Poof

“I regret to announce that – though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time so spend among you – this is the end. I am going. I am leaving. Now. Goodbye.” He stepped down and vanished.

- The Long Expected Party; Lord of the Rings.

There is magic. I’ve seen it. Not your rabbit out of the hat or “pick a card, any card” magic, but real magic. I’m talking about the great disappearing act. There are people I know who used to be there but now…are not. Gone. Vanished like the celebratory champagne from the locker room of the losing team in the final game of the World Series. These people, who were as real and vigorous as monster trucks parked across two spaces in a Clovis parking lot, suddenly are just wisps of fog, evaporating in the Fresno sun on a late August morning.

Some of these people are people who I considered my friends. Coworkers, mostly. They offered their support and commiseration in the first few days after my job and I parted company. Then they slipped off the face of the planet. Phone calls go unanswered, e-mails go un-replied to, and voice mails slip off into the ether like those aforementioned wisps. I don’t know if they really didn’t intend that support they offered, or maybe they just don’t know what to say. I’d hate to think that they have been warned by management to have no communication with me. Maybe they took my firing as a warning to them; stay in line, don’t get uppity or you may suffer the same fate as Mr. Wright.

I’ve read where something like 60% of people find jobs through acquaintances. My acquaintances seem to be unwilling or uninterested in throwing me a bone. I’m not asking that they go out and get me a high-paying job. I just think that if they come across a job somewhere, they shoot me a quick note to let me know. There are friends who have done just that, but none are former coworkers.

Others who have figured out the trick of invisibility are people who are offering jobs to which I’ve applied. Today you apply for work over the Internet. The days of walking into a building and handing someone in Personnel (pre-HR) a resume or searching for jobs in the classified section of the newspaper are gone. (Note to self, don’t apply for work at a newspaper). Now I find jobs on company websites, craiglist, and job websites. Almost none of them provide a phone number, e-mail address, or even the name of a person I can contact either before or after I’ve applied. I’ve had three job interviews since “that day” and so far none of those people have responded with the results of their respective interviews with me. No yeses, no no’s, not even a what were you thinking? Without a number or e-mail address, I have no avenue through which I can let them know how much I want to work for them and how awesome it would be to get up every morning and spend eight hours listening to their shit, nodding my head, and wishing it was quitting time. Maybe I shouldn’t mention that last part in the interview. Seriously, it’s like looking for a missing person when trying to find out if you’re still in contention, or if the job is still open.

I interviewed for a job in Oakland and a small Catholic College. It was a job I could do with my eyes closed. The pay was good, the benefits were very good, and the location in the hills above Oakland was beautiful. I don’t really want to relocate but I might have for this position. I sat in a classroom with three people in the IT department. I made eye contact, I remembered their names (Samir, Lidia, and Glenn), I answered their questions – some technical and some personal – I asked questions, I never mentioned pay, I even took a tour of the campus afterwards. When the interview ended the IT manager said if I want to check on the status of the job I should just send an e-mail to a generic HR address. A week later I did. I’ve sent two more since. That interview was on August 10^th, which was 40 days ago. I’ve heard nothing. I assume I didn’t get the position but those e-mails I’ve sent must be going somewhere. I can only assume that they are being ignored. Who would do that? How long would it take to type, “Thank you for your interest in the position at So and So College, but we decided to go with another applicant?” It takes 12 seconds, I just typed it. To be fair the name of the college was longer than So and So, but that really only adds a couple of seconds.

So now I’ve started judging myself. Are my interviews so botched? Is my resume so thin that I should instinctively know that I won’t be getting a call back or a no-thank-you note? Did I miss some social queue? Did I fart, sneeze, burp, or commit some other semi-involuntary function that so repulsed my interviewers that the only response would be to burn my resume and purge all references to me from hard drives and flash drives throughout the network?

There have been some friends who have maintained contact. Some have shot me links for jobs and some have just been there for me. I appreciated and value that. Everyone, I mean everyone of my family has been there for me in spades. I love and cherish them too and hope that some day I’ll have the ability to offer them the same kind of support if, God forbid, they ever need it.

As for me, I won’t be attending any magic shows real soon.