RESUME SPEED
An Original Short Story by Jonathan D. Scott
(Copyright 1999 Jonathan D. Scott)
I should have known all along. The amazing
thing is I was completely taken off guard even though all the
signs were there. Like take for instance, the big red sign on
the barbed wire fence beside the street leading to the plant
that said "No exit."
I'm what some so-called sophisticated people call superstitious.
I like to think of myself as sensitive. I believe that life is
like a good suspense book. I mean, there are all kinds of clues
to what's going to happen next. If you keep alert to the signs.
My friend Lenny doesn't believe in signs. I've told him one of
these days he's going to land in trouble if he doesn't watch
out. He's the one that gave me the phone number of this place
he said I could get a job. I'd been feeling so discouraged I
didn't think I could go through the whole thing again. But I
noticed that the last four digits of their phone number were
the same as my birthday. I thought it might be a sign.
"American Auto Options. Please hold." answered a lady's
voice. Then there was a loud click.
"What do you want?" the voice came back.
"I was calling to find out if you've got any openings."
"What the hell do you mean by that?" she snapped.
"Are you looking to hire anybody?" I said, trying to
be more specific.
"No," she said.
"My friend Lenny DeAngelo said he thought you might need
somebody.
"Who?"
"Leonard DeAngelo."
"Hold on." Then the click, then and something that
sounded like Sinatra singing from the bottom of a well. Just
as he was explaining how he had gotten through life doing things
his way, the voice came back.
"Mr. Martelli says for you to come in Thursday at eleven.
And he says to bring your résumé." Then the
click, then silence.
Well, that was a hang-up. In more ways than one.
I had gotten through life pretty well up to that point without
ever needing a résumé. You see, I've never been
the kind of person to follow a straight and narrow path through
life. Not that I've ever been crooked, at least not intentionally.
It's just that my life isn't linear. When it comes to doing one
thing and then another I've always been more...well, holistic.
That's really a good word for it because my life story is kind
of holistic, in that it has quite a number of holes.
The kind of holes I'm talking about are like the time I took
that drive-away car out to New Mexico and hung out there for
the rest of the winter. Or when I spent three months working
on balloon art.
So there I was needing to put my whole life down neatly in typewriting
by Thursday at eleven. I didn't have either a typewriter or a
clue where to begin and so I asked Lenny for some help.
Lenny is a wealth of information on a lot of things. He says
it's because of his education. But most of the things he knows
they don't teach you in school.
The first and most important rule Lenny told me in writing a
resume is to never be specific. Like, for example, never put
down the exact dates when you started and left a job. For an
example don't do this:
Abrasive Products Company: June 6, 1988- June 24, 1988
Responsibilities: Stood
between two jerks on an assembly line, tossing out broken parts,
licking gummy labels and trying to look busy so as not to be
given something else to do.
Obviously that's no good at all. Lenny says the key is to be
as general as possible. Like this:
Abrasive Products Company:
Late 1980's
Responsibilities: Research and marketing.
Lenny says "research" has a nice, scientific ring to it and everyone who's been through high school can say he's done "research." "Marketing ," he says, is a great thing to put down because nobody's really sure what it is.
Like take my last job. No, actually my next to last job if you
count the car delivery thing, which as I've told everybody, I'd
just as soon not even mention. When I first saw the ad in the
paper for Furst Quality Parts Company, and realized that it was
not only Sunday, the first day of the week, but it was also the
first day of the month, I thought for sure it was a good sign,
even though I don't ordinarily take much stock in homonyms.
I was the first person to call in for the job, the first person
to fill out an application and, in what I thought was the first
string of good luck I had had in while, I got the job.
It wasn't too hard. Most of my time was spent answering the "order"
line, then trying five or six times to get the stock number of
whatever the person wanted to come up on the computer, putting
the receiver down next to the radio and going back to check the
inventory in the stock room.
Sometimes five, sometimes ten minutes later I would come back
and if the customer was still on the line, I would say something
like, "We only have twenty 0-300 double A's and thirty of
the 0-400 B's, but only the flat kind." Lenny said I should
list it as a "research and marketing" position.
It was a good job, and I'd probably still be there if it weren't
for Mr. Furst. He called me into his office on the first morning
and told me, "Whatever Mr. Furst tells you to do, just ignore
it." That had me completely baffled. Then I thought maybe
it was some kind of Zen paradox thing he was doing. Finally I
caught on that there were two Mr. Fursts, referred to around
the office as the first Mr. Furst and the second Mr. Furst.
I didn't meet the second Mr. Furst until I had worked there a
few weeks. He started calling me into his office every morning
to ask me what people in the office thought about him and always
said, "Don't tell Mr. Furst that I've called you in here."
One day after I got back from lunch there were two notes on my
desk. One read "Come to my office immediately," and
the other one "Leave Mr. Furst alone." I decided the
best thing to do was to take the afternoon off. The next morning
there were two envelopes with pink slips inside, each signed
by a different Mr. Furst.
Which brings me to another important feature in résumé
writing. Never, ever list a reason for leaving. No one in his
right mind would ever give an honest reason. If you try to give
one you've pegged yourself as a liar right off the bat. Lenny
said that if I ever have to fill out something like that on an
application I should either leave it blank or put "decided
to seek employment better suited to my capabilities."
Now "Capabilities" is vague enough to be okay according
to Lenny, but never get that confused with "Career Goals,"
something a lot of people do. Some people make the mistake of
putting in their résumés something like:
Career Goals: "I am looking for a position of advancement in the Such- and-such field."
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You'd never get the job because they
are probably hiring you to be a flunky and a flunky is what they
want. The boss already has the best job. And he isn't going to
give it to you. You don't have to have an MBA to figure out that
when you apply for a job, the people that work there already
have first dibs on the stuff everyone likes to do. They're only
looking to hire somebody who will do the rest.
Now with all this you're probably wondering why I would ever
want a job at all. The thing is, as everyone knows, if there's
anything worse than a bad job it's no job at all. And the worst
thing about not having a job is having to look for a job. And
the best reason to get a job is so you can stop having to look
for a job.
