These are fast food places, they dont do background checks. Well, McDonalds sometimes does, and I came up clean.
Interview tomorrow at a coffee place.
OK, a minor rant. I’ve now checked out my current haul of Amazon goodies and the only small disappointment is the cheap “Amazon basics” keyboard. It’s about the same price as the ubiquitous Microsoft model 600 keyboard, but the latter is a much better keyboard except for the fact that the key labels wear off within a few months, which is the only reason I replaced it. This is the second one I’ve worn out. As a touch-typist this doesn’t bother me all that much but sometimes when not actually touch-typing I need to look for a specific single letter and it’s a PITA when you can’t see the letters.
But the Microsoft model has regular keys as opposed to Amazon’s chiclet keys, the contour is ergonomically sculpted in a sort of “U” profile front to back, and in addition, the flip-out risers at the back raise the back higher than the Amazon keyboard’s fixed riser. I’m typing on the Amazon one now and I guess it’s OK but the old one had a much better overall feel to it. We’ll see if I get used to it, or else I’ll probably drop into a local computer store and audition some better keyboards. But if the key labels wear out on this one, too, it’s going straight in the garbage. And if I ever decide to venture forth on that best-selling novel that I know I have somewhere in me, I’ll definitely opt for a better keyboard!
I think the real rant here is that it’s almost impossible to find a high quality ordinary keyboard. They’re either cheap and inadequate, or they’re loaded with useless features like keys that light up in 256 different colours and perform magic tricks while humming the tune from The Wizard of Oz.
Best of luck. It’s a tough trying to chase down a job. The advice that someone gave not to take rejection personally is very good advice. It’s good advice whether someone is engaged in public speaking or being interviewed or any number of other myriad human interactions; one always tends to think “what did they think of me?”, and the best usual answer is “They didn’t. They were too busy wrapped up in their own problems to think anything.” You just gotta keep at it.
I’ve been on a lot of interview panels at my work in the last few years, so I’ve been on the other side of the hiring process. Now, we’re hiring for professional positions that need years of experience and training, not entry-level positions for a job that is mostly about labor and can train anything on the job, but I imagine it’s not going to be that different.
I concur with @wolfpup that you don’t usually think anything personal. Many times you have multiple people going for one position, and they’re all fine, but since you can only pick one you try to find something to make somebody stand out. You have to make a decision, you can’t just hire everyone that might be okay. It can be something they said in the interview that made them stand out, something on their resume, maybe one of them has a bit more experience, and so on.
Every now and then we get someone who clearly is not qualified at all, can’t give a good answer to any question, and is just a flat out no. But those are rare, and even then it isn’t personal. I’ve never conducted an interview and said, “That person is a jerk.”
Best of luck to @SuntanLotion and again, unless they give a clear indication at some point in the interview that they are offended or upset about something, this isn’t anything about you as a person. In all likelihood they just don’t have enough spots to hire everyone who is qualified and you just got the short straw.
Funny, I was going to suggest to buy a lighted keyboard. The letters on each key are clear I suppose, and you can’t rub off the light coming from behind them.
I have worn of the home key little numbins. I small dollop of finger nail polish fixes that right up. I had to go buy finger nail polish, my wife doesn’t use any.
I have a great mechanical keyboard with lit keys, great feedback, feels wonderful to type on. I grew up using computers in the 80s and these super-clicky keys are what I am used to. I just don’t like typing on marshmallows like most modern keyboards.
But it was $40. It’s not an extremely expensive keyboard but wasn’t a cheap one.
After 5 years of constant use, it’s still as good as new.
Looking on Amazon, it’s no longer being sold.
My plumber has ghosted me. I get it, he doesn’t want to take all this on, but at least be professional about it and just tell me no. A friend came over this afternoon and helped me get some stuff out of the attic so I could get a better look at things. And it’s not good. The floored area available is too small. And I realized that the new heater will not only need new water, electric and gas lines but that it will have to be vented through the roof. This is going to be a major project.
I’m trying not to freak out. I’m good at project management. My friend suggested the company that replaced his boiler so I have a call in to them. But I’ve solicited other names from my friends on Facebook. This calls for multiple estimates from companies that can refer me to other contractors I’ll need to get everything done. I don’t even want to think about how much this is going to cost. Especially after spending almost $1000 on the A/C yesterday. I better move some more money into the checking account.
Me too, from the 80’s those old IBM keyboards would make a good weapon in a pinch.
I’ve walked out on a few jobs without notice. I’m not proud of it. They were all shitty situations that didn’t play well with my mental health, to the point where I felt like I was either going to kill myself or leave the job. I did at least send an email, though, usually stating a mental health emergency, which is precisely what it was. (My mental health used to be much worse.)
It’s really weird throughout my history, I’ve either extremely excelled at jobs or completely fucking botched them. I think it’s at least partly attributable to what was at the time undiagnosed ADHD. I could not force myself to do a job I hated, and I was emotionally hijacked by micromanaging, undermining or outright abusive bosses. As soon as it became apparent I was on someone’s shit list, I’d bail.
My current job I’ve held for eight years and done an exceptional job, so I put up with some stress because it’s not always easy for me to find work that suits me. This job works because I can usually work around bad mental health days, I don’t usually have to be at a certain place at a certain time every day, hell, I can leave at 3pm and nobody cares. I don’t usually have to put in a ton of hours but I always meet my deadlines, I get the shit done, I bring in the money and that’s what matters (and I should add that there are times I have to drop everything and work like hell, it’s just not every day.)
I think I am a good example of how you can really contribute to a job but also have a disability with real limitations, and the magic key is an agency willing to work within those limitations. There are a lot of people out there who can’t work full time 9-5 jobs but they can work part time, or more flexible hours, and excel at their work.
It’s a tragedy to me that in order to be eligible for any disability assistance in the US you have to be unable to work at all. It unnecessarily cuts people off from their full potential and removes opportunities for them to feel like they are contributing to their community.
Never kill yourself. The other person is the problem. Kill them.
(Not a serious post. Please don’t kill anybody. Especially yourself.)
Heh, thanks. I’m a lot more mentally stable now.
In fact there have been some crazy things going down at work that might have overwhelmed past me, but current me is like, “Whatever.” I’ve seen it all.
So would this thing, the whole frame is metal, really the only external bits that are plastic are the keys. Well, the bottom of it is too. But I would not want to be hit by this, especially on the edge, it would probably make a nasty gash.
I love this thing.
Today’s rant is voicemail assistants. In a chirpy voice: “I can answer a lot of questions! But our website has all the information you need!”
NO IT FUCKING DOESN’T. And going around in circles with you, who are not programmed to handle the question either, is raising my blood pressure and having no effect on your programming.
I realize that many people are stupid and / or ask obvious questions whose answers are easily located, but sometimes, one needs an answer that the people behind the website and voicemail tree haven’t thought of.
I would leave my audio and video on mute / black unless I was talking. The idea that anyone could see me, or expect to see me, unless I had the floor makes zero sense to me.
I do videoconferences all the time. I just spent most of the day today in them.
It depends on the purpose of the conference. Most of the time we’re just talking, disseminating information, soliciting opinions, trying to make a decision, etc. In those meetings nobody uses a camera, we are sometimes looking at a web site or document, and just talking.
If there’s a training going on, sometimes the trainer will have the camera on and everyone else has theirs off. That way the trainer can demonstrate something, gesture with their hands, you can understand them better by reading their expression, etc.
In other meetings, we try to make it feel like we’re all there, so we all have cameras on. That doesn’t happen often. But it happens. In that case generally you are on mute unless you have to talk.
So again, for me it varies. But most of the time cameras are off. For one thing, video has a lot of bandwidth, so if people keep their cameras off the meeting goes more smoothly.
I do video meetings a couple times a month. The small meetings, 4 of us, the other members of the team go to a ‘meeting table’ and plop a laptop down. So, I see whoever happens to be in front of the laptop. I’m full time work from home. They can go to work or work from home. Some of them have kids and prefer to go to the office 
Or they just don’t have any proper space at home.
I would prefer if they all just got cameras and a headset/mic for their workstations and skip the ‘meeting table’ laptop speakers and microphones suck. That’s really my problem though. Any meetings are rough for me. My hearing is only at about 50%
I also work with technicians that could be anywhere in the world. They are often in crowded environments and have VERY heavy accents. That’s a bit of a problem for me.
My gf works from home (one bright side of COVID). She dresses and does her hair and makeup every morning even if she has no meetings scheduled that day. I’ve asked her about this, and she does it just in case a meeting is called.
Yeah. I work from home now. My job is very casual at the workplace, jeans tee-shirts, whatever as long as you don’t look like you woke up in the gutter. But I must get dressed every day. Not because of meetings, but because I just don’t feel right if I don’t.
If I don’t take a shower first thing in the morning like I always have, it just screws up my day.
On the days I work from home, I may or may not take a shower, but I’ll take a “spit bath” as my mama called it, where I wash my bits and pits, and apply deodorant and baby powder. I dress in a t-shirt and men’s boxers. When it’s time for our daily meeting, I’ll put on a bra. When the meeting’s over, off with the bra! Sometime during the pandemic, I quit wearing makeup, and I don’t put it on anymore, ever.
I wish I could work from home every day. 
Bras are the worst.
Agreed. Ive taken to wearing these little tanks instead of a bra cause of the liklihood of a rash.