Safety first!

I resubmitted my resume to the online job banks today, lowering some numbers a bit and changing some wording. Oddly, I'm now getting responses that refer to me as an 'executive' when before I seemed to be destined to sell insurance. The whole thing makes me laugh a bit - how driven by efficiency we Americans are that we actually tend to bypass quality. The responses are clearly based on searches for a phrase that I magically managed to include. Now recruiters, having found my resume in one database, want me to add my name to theirs. But... haven't they already found my resume? Entering my information into databases could take months if I let it, but I just won't. Doesn't anyone actually look at things any more? Actually read them? I'm beginning to think not.

I took a day off from being unemployed (much less glam than it sounds and largely involving, um, databases) and went to a bookstore, for Mediterranean food and for coffee at my favorite coffeehouse anywhere (it was such an escape when I was a wee grrrl and always takes me back there). In any case, in my browsing I went to the business section and, again, was amazed by the lack of actual reality people produce. The books were largely based on marketing or managing... either a product or yourself as a product. It was dumbfounding. It may be possible that I am no longer fit for Western society. I want to start asking people what they do, but pressuring them until I get a real answer. I'm assuming this is not the best way to make friends and isn't included in the networking strategy books.

A family member was let go from her job - the only one she's ever had, and one that someone else got for her to boot. She's paranoid about it and what losses it might mean - primarily a loss of security. Perhaps I'm just so used to being knocked off track that it doesn't phase me any longer. I just remember entering each unexpected turn with fear in my eye, but coming out of it with a deep sigh of relief. It's frustrating to embrace change in a world constantly asking what effect my decisions (staying unemployed for a couple months, leaving Peace Corps, etc) will have in the long term. It just seems like they were decisions that needed to be made without knowing the absolute outcome... without controlling it and playing it safe. Safe enough to bore one to tears.

I remember first getting to Bulgaria and thinking about all the lack of rails and safety precautions - it was rather horrifying. Now, I look at all the American attempts to keep fear and danger and the unexpected at bay and am horrified. People protecting their children from any harm or real life experience whatsoever. 'My child won't struggle.' 'I don't want to have to worry about what will happen if I do/don't..." It seems like we are a nation paralyzed with fear. We distribute and market and criticize and drive ourselves mad with the pursuit of perfection, but miss the overall quality factor every time. Ever the eavesdropper, I heard two women having a fierce debate about the perfect... mascara. There are times I am glad a ballbat isn't nearby. I'd soon be writing this about prison life. But, well, at least that'd be better than selling insurance.