyfully embracing the next step in the jobquest with a totally positive RADitiude

Economic Recovery: Personal Greenshoots

I found myself trapped inside a micro-economic koan these past few weeks. I really wanted to buy a new tie. But Karine said I had to wait for a job interview to buy the tie. I couldn't get a job interview because we are in a slow growth cycle and consumer spending is low. But I am a consumer and what I really want to consume is a new tie. But because no one is buying ties (not even me) the economy is stagnant and no one is hiring. I want to participate in our economy. I want to be the change in economic growth that is going to ultimately result in some business hiring me to expand their workforce. So I figure maybe if I buy the tie first it will be the fluttering tremor of hope that leads ultimately to an earthquake of economic recovery. But Karine says no. We are practical people and we don't buy ties in an effort to move markets and create jobs.

So I just had to wait. Until now. Tie shopping today. Real tie shopping. Not pretend tie shopping like last week. Because I have a job interview.

More Wham-O

Wham-O weighs heavy on my mind right now because I am looking for a job. I'm thinking about the economy and trying to see where I can fit in, where I can do something for someone that makes money for them and money for me and, at the end of the day, everyone goes home happy like small children with water balloons and squirt guns.

So I read the papers. I read the blogs. I'm nosing what financial winds blow across the prairie, waiting for good news.

I've been thinking about manufacturing lately, partly because I just read Philip Roth's American Pastoral, but mostly because US manufacturing, I think, is a solid indicator of where the economy is going. I didn't study this in school or anything, but I feel it in my spleen. In this global economy, we must export US manufactured goods to bring in foreign capital. We need to make and sell things that people in other countries want to buy. It's one of the engines of economic growth that gets us moving in a positive direction, towards a job for me and the millions of other capable, hard-working, intelligent, good-looking unemployed people in this nation. This particular engine of economic growth, manufacturing, has been sputtering and choking and, apparently, dying since the 1960s.

So all that could make a fellow or a gal feel discouraged. But then Wham-O comes along and announces that they are bringing back one-half of their Frisbee manufacturing capacity to the United States.

This, I think, is the financial smell I have been waiting for.

Wham-O

Wham-O is not a company I spend a great deal of time thinking about. Now that I am thinking about it, here is what I think:

1) Congratulations on having probably the best name ever for a toy manufacturer.

2) Nice toys! Especially the Hackysack, the Slip 'N Slide, and the Frisbee.