Microstory 2123: Still Weighing My Options

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All of my interviews today went pretty well. Most of the interviewers went into it under the assumption that everything on my blog is true, and I am indeed from another universe, allowing me to answer questions about my past experiences in the workforce that didn’t take place in this particular force. They even let me bring up things that I know about my alternate self, who has gone on to have new experiences since we diverged from each other. A few of them were clearly not a good fit for me. I don’t have the skills or education relevant to do the work effectively. I’ll say this, even though it’s a little mean, one of them was obviously confused about what the word “remote” means. No, I can’t go into the office twice a week. That is called a hybrid schedule, and it’s only for local workers. They’re in Utah. I’m not flying down to Utah just so I can remind you that my body extends beyond the lower portion of my chest. I don’t want to go to Utah for any reason. He couldn’t really explain why he ever wanted me to be there in person. They never can—not even just in terms of these interviews, but in general. Companies are losing money on office space by letting people work from home, so to get a better return on their investment, they artificially limit the practice, but they can’t admit that it’s because of that, so they sort of waffle, and come up with bogus reasons about it being better for productivity. Unless you’re in sales (or maybe even if you are) being at work in person for a job that’s performed exclusively on the computer is simply not necessary. Most of the interviewers seemed to understand that, and are eager to draw from a pool of talent outside of a reasonable driving distance. I can’t tell you any specifics about who I spoke with, or who I’m leaning towards. I never will.

All but one of the people I talked to who were still interested after we got past some of these other miscommunications understood that I’m never going to stop blogging. If I end up taking their job, they’ll let me say whatever I want as long as I don’t name names, or place any of their customers or clients in any sort of risk. They’ve all seen that I’ve never done that before. Honest hour? As honest as I am on this thing, I sometimes adjust details to protect the innocent, or even the guilty. I’ve been known to spend hours coming up with a fictional company that I mention only once in a story just to avoid using a brand name. That policy has extended into writing about myself. I’m not making any commitments yet, I’m still weighing my options. Two interviewers had to schedule for tomorrow, and another one had to reschedule for tomorrow, so I still have three more companies to consider, and who still need to consider me. Once those are done, I’ll use my pros and cons charts to organize my choices from most preferred to least interested, and go from there. There’s a chance that the search could go into next week, but I hope to have at least one good offer by then. They were all pretty certain that they would be ready to get started quickly, so I’m figuring only a couple of weeks before I clock in for the first time. One last thing, I’m scheduled to meet my parole officer on Friday. He or she will escort me to the jail for the first time since orientation, not because they don’t trust me, but because it’s procedure for them to personally inspect the facility for the safety of those in their care. They’re either still deciding who will be assigned my case, or they’re just not ready to tell me yet. I’ll let you know how that all goes too.

Microstory 414: Floor 29 (Part 1)

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My mother cannot figure out what my job in marketing is to save her life. To be fair, she was born, and spent most of her life, in India, so there is a bit of a language barrier. Mostly I think it’s just that she doesn’t want to accept that her daughter pursues market research. Of course people like me exist in India, but it’s not the kind of profession she wanted me to get into. Sure, she wanted me to go to business school, but she thought I would go back to our home country and help some large corporation. She watches a lot of American television, and she just sees people in business suits making things happen. I guess she doesn’t really know what she wants. For those of you who don’t know, marketing is not sales. We don’t get on the phone and try to get people to buy our stuff. We figure out what people want now, and we work on ways to manipulate trends so that what people want changes to what we have. I love my job, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I’m extremely extroverted, so it’s a great opportunity for me to get out there and meet new people. It’s my responsibility to curate relationships with others so that the company has a network of allies and consumers. I like to move around the department and learn new things. Right now I’m just supposed to research the history of trends. It’s rather boring, but I am learning a lot. I’m scheduled to move on to the social media team where I was hoping to make a few changes there and see if they stick. As of now, the team just tries to post at least once on every social media platform. First off, that’s not enough, but they’re also not very engaging. They’re looking for ‘likes’, but ‘likes’ are empty. What you really want are reshares. You want more brand exposure. They also ask customers to do dumb things like post selfies in front of our buildings. Forgive me, but no one wants to do that. Unfortunately, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the company, let alone the department or team.  Analion is going through a pretty bad rough patch, and they need someone with experience to come in and save our reputation. That’s okay, it’ll just be one more person I get to meet. Hopefully they don’t think we had anything to do with those tragic deaths.