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10:49 PM: Holdailies Triolet VII
My total output stands at nine.
I fail at Holidailies.
I pledged I'd write here all the time—
My total output stands at nine.
I've naught to say of Palestine
Or even of Israelis
My total output stands at nine.
I fail at Holidailies.
(But at least I've kept my triolet tradition going...)
P.S.:
This project took a ton of work,
So thanks to Chip and Jette!
Recoding every portal quirk...
This project took a ton of work.
They toiled without a single perk;
I'm really in their debt.
This project took a ton of work,
So thanks to Chip and Jette!
12:30 PM: On the bright side...
...at around 7:30 PM last night, there was a discussion and book signing for Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, by Michael Davis, which I attended with My Sister The Graphic Designer. She picked up a copy of the book, which I am looking forward to reading once she gets through with it.
As exciting as it might have been to meet the guy who wrote a book about Sesame Street, I confess he was not the big draw. Also there was Christopher Cerf, whose resume is approximately five miles long. Random House editor, co-producer of Between the Lions, and writer of a couple hundred songs for Sesame Street, for starters. On any other night, he might have been the big draw...
...but also there was Roscoe Orman, who plays Gordon. Roscoe is one of the warmest people in the known universe. That my sister and I -- at the tail end of the line -- got out of there close to 11 PM was largely because he took the time and effort to make a personal connection with every single person there.
That said, he wasn't the big draw either, if only because I'd met him back in 2005, along with Sonia "Maria" Manzano -- who unexpectedly turned up in the audience last night -- and Loretta "Susan" Long. The big draw was somebody I hadn't met before.
The big draw was Caroll Spinney. Which is to say, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. I'm gonna let the photo do the talking here.
Squee!
2:00 AM: Would you like some whine with that interview?
So the good news is that I awoke this morning to see an e-mail from a company I'd sent a resume to, asking if I'd be available for a phone interview this afternoon. This was the first nibble of interest I'd gotten from anybody in well over a month. "Huzzah!" I thought. "The December drought is over, and somebody may want to hire me!" Furthermore, the company seemed a good fit; they wanted a copyeditor for a fast-paced Web site, and the job posting even went as far to note that a sense of humor would be a plus.
Then came the actual interview. I went down in flames.
Given a specific question, I can do pretty well. I may go on for a half-hour chasing down tangents in order to provide something resembling a complete answer, but it'll have some focus. Open-ended questions are another story. I freeze, I babble, I go round in aimless circles. It's even worse on the phone, where I have no visual cues to see how I'm going over.
"Describe your job experience."
[sigh]
I don't know what a good answer to that might sound like, but it sure wasn't what I came up with. I pretty much brought up every aspect of things I've done that don't resemble the job in question, while leaving out points of direct comparison.
(Would it have been acceptable for me to ask something like "Could you tell me a bit about what you're looking for first?" Because given some context, rather than a complete vacuum, I think I might have been able to formulate a coherent response...)
At any rate, it turned out that this was the first day of the first round of interviews, and that they were still advertising in hopes of getting a really large list of applicants they could whittle down over the next few weeks. I figure it's a safe bet I've been whittled away by now.
Later in the afternoon, I spent awhile wistfully watching and rewatching the Connected Venture office lip dub of "Flagpole Sitta". I know that video isn't representative of your typical office. I don't even believe it's representative of their office.
But I am so tired of being unemployed.
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