Everyday Stupidities

The weather in the Puget Sound area has been abnormal lately. I've already told you about trees going down and lights going out from wind, which is something that usually happens once every few years -- the previous major storm everyone here speaks of was on President Clinton's second inauguration day, so most Seattle-area folks missed seeing the ceremony on TV. Well, we have had two big (but not as big) windstorms since the major one, and two days ago we received an inch or two of snow followed by sub-freezing temperatures since then so stuff isn't melting very fast. We've also had a lot of rain and subsequent flooding. The snow is common in many areas, including where I grew up (I stood at the back door watching it because it's been awhile since I've seen an honest snowfall), but here? We're not prepared. In Yakima County there'd be no school closures for that small amount of snow and the week of ice and slush that follow; here, most stuff just stops for a day or two. The flooding we had in my neighborhood subsided right before the snow, though I have one neighbor right on Clover Creek who gets a swimming pool for a backyard every year. This all is what most people here consider a big ol' stupidity, the weather.

I'm still not employed and haven't had any nibbles lately, which leads to the stupidity anecdote in the next paragraph. I however have been quite busy with stuff around the house, some of which is worthwhile, so I feel fairly good. I've put away all the Christmas stuff, which if you know my household is a major undertaking, and this time it includes the two boxes of stuff in my office which have been accrued over the previous year (or didn't get put away last year!). You've already seen my new gutters. I've had some digital photos printed and have been framing them. (No word from the art place about the framer job, by the way.) Paige bought three little cans of paint -- "smoke screen", "orchid blossom", and "faint flicker" -- and splotched sample stripes in various places in the livingroom and hallway to see what we think of them, so I take this to mean that we shall be painting those two spaces in the near future since she's not one to leave light grey, dark grey, and light lavender shmeres blatently on the sickly-yellow walls for very long. (The "orchid blossom" was my choice, and she thinks it'd be better for our yellow-on-yellow kitchen. I think "smoke screen" is too dark for a livingroom but she disagrees.) I have taken pictures of the samples but won't post here until I've made sure the colors onscreen are correct. I've done other fun home improvement project and craft stuff around the house too which vaporizes from my head when I sit at the computer.

I applied for this job in November with a local company that fights phishing (and charges business clients whose good domain names are being sullied by phishers a pretty penny to shut the bastards down) but heard nothing more. The job is still open, and one of the employment sites sent me notice of this so I applied again. Let me interject something here: The sites send a digital copy of your résumé to the prospective employers with a few bonus tidbits, including a "Career Objectives" line (which I think is stupid), and mine says that I want to work with computers and would prefer to be behind the scenes helping coworkers and systems rather than in a customer-facing capacity. I boldface the word "prefer" here for a reason (it's plain on what's sent), because it's where I'd like to go. Back to the story: Half an hour later the antiphishing place's HR department replies:
Thanks for getting in touch with us about the position. It looks like you've got a lot of experience in entry level tech support, and are looking to move away from that altogether. Unfortunately, we don't have an opening that you're looking for right now. Providing a high level of quality customer support is a critical aspect of the job, among other things. I'm keeping your résumé on file in case we have an opening down the road that does not require some client interaction.
Ahem. I'm a pretty easygoing person, but I have not been so pissed about a brush-off given for ersatz reasons since my days in the dating pool. I spent 45 minutes regaining my bearings and debating whether I should respond, and if so how. I decided that I wanted to fight for this and came up with a business-friendly way of requesting they take a second look, which included saying that every business must be entered from the ground floor, while my eventual goal is to get off the phones my experience is being on them, and "if my qualifications meet your requirements then please advance me to the next stage of consideration; my experience and desire to learn are the criteria by which I want to be judged." I haven't heard anything further, but I feel better for not giving up so easily (and for such non-reasons).