Let me talk about something that all job seekers have had to go through.  Let me talk about the wonderful joy of receiving notices about work by email.

Email is great.  It’s awesome!  I can work with coworkers that are across the United States and I can talk to family members who I don’t see every day by typing up a short message and sending it off.  I can also send people pictures of cats doing cute things or share videos of Sarah Palin’s comedy routine failing pretty hard on Leno’s show.  (Sadly, she was the funniest part of that show.)

Now you can use email to receive updates on applications for jobs and for college.  I can apply to work at big business firms by emailing in my resume and portfolio or I can take a generic application test to work at Best Buy or Borders. Oh yes, with email I can get up to minute information on the status of my applications…such as when they reject me!

Now my inbox fill up with all sorts of “Thanks but No Thanks!”  emails which are completely automated in and of themselves.  Each one is the same format and changes very little.  I once received three emails from the Marion County Library system within five minutes of each other, and the only thing that changed was that the position I applied for had changed inside the body of the email.  All a prospective employer has to do these days is go into their mailing program, pull up the template they wish to use, and an automated mailer can do the rest.

Which makes me wonder one thing and one thing only!…

 Who fires the automated mailers?

Please note that most Human Resources personnel look like this. 

No one likes to fire people.  I never liked letting go volunteers at my last job and at ILL I always felt awkard having to give So as we rely more and more upon  automation to hire and fire people, how necessary will the human process be in future interviews?  Most online applications already give you a psych evaluation and ask you the standard questions they would ask you in an interview.

1.  You notice your drawer is short on money and you have run the receipts twice.  What do you do?
A.  Repeat the process of closing out the register, document your findings, and notify your supervisor
B.  Make up the difference in lost money so it doesn’t look like anything is missing
C.  Do nothing, cause Lost is on!
D.  Swap receipts with the register next to yours and hope that asshole of a coworker gets let go.

Fun fact!  One of those options is correct, but one of them is more fun.

The internet also allows for employers to do more research on potential applicants.  Employers can Google an applicant’s name and if you have a decent enough web presence you may appear!  Personal blogs full of insane rants may show up along with your Youtube lists, your Twitter account, and even your Facebook account may show up.  If you’re really lucky, the Agricultural Industrial job you just applied for may be very impressed with how well your Farmville account is doing!

(Side note:  If you found this website by Googling my name, please know I’m not saying anything bad about a fine person like you.  I’m talking about your competitors, who we all know suck shit.)

I think eventually employers will job hunt solely with automated programs.  By using your Linked In and Monster accounts, a semi aware program can scour the internet for potential candidates and can assemble a list of hundreds of potential candidates in seconds.  These robots, and I call them robots because sentient AI programs make them sound homicidal, will become invaluable as they can cut through the riff raft of the internet and find that special person for the job in mind.  Will a robot take an interest in me? How can I prove my worth to these robot overlords?  I’m the sort of person that thinks chrome and bronze can go with ANYTHING, so please keep this in mind!

Can we reverse this process?  I want to know if in the future a little pop up will appear on a potential employer’s screen which will offer interesting tidbits about me.  Like that paperclip from Microsoft Word, it would be a cute and fun way to express yourself to employers.  You would just have to take care when selecting your pop up so that you don’t shoot yourself in the leg in this virtual interview.  If you are working for the Center for Disease Control, Nalpex the Nurgling would probably not go over well.

But he’s just darling!!!

As cool as this future sounds my heart is filled with sadness.  It’s not because I worry that my robot overlords will frown on my performance and not pick me.  I’m also not upset by the fear of being unnoticed in a crowd during this time of massive unemployment and a surplus of workers.  I’m instead filled with another fear, one that I just don’t think people will get. 

What do we do for robots who were rejected by other robots?  When the probability of you being selected for a job is configured in small bits of binary code, what do we do with these overqualified pieces of PERL?

At least they’ll always have a job screwing up my bank account!

Oh, and just one more random thought that occured while I was hanging out with Dereke today.  We pride ourselves on being a capitalist society, right?  We beat those filthy communists and America has come into ascension as the number one country on the planet.  China, for as much as everyone says they will be the next big super power, still lags behind us in so many ways and it will take them a while before they knock us out of the top spot.

So if we’re such immaculate capitalists and our philosophy is superior, why are we so angry with banks for receiving bail outs?  They negotiated a business loan with our government.  Investors stole our money, but isn’t that the risk of high enterprise?  You invested your money in the market and it was the will of the market that took it?  Bad business decisions take place in financing all the time. National Health insurance will hurt people by interfering with their personal health care plans, but doesn’t the US give out federal health insurance to it’s employees and what about Social Security, Medicare, and Tax Breaks?

This is a picture of the Socialized Sentinel that will be sent to homes to enforce the Death Panels.  I’m just kidding, one of these things doesn’t exist.  (It’s  not the robot!)

I know there is a lot I don’t get but when I hear people say “No government in our health care!” or “Filthy liberals just want to take our hard earned money” it hurts.  I don’t mean emotionally, I mean it hurts my head. I can’t seem to understand why if we’re so proud of being capitalist then why are we angry with the things that make us capitalist? 

I’m fortunate that I don’t drink to forget the worries of the world, but there are times when I wish I could disappear into my dreams where I don’t have to deal with confusing political rants and obnoxious hypocrites.

 IN OTHER NEWS

Chuck Wendig talks about trolls on the internet and how people should contribute more to conversations rather than just diss them. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/03/04/this-is-the-conversation/

David Hill has announced a new project which has some familiar faces and he also talks about Mass Effect 2!
http://machineageproductions.com/?p=230
http://machineiv.livejournal.com/62672.html