To various people, institutions and rodents in my life

Dear rat: As much as I think rats are pretty damn disgusting, I could have co-existed with you if you hadn’t decided to take up residence in the roof directly above the bedroom. What are you doing up there that creates that volume and extent of noise at 3am? Last night, I had a brief moment when I thought I was hearing you writhe in your death throes before I realised it was actually the sound of you dragging the pack of rat poison we had put up there away from your nest. How clever you are, but you must die, graduate of Nimh or not.

Dear agent: ‘An interesting read?’ ‘Please be sure to keep sending your work to other agents and publishers?’ Please stick your patronising form letter platitudes back where you pulled them from.

Dear current employer: I have a Bachelor of Science with honours. I’ve been working here for nearly four years. For the love of all that’s holy, I can do more than make pretty powerpoint presentations and format tables. Just because I’m good with software doesn’t mean that’s all I should get to do. You know I’m capable of more. You pay me to do more. I used to get to do more. About three times a year, you in fact ask me to do more, before relegating me back to this soul-destroying robot work. I must be the only person in the world who is underworked and overpaid, and doesn’t like it.

Dear other employers: When you say you’ll let me know the outcome of the interview selection process by a certain day, it would be nice if you actually did that. Not even a phone call. Just a letter. Or an email. Would an email kill you? Apparently. Oh, and to those who don’t even give me an interview – I and obviously many other people bothered to respond to your ad. An email, just an email, to say the position has been filled. It is just good manners.

Dear Saturday lotto: Why haven’t I won yet? Why must you torment me so? Why? Why do old people keep winning? They’ve already retired. THEY DON”T NEED IT ANYMORE. Stupid lotto.

Sigh. And on with the day.

Good rant. But it probably belongs in the BBQ Pit rather than MPSIMS. You might want to ask a moderator to move it there.

One of my major peeves – and that’s not a strong enough word – is prospective employers who say they will get back to you by a certain date, then don’t. I’ve never figured out the thinking behind that. Is it a ploy to make you more desperate? Are they waiting, for whatever reason, to see if you’ll call them first? Or are they just negligent? And doesn’t it reflect badly on them as managers that they can’t stick to a timetable? I’ve been there too many times to count, and it seems that an awful lot of prespective employers do this. It almost seems calculated to get you off on the wrong foot if they do accept you.

Ah, I figured no swearing meant no pit. I’ll just let it die, thanks.

Huh, I thought the usual rant was overworked and underpaid.

Scorpio, want to trade jobs? That way we can both get what we want! :wink: