Who (or what) is Conducting the Interview?

Two weeks ago I interviewed with a large nonprofit, the details of which I found interesting.

1. The Job Requirements - perfect fit for my skill set and although I lack experience in the specific industry, the way the application form is designed, this key piece of information is clearly evident to the recruiter.
2. Application Submission - online process, cover letter, resume and application form.
3. Email Response to my application - Now here is where it gets interesting, or at least I thought so.  I received in total 4 email communications from someone who functioned as the initial recruiter but whose job title (signature on the emails) was unfamiliar to me and for privacy reasons I will not include the title in this blog; probably a home grown name for a recruiting position.  All 4 emails were professionally crafted but what stood out was the level of non-established familiarity, each email getting just a bit more friendly that the previous to the point where in the 2nd email, the signature was reduced to a nickname and by the 3rd asking me how my week was going.  Very conversational, begging for a chat.  So much so that when I received the last email which was simply confirming the date and time change for the phone interview, the verbiage was so sugary sweet my teeth began to twinge.  I found this troubling from the start for a number of reasons.  You can say maybe I was over thinking this situation or my radar needs adjusting but being a natural skeptic, it made me uncomfortable and I spent a few minutes mulling it over before I replied.  I decided that the best way to go was to remain professional and not adopt this cheeky "Hey Girlfriend" pattern of communicating with someone I did not know. 
4. The Phone Interview -  The call came 2 minutes after the scheduled appointment and from the start I could tell something was peculiar.  The person on the phone, identified as the same person from the emails was not only void of emotion but sounded robotic.  There were obvious pauses and dead air space between my responses to the questions and the recruiters voice response, almost as if there was a beep tone that I could not hear.  In one instance, I asked 2 different but similar questions to which I expected and should have received 2 different and similar answers.  The response was identical; same answer, same voice pattern, same tone inflection; very automated sounding.  By now I concluded that I was indeed being interviewed by technology and not a human. At the end of the interview, the voice thanked me for my time, said I would receive a typed transcript of the interview within the next few days, and if they are still interested in me as a candidate instructions for the remainder of the process would be included. I was curious to receive the transcript speculating I had been recorded.  How else would someone be able to type the entire conversation?
5. The Transcript - 5 days later I received what they call a transcript via email. 

          Here is the complete body of the transcript; I have replaced all identifying information with "BLANK".

          Dear Amanda, Thank you for your interest in "BLANK" and for taking the time to share with us your
          passion for "BLANK". Your strong experiences impressed us tremendously. Unfortunately, we will
          not be able to offer you a position at this time. Should you have any questions, please feel free to
          reach out to the recruiter with whom you worked throughout this process. Sincerely, "BLANK"
          Recruitment

It is important to note that this email was sent by an automated catch all email address and not from the friendly sugary sweet recruiter.  Additionally, the communication above does not fall under my understanding of a transcript.

I have been able to confirm that this was a legit job posting and the process as I have described is real.

I sent a thank you note to the recruiter and chalked this up to a new experience, part of the new norm perhaps.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Thank You to all who have stood by my side and propped me up when I didn't think I could stand any longer.  This has been a most unique and challenging experience for me.  I am fortunate to have friends.

My family and I are forever grateful.

Challenging yes, but my situation is not nearly as devasting as some of the amazing people I have met on this journey.  Sadly I have met and continue to meet people without a safety net of friends or family.  People sleeping in their cars having been displaced from their homes, waiting in soup lines hoping there will be enough left for them when they get to the beginning of the line, compromising their children's safety and well being by leaving them with strangers who promise to care for them, and the stories go on.

I was toying with the idea of skipping Christmas this year (no not like that horrible movie "Christmas with the Kranks"), but I had thought it would be nice to go to sleep on Christmas Eve and wake up the day after New Years Day.

This year with all the blows that I have taken, I am riding on the wings of a new sense of peace. I am reminded of how to do much more with much less and feel good about it. In the past few months I am happy to have shared laughter out loud at some very funny things, which belong under "You Can't Make this Stuff Up". I am hoping to write about some of them in this blog soon.

To the vendors that I regularly do business with, thanks for your patience.

A Special Thanks to those of you who have filters, recognize my strengths and limitations and just seem to know when it's ok to talk about the elephant in the room. And to my daughter who after watching me NOT do anything for the holidays, began to decorate the house and then purchased a Christmas tree, "I Love You".
Shame on me for being so selfish.  This is my daughter's holiday too and we are going to celebrate it.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells............................

I saved this quote from an article I read several months ago; I like it:

" A true friend is someone who thinks you are a good egg even though he/she knows that you are slightly cracked".

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever you are celebrating !!!

Does Santa Bring all the Gifts?

I love the magic of Christmas and especially how children contribute their own special touch to the festivities. I like the idea that children can imagine there is an elf dressed in red velvet with a bag of goodies on his back and flying reindeer waiting on the roof while they are sleeping.

Hmmm... perplexing though, drawing the line, trying to make an appropriate decision on how to steer all the good intentions.

For many years, Christmas was always a difficult holiday for me to manage emotionally, partly because as a child I bought into a false reality of the holidays that triggered confusion, sadness, and self doubt.  It was a brainwashing full of mixed messages. How could a Santa bring such extravagant gifts to some children while others were left to drool and hang onto the hope that maybe next year Santa would find them worthy?  I could never understand why some had so much and others had little or nothing.  In my youth and infinite wisdom, challenging this disparity with the adults in my family only infuriated them, earning me another infraction; not an unusual accomplishment for me.

Having a family of your own gives you a chance to do things differently. I decided early on not to be intoxicated by the "spend, even if you don't have it" drug and there would be 1 gift under the tree with Santa's name on it. Oh no, I wasn't going to let ALL the credit go to someone who had not been in the trenches working hard day in and day out to keep our family healthy and happy.

Not all the gifts needed to be a toy or game so I tried to be creative and a little mysterious including gifts that were practical, and cleverly disguised, like the year I gave my son a clothes hamper, wrapped in holiday decorated paper with a handwritten note taped to the inside that read " Now that you are 12 it is time for you to start doing your own laundry.  In order to facilitate this transition it will be necessary for you to keep your laundry separate, thus the hamper.  This gift comes with personalized instructions in the form of one on one step by step training with me.  Congratulations on this major achievement, Love Mom".

I am a big believer in cultivating the imagination so children can dream, hope and aspire to do good works for a lifetime, not for the goal of a single day.  We as adults in their lives need to continue to provide young people gifts that don't come from stores or online shopping.  Yeah I know, I know, I know and I don't mean to sound sappy, but I am amazed at how many of you are afraid to let your children wait for that little something special or maybe even earn that little something special.  Some of you are still giving your teenagers money to purchase holiday gifts for others including their parents.  What's that all about?

Now that I think about it, maybe one of the best gifts I have ever received at Christmas was not something that Santa left under the tree but the feelings stirred up from all of what he didn't leave under the tree; how these feelings have motivated me to be truer to myself and as I move forward, how I choose to engage in a few more meaningful passages in life with my children and others in a positive way.

 

Little Things Helped to Keep the Magic Alive

For those of you who celebrate Christmas and have young children who believe in Santa Claus I am sharing with you a couple of ideas I put into play during the holidays to keep the magic alive when my children were small people.

* One year I borrowed a pipe from a friend who was a pipe smoker and I left the pipe on the table next to the plate of cookies and glass of milk that the children had prepared for Santa's snack.
* Another year I borrowed 1 black rubber boot, sprinkled black coal dust just outside the mouth of the fireplace, made a footprint with the boot, and laid the boot on the floor near the base of the fireplace.
* On yet another Christmas Eve having been privy to (my children did not know I knew) a not so nice thing they had done (nothing major but worth speaking to them about) and which I had not decided on how yet to handle, I partially ate the cookies, drank a bit of the milk, and wrote a thank you note (for the snack) to each of the children with my left hand and signed it "Love Santa".  In the note I mentioned that they needed to come clean about their naughtiness.

As you can imagine, on Christmas morning after discovering the signs that Santa had indeed been to our home, my children were full of extra joy and amazement.  Their attention was focused on returning Santa's pipe and boot so before they engaged in the mission of opening their gifts, they spent the first part of Christmas morning packing the items and readying them for shipping to the North Pole. As for the note, ah well yes, they did in fact come clean, apologized and wrote Santa a note telling him they were sorry and would try to do better. 

As wonderful and fun as it was, I add this; Trying to convince my daughter that Santa was not stuck in the chimmny the year that I left the boot out was a major undertaking.  She wanted us to call the fire department and have them check.  It took some deceptive manuvers to make it appear as though we had really mailed the pipe and the boot back to the North Pole on Christmas Day.

Yeah I know, Little Things I say, well for me they were little things to do and I still have the memories to retell.  So do my children.
 

You Can't Make this Stuff Up

People are out of control !!!!

See Craigslist Posting - from what I can ascertain, a woman paid her fees to attend a Bartending School and was not very happy with what she received for her money.  She has posted several communications on Craigslist calling the school a sham.  Things have gotten way too personal.  Below is the response from someone (maybe from the school?)...........................
 

Holiday Gift Ideas

Trying to come up with something creative, fun or practical?

• NetFlix - for those on your list who like to spend downtime during the winter months watching movies you can give a limited membership of Netflix for just a couple of months.  They have plans that start at $4.99.  You can choose the expiration date.

• EZ Pass - instead of purchasing a store gift card, take the $10, $20, or $50 and open an EZ Pass account for the recipient.  You'll need the license plate number of your recipient and you can set up the payment plan as automatic from a credit/debit card or by check for easy take over by the recipient when your intial gift amount is used up. If reciept of the EZ Pass tag will not reach you in time for your scheduled exhanging of gifts, just include the gift information in a card and when the tags arrive deliver them.

Holiday Gift Wrapping Ideas

I read an article in the news this morning about giftwrapping your holiday baked goods. The idea being that you can dress up the gift with creative and festive packaging for mere pennies. I find it interesting, smug and disconnected that in these uncertain times the best this author could come up with was purchasing items for the presentation of the gift that in the end would cost more than the baked good it was adorning.

Three creative, resourceful and recyclable ideas from me:
 

Precious

Before it leaves the theatre, A Must Go See!

Review from Variety:
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=review&id=2471&reviewid=VE1117939367

 

Lime Meltaway Cookies

This is the best shortbread cookie I have ever tasted!  I have been preparing this cookie as holiday gifts for others for the past 8 years.  It is a big hit!


Here's the recipe, Enjoy!

Ingredients

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar
Grated zest of 2 limes
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, cream butter and 1/3 cup sugar until
    fluffy. Add lime zest, juice, and vanilla; beat until fluffy.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add to butter mixture, and beat on low
    speed until combined.
3. Between two 8-by-12-inch pieces of parchment paper, roll dough into two 1 1/4-inch-diameter logs. Chill
    at least 1 hour.
4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Place remaining 2/3 cup sugar in a
    resealable plastic bag. Remove parchment from logs; slice dough into 1/8-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds
    on baking sheets, spaced 1 inch apart.
5. Bake cookies until barely golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool slightly, 8 to
    10 minutes. While still warm, place cookies in the sugar-filled bag; toss to coat. Bake or freeze remaining
    dough. Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Invisible Families

Has your family become invisible?

This recession/depression has created a whole new class of people I call the Invisible Class.  You were once identified as the Middle Class. You may have been lower, middle or even upper middle class and on some level you were comfortable and managing a life you worked hard for and grew accustomed to.

You had jobs which made it possible to feed your families, pay the monthly bills, squirrel away a few coins in some sort of savings plan and afforded you the ability to splurge on a few not so necessary items flush with bells and whistles. You live in the suburbs or an upscale urban environment, drive a halfway decent car and your children are enrolled in good schooling systems.

The unprecedented loss of jobs, crash of the housing market and mismanaged investments in this economic meltdown has created new challenges for your family.  Some of you are struggling with the loss of 1 job and in many cases the loss of 2. Many of you are now scratching in the dirt trying to put groceries on the table, heat your homes and pay your mortgages.  You may be 1 payment away from not being able to pay the mortgage or are already in default. 

Pizza and movie night is a thing of the past; certainly not the worst thing that could happen, but one reality checkpoint.

The government makes great efforts to identify families living on the poverty belt and provides resources to assist them in securing basic needs as they should, but there are no checks and balances for families hovering on or right above the poverty line.  And no one was ready for the masses of people who now fall into this category every day.  Organizations are frantically trying to collect the data and figure out how to best serve this new population.

You are for all intent and purposes, "Invisible" and you need help.
 

THE FIRST IN EVERYTHING

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.


Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.

But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.

A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?"

"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "It's going to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

Collaborating

AND WORKING TOGETHER

In listening to friends, family,aquaintences and random people (you know me, I'll talk to almost anyone) about the challenges of promoting and selling products from their entrepreneurial businesses I am throwing out this idea.

What if several of you hosted a combined event under one roof?  Maybe for holiday shopping or after the holidays in February when people begin showing the signs of cabin fever.

Who do you know, that has a home with enough space to accomodate and would be willing to open it up to such a collaboration for one day to set up some display tables? Who do you know that has access to a FREE commercial space?

Each vendor could set up a display table, the host can serve a light snack and beverages (the cost of doing business). 

Come prepared with "Specially priced items", business cards, marketing materials and a registry for people who would like to be contacted in the future.

Hand everyone a FREE 2 part perforated ticket at the door for a chance to win a basket that will include a sample item from each of the vendors as a door prize.  The 2 part ticket should have ample space on the back of the half that you will keep, where the customer can write their name, address, phone and email address (I think you can purchase them pre-printed on the back).

Don't try to hold the customer hostage for the day.  Lose the stipulation that the winner of the door prize must be present at the drawing (could be a motivator for the customer to provide complete contact information on the back of the ticket).

Invite businesses that are not in competition with each other like:

• Mary Kay
• Tupperware
• Pooka
• Body Magic (big hit with physicians)
• Mellaluca/Melaleuca
• YTB
• Jewelry (an artist that makes their own jewelry)
• Baker or Caterer (someone who will bring samples)
• Stocking stuffers

Lastly, I'm sure we all have a friend or family member (heck get your children involved if they are old enough and well behaved) who would volunteer 1 day to help you make this a successful event.

Advertise on your website, Facebook page, create an email distribution list, FREE websites, your blog, my blog, the library, send an Evite invitation, your church!!!!! 

Just brainstorming.

Thanksgiving Turkey Crawl

Trying to figure out what to do on Thanksgiving?

Here's an idea that a good friend of mine introduced me to a few years back.

The Turkey Crawl!

The way it works goes like this:
The day is spent crawling (walking) from one house to another for the different courses of the holiday meal.  So you start off at one house for hor d'oeuvres, you move on to the next house for the main course, ending the day at yet another house for dessert.

Now of course you can add your own twist to the days events like cocktails, singing, a movie, story telling or whatever you want.  Or you can keep it simple letting everyone mingle and just provide the timing for the movement from one house to another.  (ie)  Hor d'oeuvres from 2-4pm, Main course from 4:30 - 6:30pm and dessert from 7 - 9pm.  Don't forget to include the name, address and phone of each host.

Hosts and guests can collaborate on what dishes will be prepared.  To help keep the process organized and in one centralized place, the facilitator can use a tool like Evite where everyone can RSVP and add to the list of who is bringing what.

However you plan the day, make sure you keep a camera handy.  I'm a big believer that although many people grimace at the sight of a camera, they share similar feelings of having been included in an event that was memorialized by photos.

The photos can be shared later via a picture maker slideshow (your choice of vendor, a free service is always most welcomed).

Happy Thanksgiving!