liar, liar, pants on fire

new site you'll want to check out: careerexcuses.com

career excuses is a company (devoid of ethics) that will hook you up with a slew of fake - yet verifiable by an actual lying human - career references.

so basically you create a fake job history and pay this company to have your back in case someone checks your story out.

use it at your own risk and know that any decent recruiter can tell when you are lying. we are good at that.

something else to consider - the genius that hosts this site states, "a resume is not a legal document." yeah - duh. however...

at some point you will have to fill out a real job application - typically this is part of the online profile you are creating... you'll generally see a fairly standard statement when you submit your interest for a position:

I certify that all information I have provided in order to apply for and secure work is true, complete and correct. I understand that my application can be rejected, or I can be fired, if any information I have given here is false or misleading.

so while your resume can say you are a rocket scientist - your application is a bit more of a legal document. those two things - the resume and application - they need to match up. recruiters are not idiots. people that run scam websites - people that encourage and support dishonesty - yes - they are pathetic idiots.

just something to consider in your decision to spend money on a creep grifter's website that is using the current employment rate to scam people out of their cash by encouraging them to toss their personal ethics into the toilet and lie to get a job.

lying - whether in your personal life - or on your resume - is a pathetic attempt to be in control, to more than you are or to keep people at a distance because you fear they wouldn't like you just as you are.

none of those things make you awesome.

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straight out of mom's basement.

please do not list online gaming on your resume as an actual marketable job qualification.

no matter what level you have achieved in everquest - and trust that i have high amounts of respect for that game - it is never appropriate to include that information on your resume.

no amount of tap dancing or spin is going to make that sound the same as "developing corporate strategy."

also - if you spent the past five years of your life playing online poker - don't get on the phone with the recruiter and try to convince her that it is exactly the same as investment banking. just save it, ok?

i am really good at looking at resumes and disseminating the value of transferable skill sets - and your cross-over skills can be valid in some situations. sometimes i can make it work and get you an interview with a hiring manager.

but sometimes...not so much.

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through the eyes of a quite small person

a few months ago, i had a friend visiting from out of town and as i was trying to give him a nice tour of our city i was growing increasingly frustrated by a small 2nd-grader that kept interrupting me every three seconds to say things like, "one time my friend paige went all they way to six on the monkey bars," or "mom, do you have any more gum if i just swallowed mine?"

in a desperate attempt to silence her incessant chatter, i handed my daughter my digital camera and told her to pretend she was a spy.

it worked like magic and kept her occupied - sedate and stealth-like for the rest of the afternoon. from time to time we gave her a little bit of a crazy storyline to investigate and she really got into it. as a bonus, i was able to string a couple of coherent sentences together.

i had completely forgotten that those pictures were still on my camera until this morning when i finally started uploading some stuff to print. wow- looking up at downtown kansas city from the perspective of a kid - is slightly amazing.

i edited the raw images - cropped them to print at 12 x 12 inches and later today i am putting them into black record album frames. i'm going to hang her best photos as a set of six. i predict interior design fabulous-ness.

this is going to be some completely cheap (and meaningful) artwork. if i'm feeling generous, i may post a photo of the finished project. dang - i'm like the aldi's version of martha stewart over here...i should probably save this idea for my book. next project - the toilet flapper thing that i am getting sick of having to jack with every single time someone flushes.

give your kid a camera - you might get some gems like this one...

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it is getting harder to pretend i am immortal

it is official - i have the flu and i tested positive for strep. very dramatic blog post opening sentence, right?

i haven't been sick in years - not this kind of sick. this kind of sick involves a $50 urgent care copay and an invasive cotton swab test.

i'm so budget-minded (cheap) that i was kind of glad when they diagnosed me with something decent enough to garner both antibiotics and a little foil-packet of steroids. i would have been really irritated to spend that kind of money and have the doctor just call it a virus. so - my $50 got me 3 kinds of medicine - including 20 prescription strength painkillers. go figure on the painkillers. who gets vicoden for a sore throat?

i broke down and went to the doctor because about 5 years ago i heard about this woman that died because she coughed so hard that it supposedly knocked her heart out of rhythm. how scary is it that COUGHING could actually throw off the beating heart? obviously, that may be an urban legend - but still, kinda scary.

ok - and just to be real honest - i was coughing so hard that i almost peed my pants. (after sentences like that it is hard to imagine why i still remain un-re-married, right?) one of my ultimate fears is that someday i might lose control of my ability to "hold it," so the urgent care copay seemed like money well spent.

"i have a fever, i have a sore throat, my head hurts. i am coughing so hard my stomach hurts and i am worried i'll pee my pants." this is what i told the person at the nurses' station. then i proceeded to wait 3 1/2 hours to see a doctor for 5 minutes.

the waiting room part was more awful than sitting at home worrying about my heartbeat. i sat next to a woman that was hallucinating. generously, she was telling me about her hallucinations as they occurred so i could repeatedly say, "but, really, you know that is not real, right? look at me - i am real, this magazine is real, this phone is for real. drink water, it is real."

i thought about getting up and moving to another waiting room seat, but then i felt bad - because, how awful must it be to hallucinate and then have this one person you might think is real get up and leave you all alone.

and so, as with many other times in my life, my guilt kept me there - talking realness to a person that was not listening to me. (in case you missed it, that was a rather deep sentence that once again proves i learn more about myself through the process of blogging than i ever provide in the way of snappy career advice for job-seekers.)

ANYWAY - if you don't think you are crazy now, sit down and talk to a crazy person for three hours when you are sick. i swear mental illness is a tiny bit contagious. you have to work extra hard to stay focused when you converse with crazy.

after getting my magic pieces of prescription tablet paper, just being able to walk out of that facility made me feel about 20 times better. delighted to learn that CVS has a drive thru pharmacy and i am so thankful for a sweet friend that brought me a giant bowl of sugar free grape jello.

at the time i clicked "publish post," my heart was still beating at a steady 75 beats per minute.

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