Nekkid, Clueless and Feelin' Good: July 17, 2001

Tuesday,
July 17, 2001

Vaporware Recruiters Redux

Got two calls from recruiters today -- one was from the agency that tried to get me the Very Big Entertainment Company job, and was for a one-month contract job for another company on their floor. Which is fine -- one month of money would fix a lot of our problems, and I could still be looking for another position while I made pretty graphics and worked on websites. This agency is both reputable and cool, so I would be quite happy with something like this.

The other call came out of the blue, and was from the agency that sent me out on my one and only interview. Aha, I hear you say, but obviously this means that they're on the ball and can procure you a decent job.

Aha, I reply, but that interview was for a job that had so many financial pitfalls in it, I would have been just about paying them for the privilege of working. The recruiter dropped me like a hot potato after I told him the job wouldn't work for me, so I was a bit surprised when a different recruiter from the same company contacted me this morning about a tech writing position in Dallas.

The first warning bells went off when she asked me for my salary range. I said anything between $30-$35, as it was in Dallas and working downtown means I'd be paying for parking. Oh, she replied, she wasn't sure about that -- in fact, she wasn't really sure where the job was. While we were on the subject, she really didn't have much information on the job at all.

Uh-huh. The second round of tingalings came when she asked if I would be willing to negotiate downwards on salary? Like, lower than $28 per hour? Um, okay, I said, because I would be perfectly willing to interview, see what the job was like, and then discuss salary. And if the salary wasn't enough to support me (and by support I mean pay for rent, utilities, car/gas and enough peanut butter to see me through a month -- you know, the basics), then I'd discuss it with the other half and see if he would be in any shape to subsidize me. If he wasn't, I could always turn it down. But the fact that she wanted to know if I'd be willing to go lower than $28/hour, combined with what the hiring manager for the first job told me, suggests that they're trying to soak a bigger fee out of the hiring company by cutting my salary. And that pisses me off.

She's supposed to call me back tomorrow with more information on the position, salary range, etc. You'll understand if I'm not holding my breath on this one -- the clueless balloon is showing up big and bright on the horizon.

Just pick an ending already, dammit!

In the meantime, I'm still whacking "Dress Rehearsal" into shape, whereupon I realized that I simply didn't like the idea of the perfect family next door turning out to be aliens. It took something away from the comedic timing of the piece, which probably explains why I've been shying away from finishing the mother.

So I made them highly developed androids instead, sent back from a far-distant future to study "primitive" man while making sure that no cock-ups happened in the time stream. Of course, an accidental cock-up on their part sets off my sleep-deprived protagonist, and much hilarity ensues. So far, it seems to be working better -- I like the idea of the android father scrambling to fix things while my protagonist becomes more and more convinced that they're aliens bent on world domination and use of Britney Spears as mother of the new Master Race, or something along those lines.

Hey, at least there's no sex in this one -- the guys at FutureClassics are going to be shocked.

Don't ask me, merci beaucoup

And in the never-ending cable adventures: when I turned on the TV this afternoon to see if anything had happened to the non-existing signal, all was well once again in Cableland. I can only assume that it got knocked out in the entire building and one of my neighbors called Simcom to get it fixed.

Whatever. As long as I can watch the rerun of "Mists of Avalon" this Friday. . .

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