Don't kick a dead gift horse in the mouth.

Recruiter Professionalism

I've been searching for a new job since last week, and my life has been pretty much consumed by phone calls and interviews. Some good, some bad, some... ugly.

This morning, a certain recruiter, let's name him Ryu, calls me. Immediately after I pick up the phone, he puts me on hold for several minutes, and then the call ends abruptly. A minute later, Ryu calls me back, saying that he wants me to come in for an job interview with a certain company next week. "This will not be a technical interview," he says, "they just want to meet you, and then maybe you can meet their design team on another day, and if everything goes well they'll schedule you for a technical interview."

All this is really starting to sound like a lengthy process to me, so I let Ryu know that I am expecting offers to start coming in next week, and he of course wants to know which companies I'm expecting offers from. "Two of these companies are through personal connections," I say, "so I can't really tell you what they are." Without giving me the opportunity to tell him about the third company that I can indeed mention, he interrupts me.

"Well I'm not going to represent you if you can't tell me who you're interviewing with!" Ryu says with increasing fervor. I proceed explaining to him that those companies have specifically asked me not to reveal their identities to recruiters. "That's fine then, I'm just not going to represent you!" he repeats.

At this point I feel that this conversation isn't going anywhere. "Okay man, it was great talking to you." I say and hang up. A few seconds later Ryu calls me back. I patch him through to voicemail. Here is the transcription, verbatim:

Ah... I wasn't done, but... I wish you all the best Alex, you shouldn't hang up on me, because it's a small world, but... shame on you. That... That's just disrespectful, and I don't disrespect people, and... ah... I wish you all... all the best, but shame on you and ah... I... I... I... I hope you can work on your people skills, 'cause that was just... unprofessional. Bye.

Hm. Hadn't he just pointed out that he wasn't going to represent me? Twice? I felt the need to reply at this point. Maybe because I was so ashamed of myself. Here's what I wrote to Ryu in an email:

Hi Ryu,

"I'm not going to represent you" sounded pretty final to me. Not sure what else you were going to say, but speaking of being unprofessional: "shame on you", threatening me, and to a lesser extent putting me on hold and hanging up on me (yes, you just did that) qualifies as such.

Not representing me is your own personal choice, and clearly I'm not in a position to convince you otherwise. I hope you have a wonderful day, and many new clients.

- Alex S.

Seven minutes later, he replies to my email. Again, verbatim:

I got disconnected because my phone cut out

You were being irrational and the fact you don’t trust me says a lot

Good luck to you and shame on you for these threats

Uh. I'm not sure what confuses me more: the lack of punctuation, the fact that he is accusing me of being irrational and threatening, or the ambivalent last sentence? Either way, I am very, very ashamed of myself.

The new Batman movie will star Ben Affleck as Batman, Kevin Smith as Superman, and Chris Nolan as Heath Ledger; directed by Christian Bale and produced by Bruce Wayne.

I was going to go to the beach and build a sand castle, but then I remembered I already had sand in my vagina, so I just stayed home.

Help!

This is how I've always imagined the chorus from this classic by The Beatles:

Scientific facts about Uranus

1. Uranus was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1781.
2. Uranus is 31,763 miles in diameter.
3. A resident of Uranus is called a Uranian.
4. Uranus is covered with gases. You probably knew that already.
5. Uranus has a pale blue color, which is caused by the methane in its atmosphere.
6. Uranus has rings.
7. A day on Uranus is shorter than a day on Earth.
8. An object that weighs 100 pounds on Earth would weigh about 90 pounds on Uranus.
9. Scientists have a hard time understanding how Uranus managed to get so big.
10. Uranus has only been visited once. If you think no one's ever been to Uranus, you're wrong. It happened. It wasn't a human though. It was a probe.

A guy walks into a hospital with a broken arm and a broken leg. The doctor goes "We can fix you, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."

A Brief History Of My iPhone Names

"Blackberry Bald" – iPhone 3G
"Fragile!" – iPhone 4
"iPwn" – iPhone 3G jailbroken with PwnageTool
"Oblong Johnson" – iPhone 5

You can lead your horse to water, and eat it too.

God told Noah to bring "two of every kind" to the ark. And that's how humankind wound up with two kinds of herpes.

God told Noah to bring "two of every kind" to the ark. The fish were not happy about this decision.

The Economist builds a neutrino-powered time machine.

Shortly after scientists discovered that neutrinos can be accelerated to a speed greater than that of light, The Economist published an article in the future!

Parents Just Don't Understand: #193

From CollegeHumor, issue #193 of parents and grandparents using technology. This one's my favorite:

Yesterday, I made the mistake of showing my dad that when I tell my phone to “Call A**hole” it says “Did you mean ‘call Dad Cell?’” He thought this was absolutely hilarious and wants to do it on his phone now, but no matter how many times I try to tell him that his phone can’t do it (which it can’t), he insists that it can. He is currently sitting in the living room yelling “A**hole!” at his phone while pressing random buttons.

Bond. Bail Bond.

If Google ever buys the NRA, they should make Journey's Open Arms their anthem.

Aluminum foil hats don't work.

Sorry guys, researchers at MIT proved that not only do aluminum foil hats not work, they actually amplify the common E/M signals. I guess you're gonna have to go back under ground.

Rock Star

More hilarity from The Oatmeal, about the fine print of being a Rock Star.

Click to view the entire comic.

Web, you just got SURFED!!

— Stop being such a Negative Nancy!
— Stop being such a Suddenly Susan!

“Senior Year” from The Oatmeal

A very truthful satire about what we should've been studying in high school.

Click to view the entire comic.