Song, by Toad

A friend of mine is suffering from an appalling time trying to find a job, and it’s hard to offer sympathy in that kind of situation, but I have been through this before, so I do have some idea. It took me almost a year to get my first job in what I trained to do and in that time I went through all sorts of stages of despair, vitriol, depression, rage, apathy, grim determination and all sorts of others.

At first I couldn’t even find where to even apply for jobs I could do so I ended up applying for dozens that I was neither all that equipped to do nor all that interested in, and I think it showed badly in the interviews.

Even when I eventually did find places I was qualified to work they would invite me to interviews, tell me how brilliant I was, and then say ‘Oh well, really we need someone with at least one or two years’ experience’ to which I just once replied ‘Well that’s interesting, because it says on my CV that I am a graduate with no experience, and just imagine – if you’d read it then you could have saved yourself all this time’.

Then, when I did get my first job it lasted only eighteen months, during which the 11th September attacks took place and the dotcom bubble burst. The result: redundancy. It took a further six months to get a job after this one, during which I was offered interview after interview and showered with compliments and never given a job. Worse, it was always ‘yes, really loved your stuff, we’ll be in touch some time next week’, then they never were and I ended up having to spend two weeks chasing them for the inevitable ‘thanks but no thanks’ that I by then knew was coming. Often it would be accompanied by ‘well we really need someone who can use Pro/Engineer software’. Again, even cursory glance at my fucking CV would have told them that I couldn’t use fucking Pro/E so why the fuck were they interviewing me in the first place? ‘Recreational interviewing’, I came to call it.

Then, whilst I was trying to move from London to Edinburgh so Mrs. Toad and I could be together, similar stuff started to happen – for almost a year. There are so few jobs in what I do up here that I ended up applying for a few too many that, although I could have done them, I didn’t really want. Again, the compliments flooded in, but no fucking job offers. And I developed a new hatred: recruitment fucking consultants. Honestly, what the fuck fucking use are these parasitical cunts? They’re like fucking estate agents in slightly more dingy suits. They have no understanding whatsoever of any of the jobs they are trying to fill, they have not the slightest shred of basic manners, they are fucking vacant as an empty barrel, and they seem to have the memories of fucking goldfish because they never, ever do anything they say they are going to. Burn the fucking lot of the cunts.

HR departments are no better. Name me a single place that couldn’t just take its HR department, fill it with angry bees, seal up the doors, and in doing so signally improve the efficiency of their business. They are worthless fucking leeches who achieve nothing, have no skills, not a fragment of understanding of the business in which their company is engaged and do absolutely nothing but hold regular meetings to explain to everyone what a crucial job they are doing. Burn them; all of them.

Frequently when job-hunting you have at least two layers of these vacuous fuckwits in between you and the person actually doing the hiring – the one who actually has the faintest idea whether or not you can do the job in question. I actually applied for a job once where the department doing the hiring went to their HR department, who went to an outsourcing consultancy, who hired a recruitment consultant who put an ad on a website, whose ads were aggregated by another website, via which I applied. Do the people who purchase products from this company know what an incredible number of worthless, talentless, pointless paper-shufflers the price of their medicine is supporting? I doubt it. Thank goodness for the efficiency of the free market.

If you think I am being harsh on HR people, try this quote from Luke Johnson, writing in the Financial Times earlier this year:

“HR is like many parts of modern businesses: a simple expense, and a burden on the backs of the productive workers”

Random internet ranter? No, he is on the Times Power 100 List and apparently masterminded the acquisition of Pizza Express before the age of 30 and is now in charge at Channel 4.

So Lizzie, I have every sympathy, really I do. I do have a pretty good idea what you’re going through, and believe my I would flay, fillet and barbecue these self-important, parasitic whores in a heartbeat given the chance. Nae brains, nae skills, nothing to offer; just fucking pointless the lot of ‘em.

The Dead Kennedys – Take This Job & Shove It

This is one of the reasons I am adamant that as long as I possibly can I will read, listen and respond to anyone who emails me with a copy of their music. People seem, when they are in a position to give or deny someone something they want, to turn into patronising, arrogant cock-smokers. They come out with shit like ‘Well, what you have to understand is..’ or ‘Well, I’m just so busy…’ or they just seem to take masturbatory pleasure in ignoring you, condescending to you and generally treating you with such completely meretricious attitudes of superiority that it makes me want to urinate in their ears while they’re sleeping.

I am not doing anyone a favour by listening to their music, and if I ever start acting like it, please someone punch me. A polite email saying thanks is not beyond anyone. Delete the emails from PR companies by all means, but if someone takes the time to contact you themselves with their stuff listen, decide and get back in touch. Show some fucking graciousness, and some manners. Being in a position of power over anyone says nothing about you as a person, and it does not make you better than anyone. And just because you’re finally in that position does not under any fucking circumstances mean that it is in any way ‘your turn’. You do not have to teach anyone ‘the way it works’ and being a cunt to someone is never a favour because ‘that’s just what they’ll have to get used to in this cut-throat industry’. I am not suggesting you should necessarily lie to someone, and I am sure that there will come a point where I can’t answer everyone personally, but if you are unnecessarily unkind or impolite or hurtful to someone who is asking something of you, then you are cunt, pure and simple.

Did I miss anything?

Frightened Rabbit – Be Less Rude