If you think about it, it's really true. The process of applying, interviewing, and accepting or rejecting a job is eerily similar to dating. First, I will explain the similarities, then I will support them with my recent experience (in the job search, not dating).
Applying
Most people looking for a job, at least one worth pursuing, need to apply formally usually by filling out a form provided by the employer. The application includes things like marital status, education history, transcripts, work history, and some sort of personal statement depending on the field of employment.
It's not a huge jump to draw some parallels to dating. If you're being setup you can almost hear the conversation with your friend evaluating the unwritten application for your company "What does he do for a living? How long have you known him? What was his last relationship like? He better not be married!"
Interviewing
If the employer thinks you're worth hiring they'll invite you to a formal interview. These can often be intimate meetings with one or two individuals asking fiercely personal questions about your life philosophy in some attempt to assertain your competency, as if an hour long meeting can really tell you much no matter what the questions. At the end of the interview the employer will either offer you a position or invite you to another interview for further interrogation.
For dating, if you're courageous enough to approach a complete stranger, the application is the interview. This time you're applying for the privilege to buy her a drink or share her table. In a second she sizes up your clothes, demeanor, looks, fertility, agenda, estimated net worth and future earning potential. It's true! If she doesn't blow you off, you're in! You got the interview and the ensuing conversation decides whether you get to the next interview...the next date.
The same applies to the blind date situation except the application process takes place before the interview and the employer feels compelled to see the interview through to its completion for no other reason than to be respectful to the reference (in other words, the mutual friend that set you up). At the end of the first date she decides if you get another date or not.
The Offer
When you're offered a position the balance of power changes slightly. The employer presents a contract or formal offer indicating an acceptance of your potential and expresses a desire to continue the relationship. Of course, accepting the position is easy you feel the employer offers a valuable opportunity, or if you've been out of work for a while, just a paycheck. Everyone goes away smiles and you continue employment until such time as one party is unsatisfied with the arranged situation.
Though the process to this point clearly advantages the employer, the interviewee is also evaluating the employer. If, during the process, you feel the employer is impolite, excessively critical, or does not offer the compensation package you anticipated you may reject the offer. Given the face-to-face nature of the interview, this can be awkward. If you express reluctance in accepting the position on the spot, or if you're sure the job isn't a good fit and you refuse immediately following the interview, the employer will most likely not be pleased and perhaps get angry or hurt you felt the position was not good enough for you or worth your time and effort to further your career.
Again, this situation is familiar to those not far removed from the dating scene. You meet a blind date or pick up a girl at a coffee shop, convince her to go out with you, and at the end of the night you realize you have made perhaps the worst choice in human history. She casually refers to her seemingly endless string of militantly jealous, felonious boyfriends recently released from the state's accommodations, her recent crusade to end the exploitation of workers for a company whose jeans she is wearing, and her theories on why Einstein was smart but not cute enough to be important. No matter how bad it goes it's always uncomfortable to communicate you have no inclination to see this person...ever. So you say "Oh yeah, I'll give you a call." I'll get right on that.
4.06.2006
Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
-Robert Frost
This is by far my favorite Frost poem. We stumble through life rebuilding walls. You try to tear down the walls but they get built back up. Everytime a bit higher, the stones get bigger, heavier.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
-Robert Frost
This is by far my favorite Frost poem. We stumble through life rebuilding walls. You try to tear down the walls but they get built back up. Everytime a bit higher, the stones get bigger, heavier.
Honesty the best policy?
Well it worked for the president didn't it? Maybe I don't mean honesty, perhaps sincerity is more appropriate. Honesty is saying what you believe to be true while sincerity is communicating not only what you believe to be true but that you actually believe it to be true.
It's kind of an ongoing theme with me and school but it applied yesterday too during my interviews. As far as school goes, speaking my mind has always been a problem, especially in high school. Not only could I not keep my mouth shut but I also was not careful about how I phrased things. It definitely hurt me. I had not one but two teachers stand up in Honors Society meetings to explicitly state I should not be a member because of my behavior. I didn't get in. Not a big deal actually but indicative of the trouble I got myself into.
In college it's been different but in many ways the same. If something doesn't make sense to me I need to understand it. I can't just let it go so I question professors, their message, their method, their grading. I don't do it to be a pain, I do it so I can understand and often it's not easy but I really try. As in high school, I say things sometimes in ways people don't like and it ends up causing me a lot of extra problems, like with my methods class and with the research class and then I have to deal with the consequences but I don't think I'll ever stop. It's just part of who I am and secretly, I'm proud of it. Not that people take offense or that it causes me difficulty but that I can say I left it all out there and tried to get the answers even if I don't get there. I feel like a lot of the people I talk to at work and students in the school of education can't say that. They talk about professors and say they're ridiculous for a variety of reasons but they make no effort to try and understand why they do what they do. To me that's disingenuous. It's dishonest to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in class and then bash the professor during the break. I just can't do that and I don't really trust the people that do. Other students get annoyed with it, I can tell. Some say they think I'm just being difficult. It's very frustrating. Perhaps my sincerity is good but carried to a fault.
As a future teacher I think sincerity can be a real advantage. For some reason kids are really good at detecting BS. It's like a switch that when BS is input it shuts off their respect and listening mechanisms. You can see it on the faces of the kids in classes with teachers that do this. They have lost all respect and they're not engaged. An interview I had yesterday supports my point.
I met with a vice-principal who didn't seem too friendly at first. She asked me a couple of questions and my response to one in particular I think changed the direction of the interview. She asked me what three words (or phrases) students would use to describe me as a teacher. I thought about it for a minute and then said professional, flexible, and engaging. Though I did make the point they probably wouldn't use the word engaging and I would be hard-pressed to think of anyone outside of education who I've ever heard use it except perhaps in reference to military combat. Anyway, I answered honestly because I think that's what they would say. I didn't say I'd be their favorite teacher necessarily or that I'd be incredibly 'dynamic' or 'hilarious' but those are the three things I strive to balance and measure my performance against. She liked the answer a lot. I could tell by the way she responded to it, her body language, and how she took longer to respond to my answer than I did to her question. After that, the interview was cake and at the end she said she usually gives first-time interviewers advice to help them in their future meetings. She said I was great and she specifically said sincere. It was the best compliment she could've given me.
It's kind of an ongoing theme with me and school but it applied yesterday too during my interviews. As far as school goes, speaking my mind has always been a problem, especially in high school. Not only could I not keep my mouth shut but I also was not careful about how I phrased things. It definitely hurt me. I had not one but two teachers stand up in Honors Society meetings to explicitly state I should not be a member because of my behavior. I didn't get in. Not a big deal actually but indicative of the trouble I got myself into.
In college it's been different but in many ways the same. If something doesn't make sense to me I need to understand it. I can't just let it go so I question professors, their message, their method, their grading. I don't do it to be a pain, I do it so I can understand and often it's not easy but I really try. As in high school, I say things sometimes in ways people don't like and it ends up causing me a lot of extra problems, like with my methods class and with the research class and then I have to deal with the consequences but I don't think I'll ever stop. It's just part of who I am and secretly, I'm proud of it. Not that people take offense or that it causes me difficulty but that I can say I left it all out there and tried to get the answers even if I don't get there. I feel like a lot of the people I talk to at work and students in the school of education can't say that. They talk about professors and say they're ridiculous for a variety of reasons but they make no effort to try and understand why they do what they do. To me that's disingenuous. It's dishonest to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in class and then bash the professor during the break. I just can't do that and I don't really trust the people that do. Other students get annoyed with it, I can tell. Some say they think I'm just being difficult. It's very frustrating. Perhaps my sincerity is good but carried to a fault.
As a future teacher I think sincerity can be a real advantage. For some reason kids are really good at detecting BS. It's like a switch that when BS is input it shuts off their respect and listening mechanisms. You can see it on the faces of the kids in classes with teachers that do this. They have lost all respect and they're not engaged. An interview I had yesterday supports my point.
I met with a vice-principal who didn't seem too friendly at first. She asked me a couple of questions and my response to one in particular I think changed the direction of the interview. She asked me what three words (or phrases) students would use to describe me as a teacher. I thought about it for a minute and then said professional, flexible, and engaging. Though I did make the point they probably wouldn't use the word engaging and I would be hard-pressed to think of anyone outside of education who I've ever heard use it except perhaps in reference to military combat. Anyway, I answered honestly because I think that's what they would say. I didn't say I'd be their favorite teacher necessarily or that I'd be incredibly 'dynamic' or 'hilarious' but those are the three things I strive to balance and measure my performance against. She liked the answer a lot. I could tell by the way she responded to it, her body language, and how she took longer to respond to my answer than I did to her question. After that, the interview was cake and at the end she said she usually gives first-time interviewers advice to help them in their future meetings. She said I was great and she specifically said sincere. It was the best compliment she could've given me.
4.03.2006
Immigration
Alright, I've had it. The current debate over immigration reform is insanity. Here's the president and the Judiciary's plans: let's take the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and give them legal status, yeah we'll charge them a $2000 fine and back taxes too. Hey, if you have no criminal record and learn English we'll even let you be citizens. Wow that's swell. Oh yeah we're also going to setup a "guest-worker" program allotting some 400,000 work permits for future citizens-to-be.
Ok so what's the problem with this? Well just who is our government working for? I could've sworn citizens got to vote, not illegal immigrants who take to the streets in the most egregious display of arrogance I can recall. Wait, I spoke too soon lest I forget the move in some states to award illegal immigrants (referred to generously as "undocumented") in-state tuition rates at state universities. What!? You're joking. Let's remember, they did show a blatant disregard for the laws of this nation and our sovereignty. So Bush is massaging the Latino vote to make nice with his Republican constituents and who else?
How about big business? Yeah, I get tired of hearing about how evil corporations are out to get us too but in this case there is some basis for concern. The Bush administration says immigrants do the jobs Americans don't want to do. Ok, I'll concede that point but why don't Americans want to do them? Lax border enforcement drives down wages making the jobs less palatable to Americans so to say these are jobs Americans don't want is not telling the whole story. If no one was doing the jobs, businesses would need to raise wages to attract workers and avoid going out of business. Businesses that employ illegal immigrants don't pay taxes or benefits, nada zip. The illegal immigrants don't pay taxes or for benefits, zero. To be sure we're clear, illegal immigrants drive down wages thereby contracting the job market while enjoying the advantage of local, state, and federal services they don't pay for all while enjoying free health care. So Bush serves big business in this case by allowing for a steady stream of low-wage workers. Yes, they'll have to pay taxes now but at least they're cheap. Oh and we're not going to enforce the border so you can keep those illegal immigrants too.
And just how are we going to collect back taxes on people we have no idea have been here or how much they earned? That of course is a transparent attempt to placate those with views to the right of this plan.
Might I remind those of us with short memories we tried this before. 1986 - legalized 3 million illegal immigrants and it has done anything but solve the problem. Now we have 4 times as many and this is the best solution they can come up with? Last year illegal immigrants cost United States tax-payers $60,000,000,000 (NPR). The National Review Online is right when they said the Judiciary Committee "decided to tell the American people to shove it."
I don't think throwing them all in jail, as the House proposed, is any better. 11 million newly charged felons * $20,000/year to house a convict = $220 billion a year. That's a lot of crunk and it doesn't include the cost to locate and take illegal immigrants into custody. I don't really think that's what Republicans meant anyway. What they probably think operationally would be to charge new illegal aliens with felonies but the formula is the same, just smaller numbers compounded over a number of years.
So what do we do? (Brace yourself Republicans and Libertarians) The same thing we should do about the drug problem, lower consumption. If we don't want to buy drugs there's no drug problem. Analogously, if we don't employ illegal immigrants they'll stop coming over illegally. Let's take a close look at who is employing illegal immigrants and make them change their business practices. If you really believe in the free market then you don't need the crutch of illegally cheap labor. Now let's combine that with some actual enforcement of the border and we've got a viable, cost-effective solution.
Those who want to allow open borders and pay for services for all of North American who will call me a nativist, xenophobic, isolationist, Republiterian are just plain wrong. I don't like criminals whose crimes my family and I have to pay for and then having my morals questioned on that basis.
Ok so what's the problem with this? Well just who is our government working for? I could've sworn citizens got to vote, not illegal immigrants who take to the streets in the most egregious display of arrogance I can recall. Wait, I spoke too soon lest I forget the move in some states to award illegal immigrants (referred to generously as "undocumented") in-state tuition rates at state universities. What!? You're joking. Let's remember, they did show a blatant disregard for the laws of this nation and our sovereignty. So Bush is massaging the Latino vote to make nice with his Republican constituents and who else?
How about big business? Yeah, I get tired of hearing about how evil corporations are out to get us too but in this case there is some basis for concern. The Bush administration says immigrants do the jobs Americans don't want to do. Ok, I'll concede that point but why don't Americans want to do them? Lax border enforcement drives down wages making the jobs less palatable to Americans so to say these are jobs Americans don't want is not telling the whole story. If no one was doing the jobs, businesses would need to raise wages to attract workers and avoid going out of business. Businesses that employ illegal immigrants don't pay taxes or benefits, nada zip. The illegal immigrants don't pay taxes or for benefits, zero. To be sure we're clear, illegal immigrants drive down wages thereby contracting the job market while enjoying the advantage of local, state, and federal services they don't pay for all while enjoying free health care. So Bush serves big business in this case by allowing for a steady stream of low-wage workers. Yes, they'll have to pay taxes now but at least they're cheap. Oh and we're not going to enforce the border so you can keep those illegal immigrants too.
And just how are we going to collect back taxes on people we have no idea have been here or how much they earned? That of course is a transparent attempt to placate those with views to the right of this plan.
Might I remind those of us with short memories we tried this before. 1986 - legalized 3 million illegal immigrants and it has done anything but solve the problem. Now we have 4 times as many and this is the best solution they can come up with? Last year illegal immigrants cost United States tax-payers $60,000,000,000 (NPR). The National Review Online is right when they said the Judiciary Committee "decided to tell the American people to shove it."
I don't think throwing them all in jail, as the House proposed, is any better. 11 million newly charged felons * $20,000/year to house a convict = $220 billion a year. That's a lot of crunk and it doesn't include the cost to locate and take illegal immigrants into custody. I don't really think that's what Republicans meant anyway. What they probably think operationally would be to charge new illegal aliens with felonies but the formula is the same, just smaller numbers compounded over a number of years.
So what do we do? (Brace yourself Republicans and Libertarians) The same thing we should do about the drug problem, lower consumption. If we don't want to buy drugs there's no drug problem. Analogously, if we don't employ illegal immigrants they'll stop coming over illegally. Let's take a close look at who is employing illegal immigrants and make them change their business practices. If you really believe in the free market then you don't need the crutch of illegally cheap labor. Now let's combine that with some actual enforcement of the border and we've got a viable, cost-effective solution.
Those who want to allow open borders and pay for services for all of North American who will call me a nativist, xenophobic, isolationist, Republiterian are just plain wrong. I don't like criminals whose crimes my family and I have to pay for and then having my morals questioned on that basis.
4.02.2006
Family
What happened to marriage in this country? 50% of marriages end in divorce and 40% of first marriages do too. There are certainly cases of bad situations where someone needs to leave, some sort of abuse but, it's just too common to get divorced. Sure it's easy for me to pontificate being 24 and single, never married but I've been close. Twice girls said they wanted to marry me but both times I didn't pull the trigger, just wasn't sure enough to make that lifelong commitment. Yeah, that's right - lifelong. People don't seem to get that anymore.
I take issue with the perceived transitivity of marriage. If marriage is just another phase of a relationship in a mobius loop of date-live together-engage-marry-divorce-date-live together-engage-marry what's the point of marriage at all? Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on marriage, quite the opposite. That's one of the most important things I hope to accomplish in life. I just don't understand how we got to the point of individuality to the exclusion of partnership.
I take issue with the perceived transitivity of marriage. If marriage is just another phase of a relationship in a mobius loop of date-live together-engage-marry-divorce-date-live together-engage-marry what's the point of marriage at all? Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on marriage, quite the opposite. That's one of the most important things I hope to accomplish in life. I just don't understand how we got to the point of individuality to the exclusion of partnership.
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