Friday the 13th

What a horror this day has been so far!

A bit of a preface - in my ever-expanding search for employment, I have started looking at casting notices and trying to get auditions. After all, now's as good a time as any for that sort of thing! Earlier this week I received two emails from a particular theater company here in LA, inviting me to two separate auditions: one for a certain play, and one to become a general member of their company. Sweet!

Except that I didn't read them very carefully, and completely missed the audition for the play. Now, this wasn't as tragic as it could have been, since they said in the email that if I was unable to make the audition I could simply attend the call-backs on Saturday, but still. That's just bad business on my part.

So I started preparation for my general audition, which entailed learning a contemporary monologue. For someone like me who's more accustomed to learning Shakespeare, it didn't seem like it should be much of a problem. I flipped through a book of monologues, picked one that seemed funny and could show off my comedy chops, and got started trying to learn it and make a few acting choices.

And then I read the email again. After several hours of learning this comedy monologue, I realized that the monologue was supposed to be 2 minutes or less, and this one was closer to 4. Back to the drawing board!

I selected a different monologue, one that seemed dangerously familiar, and got to work on it. I say "dangerously familiar" because I had learned (and subsequently forgotten) it several years ago, but I was vaguely familiar enough with it that I didn't have the sense of urgency with regards to learning it - surely that level of comfort means I know it, right?

Wrong, but whatever. After some half-assed attempts, I actually did more or less know the thing, and thought I could make a good impression with it for my audition today.

Which brings us to Friday the 13th.

I woke up early this morning, figuring I should probably take a little extra time to get my head screwed on straight, get my voice all warmed up, and maybe run the monologue a few times before heading off to the 11:00 audition. I did all of the above the best that I could, and my head felt totally calm, although my stomach begged to differ. Either way, 10:30 rolled around and I headed out, determined to give it my best shot. I found the theater (which, much to my surprise, was located in a strip mall), parked, re-parked when I realized I was in the wrong part of the garage, and headed upstairs, taking deep breaths as I went. There were a few people milling about outside the theater, and two in the lobby, so I pulled the door open and bravely went inside.

"Can I help you?" one of them said, which was, coincidentally, a line right out of my monologue. And, just like the character in the monologue, I froze. Something in the way she said it meant I had absolutely no business there.

"Audition?" I managed to croak out.

The woman looked at me funny. "Here?" she asked?

I looked at the sign. Yes, this was the right place. "Yep. At least, I think so."

She called to someone inside. "Do you know anything about an audition?"

The other woman came out to the lobby. "For...?"

"Uh, the company?" I said, really hoping I would spontaneously combust.

"Oh," the woman said, finally clear, "that's at 12:45!"

I was mortified. "Oh! Oh, um, sorry! Guess I'll -" and I practically ran out the door. When I got home, still mortified, and checked the email for the third time, I realized that the woman was absolutely correct, and that I'd mixed up the time for the Saturday call-back with today's audition. And did I regroup, get myself together, and go back? No, I did not. I thought about it, I considered it long and hard, and at one point I thought I absolutely would, but in the end I realized that if I'm having this many issues with getting the simplest thing right today, I probably shouldn't go and try to make a good first (give or take) impression on this company. It can only end in tears.
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The Game

The game is played thusly: my staffing/temp agency calls me just before my alarm is set to go off, and to win, I must either answer or call them back before they get someone else to do the temp assignment. Now, because I am a fairly light sleeper and live down the block from a very conscientious fire station, I sleep with ear plugs in, and as these ear plugs by necessity must be so strong that they prevent me from hearing screaming sirens, they also completely obliterate the noise of a cell phone ringing. The second hurdle is that I am (I've been told by roommates) completely incomprehensible when I first wake up, so returning the call immediately is not a good or productive idea. Left alone, I can sound relatively normal in 20 minutes, but with some serious voice exercises I can get that time down to 5 minutes. At the same time across town, the temp agency is furiously working to get someone else into that temp job before I can call back.

So far this week, they have two points, and I have zero.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be prepared and get up even earlier than today. That'll pretty much guarantee that they won't call, but I think if I lose any more points they'll take me off the books.
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Dispatches from the Ether

I apply to many, many jobs per week, and the vast majority are through the corporate websites of the major Hollywood studios. The response rate for all of these attempts to rejoin the productive sector of society? Zero.

Until today.

Today I was absolutely baffled to receive a response for a job I applied to on Tuesday. You mean putting my work experience and full contact information into an online form sometimes actually causes something else to happen?? WHAAA?

In any case, I the email I received was as follows:

Hello,

This email is to notify you that your resume has been received and is under review. If the manager has an interest in scheduling an interview you will be contacted from someone on the team within the next several weeks. In the event you are not contacted for this position please don't get discouraged as we will hold on to your information for future requirements.

Sincerely,

If you're wondering, I did not redact the name - the email was exactly that sincere. We shall see, we shall see. Obviously I'm hoping they do follow up, but given the past response rate, I refuse to get all worked up.
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New Zealand scares me

Following close on the heels of yesterday's mysterious job title posting, we have this one, care of New Zealand's official government list of highly-skilled immigrants currently needed:

Agricultural and Horticultural Mobile Plant Operator

They have plants that move?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
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Ah, January

After the December lull in job listings, the January deluge has finally arrived. For weeks, there were only a few new listings each day on my favorite websites, but at long last we're back up to dozens. Granted, most of them are crap, but it's still encouraging to see so many vacancies, especially when Brian Williams tells us every night that those with jobs had better hold on for dear life, and the rest of us are just screwed. I even had an interview today! It went well, which was encouraging, but even more encouraging was the fact that it had happened at all. I'm not going to lie - it was nice to feel (and truly believe) that I was marketable once again.

But I'm not one to count chickens. While I wait for word from them, I'm back to the job boards. My favorite incomprehensible listing for the day is this:
Director of Partner(relation)ships [Advertising Sales]

I wish I knew what that meant. Or maybe not - the Mystery of the Over-abundant Punctuation is delicious. I've certainly never had a job title that included both parentheses and brackets, nor have I ever had a title that included an optional infix (the bastard half-brother of the suffix and prefix). Nonetheless, if you can explain what that title means, please, do share.
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Job Interview Tips

When that next interview comes along, here's a rough outline of how to nail that sucker and get the job!



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I found someone who's hiring

Hey Eliza, ever considered government work?

Wanted: 850 new FBI agents
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Update: Never mind.

Turns out that the #1 priority for recruiters this Monday morning is NOT actually recruiting new employees. Maybe they're still hungover. I don't know, and I'm not judging. I guess I'll have to go do something else that's productive for a few hours, like re-dying my hair.
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Count to 10 and begin again

It's Monday (almost) morning again, which means it's time to search the new listings. One of the few great things about not having a job is that you really don't have to get out of bed on Monday morning, and in fact, there would be little point to doing so. No one calls you to follow up about applications at this point in the week, and the first new job listings of the week are rarely posted online before midday. To all of this, I raise my coffee mug and say "Cheers!"
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