I've been on the job for a couple weeks now, and I've made several observations from the first day. Let me share with you what I've noticed and learned about this job.
First of all, it is GREAT to be working again. I was out of work for a long time, and at first I appreciated the time off, I NEEDED some time off. But finding work in 2012 and 2013 turned out to be hard for me and for a lot of other people. In my previous professional life, I rode herd on computers all day long. This job's a lot different.
As I said:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BigV
Ok, time's up. The story on this one is kinda weird. Or not, maybe it's a normal story and my experience, or lack thereof makes me unequipped to reconcile the events that have led up to this point.
A couple weeks ago, I took my car into JL to get the oil changed. I could change it, sure, but it was raining and I'd have to buy the oil and the filter and blah blah blah. I decided to just treat myself to letting someone else do the work this time.
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Working to get a new job really is work, but the pay sucks. So does the seemingly endless stream of rejection. It wears on a person. No, no, no, no, silence, no, more silence, no thank you, no, more silence, followed by lots more silence interrupted occasionally by more rejection. Fuck. I'd become one of those "discouraged workers" occasionally mentioned in the news, had become one several times. I'd try, look up jobs, apply, hear "no thanks" or nothing at all, repeat, repeat.... anyhow.
I was on another upswing in effort and enthusiasm and for me that means talking to the people I meet about looking for work. I work it into the conversation. And I did so at the counter as I was paying my bill after the oil change. "So, are you guys hiring anybody?" Just by habit, just routine, like a fisherman makes cast after cast after cast. To my surprise, the fellow ringing up my sale said "Yeah, we are." When I walked to the car, I was greeted by the manager who asked me "So, you are looking for work?"
"Yes, I am."
"Are you good with people?"
Hm. Yeah, I am; some of my favorite people are people. "Yes, I love working with people."
"There's a lot of standing." he said as we stood there in the driveway.
"Ok, I can stand." Duh.
"Here is the website." and he rattled off some longrunonsentenceurl dot com.
"Ok, thanks!"
And I drove off.
Twil and I had a nice weekend together. On Monday morning at about 8:30, the phone rings and it's the guy from the oil change place. "Mram fum rum dab biffl rab." Whaaaaat? Why is this guy calling me? Is there something wrong with my car? A recall? Huh? "Excuse me, what did you say?" "I said, where is your application? We don't have your application."
Oh.
I'd just gotten my oil changed on Friday afternoon, and this was early Monday morning. I told him I'd been away from the computer over the weekend, but that I'd get right on it. "Ok, thanks."
Man.
I looked up the website. It turns out that like a lot of companies, JL had outsourced the application and screening of job seekers. The "workforce management solution" is provided by the
robots people at
Peoplematter.com. Cheery sounding, no? JL is a customer of theirs, and JL has undoubtedly crafted their own kind of questions and tests that would (hopefully) suss out from the applicants the ones that would be a good fit for JL. The application was tedious, but not particularly difficult. I was taken aback by the online intelligence test. I don't have any other description that fits better. Just now I can't find the parts of the peoplematter website that I checked out that gave potential customers a sample of what they could ask of and divine from the applicants. The test I took gave strict, explicit warnings that the test would be limited to seven minutes. I got through five of the seven pages. There were lots of kinds of questions, math questions, which symbol is next in this sequence questions, rearrange these words into the most sensible sentence questions, how many times does the letter "e" follow the letter "j" in this sequence of letters questions, etc., etc. I *guess* they got some answers about me from the results of my test. I guess. The hiring process I experienced this time is easily worth a whole thread of its own, but for now, back to this particular job.
I completed my application, I eventually was contacted to arrange a drug screening test. Funny thing... after I'd been working for a couple weeks the topic of being short staffed and the difficulties of hiring people came up when I was talking to the manager, the one who gave me my two question interview. He said he was having trouble finding people who passed their background checks/drug screening. He speculated, or revealed, it's not clear, that many people were failing the tests for having marijuana in their system. I said that's very interesting, since recreational marijuana use is legal in Washington. I asked him how evidence of the use of a legal substance is grounds for disqualification, and he was unable or unwilling to comment further. When I mentioned this to Twil, we speculated for awhile, and the most reasonable explanation I could imagine is that the parent company of JL is a nationwide outfit, and that marijuana use is not legal nationwide, therefore, a (???) federal background check (manager's phrase) would indicate failure. This still doesn't make sense to me, since there are lots of state laws that the individual stores clearly obey, irrespective of the nationwide law, minimum wage, for example.
Anyhow.
Apparently I passed both my background check and my drug screening, because I was asked to come in on a Monday. I came in, was introduced to the district manager who watched me watch a ten minute video on a tiny window on the computer in the office, sign a paper saying I watched the video, then I watched him leave. That was my first day of work. Starting the next day, it was about eight or nine hours a day. My first paycheck had over eleven hours of overtime! Very, very short staffed. I noticed, **after** the day I got my oil changed and had my two-question, one-minute interview, that the store put a sandwich board sign on the curb saying "NOW HIRING". I saw the same sign at another JL store a mile away. I feel like I asked the day before this hiring push was advertised. I feel like I "jumped the line", kinda. Not in a bad way, but that I accidentally caught them at the time when they felt the need to hire most acutely. I didn't realize what leverage I had at the time, and frankly used none of it. But they were clearly desperate for more labor.
As part of the hiring process, I spent a lot of time online with the indifferent robots at peoplematter. I have a couple dozen pdf files representing my hiring package, I e-signed for all of them and more, my W-4, my I-9, my xyz and my pdq, whatever. I never spoke to anyone not in that store, except the district manager that one time, at video camp (really, it was kinda ridiculous. The video was all about the UN symbols for hazardous materials. A little explosion for explosives, a skull for poison, a flame for flammable, etc. That was it. Eleven little pictograms in diamond outlines and their little picto-biographies.) The hiring process on this job was surreal. The combination of a handshake deal with the owner and the funhouse version of a buzzfeed.com personality quiz/intelligence test. Seeing how the operators of businesses have ceded to computers the part of the hiring process that **I** previously knew as the part where you demonstrate to the company in several ways your style, your ability to communicate, your willingness and ability to follow through, your accountability and punctuality--those don't appply at JL, and I think they don't apply at LOTS of places anymore. Showing up, calling, demonstrating, physically, the ability to connect with the outfit... that's all morphed into a cyber version, like fucking TRON. It all happens inside the computer. I don't have a lot of experience in that universe.
more later.