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"I want, like,  a job"

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We have now entered the Dark Ages for my kind and me. The time when the world as we know it has ceased to exist and all the rules aren’t in place anymore. Members of my tribe are throwing themselves off skyscrapers and buying rat poison and trying to remember how to extinguish the pilot light in their ovens. The dark times the prophets have foretold are here and we are doomed.

What dark times, you ask. The time has now come, after centuries of the status quo, where job hunters have the upper hand. Anyone with a pulse can get a job and I am powerless to stop him or her. Hi, my name’s Joe and I’m a recruiter.

This job used to be fun because I could play God and actually determine whether the pitiful fool in front of me could even get considered for a position in our grand and glorious kingdom. Now, I accept résumés written in crayon on a Post-it note. I am powerless to stop it and damn glad to be allowed to keep my impotent role in the great corporate machine. I have been neutered.

Back in the day, I could make grown men grovel and cry, and young maidens dance and flirt and bow before me in low cut blouses (unfortunately never more than that, but that’s a story for another day). I could stare deep into their souls and rip them out (the souls that is). Then the economy turned and all hell broke loose. No longer could I reject the fellow with the bad breath, the woman with the smudged glasses or the twins who kept mispronouncing my company’s name (and mine). People sent me résumés 15 minutes after they took new positions and I was glad to get them. Men came to see me wearing sandals and black socks and we were overjoyed.

We now spend millions of dollars on ads and web sites and annoying banners, and are inundated by e-mails from India and Iraq and Zambia, all asking for jobs paying in "the US hundreds thousands range of remuneration (plus monsoon season off)" and wanting to know if we will sponsor their livestock for Green Cards. Ah, for a goateed slacker with an attitude and bongo drums…

What this nation needs is a good wave of downsizing to make everyone appreciate work. "Sorry we don’t have a cappuccino machine or an oxygen bar. Sorry, you do have to wear shoes at work. Really, you are required to show up within the same week you’re scheduled to work. Back to your cubicle, man. Stop that crying right now."

Well, I can always hope….

Write Joe at: joseph.goss@sap-ag.de