Coastal Vicissitudes

While finding a job has become a bit of an obsession, it is certainly not the only thing to do in Squamish.  As they say, all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl...

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I hate being cold.  I am afraid of it, because once it happens, unless I find a heat source other than my own piddly engine, I remain cold.  And the fear sets in that I will remain this way for all of eternity.  And beyond.

When we picked up the West Coast backcountry skiing guidebook (John Baldwin's "Exploring the Coast Mountains On Skis"), our eyebrows remained in perpetual pop-up as we flipped through the dozens of tours:  Length: 3 days.  Length: 1-3 days.  Length: 2-4 days.  Length: 1 day (Distance: 27km).  Length: 14 days.  Er, where's the 1-day-back-before-midnight section?

I'd already demoted my mountain biking skill level last summer since moving here, and it seemed I might have to do the same with skiing.

Over the winter, with the help of local friends, or often on our own, we put a wee dent in the more than 300 trips in the book, as well as venturing out into some un-guide-booked territory.  But all remained within that 1 day limit.  I have a job to find, resumes to write...  And I really don't like being cold.

Current temperature - April 7

The past couple weeks at long last have put out some fantastic sunny days.  A friend with whom I had been skiing - a true west coast warrior, touring with her young lad on her back in a good ol' MEC baby pack - was banking on the young lad being fully weaned before April was out.  Meaning in time to get out for a "Length: 1-3 days" ski tour.

Sleeping in a tent, in the snow, no hut, -25C, raging mountain winds, or worse, socked in by a cold damp fog...  My last foray into the winter wild involved nearly freezing to death while wearing all my clothes in my seemingly useless sleeping bag, when the temperatures dropped well below what I had anticipated.  But, this was not the Rockies, and the current temperature outside was in the far +'s...  Could I make winter camping my friend again??

It occurred to me that I expend great reserves of energy fearing things which I know I am eventually going to do anyway.  I get grumpy, angry, blame inanimate objects and shake my fist at nothing in particular, delving into a panicked search for that excuse that will secure my escape.  ...I was recently bit by a dog (true story), and still anticipating the onset of rabies.  ...I live at sea level now, and my lungs have shrunk to the size of a grape each.  ...My ski boots smell like mouse poo when I take them off.  Exhausted, I will sulk en route to the whatever the escapade, stewing over the evil forces (or friends, or boyfriend) that have put me in this intolerable situation to which any intelligent person would have put a stop at the first glimmer of thought.

So inevitably, I commit to the ski tour, adventure trumping fear.  Looking on the bright side, hell's not likely to freeze over, so I might as well get on with it.

I nearly forget to pack a down jacket as I scurry around the house in happy-sunny-land shorts and t-shirt, collecting piles of gear.  For future reference, I should just skip the fear mongering and save the energy instead to put towards my piddly engine for keeping warm.

AVCV - The Visual Sound Byte Resume

While I am too chicken to stage on open house on 'me', afraid that nobody would come, I have been having conversations with my fellow unemployeds about strategies and tactics to get that initial "in" for a job, or with a company.

My friend Joe suggested an infographic resume.  I've seen one done - looks pretty cool, but also makes me think of the graphical representations of the earth's geological periods.  I did just have a Big Birthday, but I'm not that ancient...

   

Geological History
http://jefferson.kctcs.libguides.com/
c.php?g=204713&p=1351025

Infographic Resume
http://svish.com/vis-res/

I decided instead to try an audio-visual resume, or what I have termed the AVCV - a slight variation on my thoughts regarding the dancing resume.

Here it is:

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The Railroad Company   2000-2015

Office Engineer
Calgary, AB   2005-2015

Field Operations
Calgary, AB   2005
Golden, BC   2003-2004
Cranbrook, BC   2002-2003
Various Cities, Towns, Hamlets, Prairies, Railcars and Bunkhouses, CAN and USA   2000-2002

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Note:  I chose the somewhat "rough" version of the audio for 'Field Operations' since the corresponding video depicts a good portion of the equipment and operations I worked with in the field.

Oh human interaction, how I miss thee!

A strange but obvious thing happened the other day.  I decided to take a chance on the old world ways, and "drop off" a resume.  Literally.  In person.  As in, a printed out, manually signed, paper resume and cover letter.  In an envelope, personally addressed.

The company of interest had a number of jobs listed on their website, but nothing of interest to my abilities.  I still wanted to introduce myself though, in case they hadn't yet thought of the position they needed me for.  I scoured their website, then google in general, looking for a contact, an in, so I could send my unsolicited resume direct.  When I had about 17 tabs open in my browser, and found that they were starting to duplicate, I new I'd reached a dead end.

I went back to the tab highlighting the company's management team.  A photo and bio of each senior manager - a-ha.  I looked up a couple of them on LinkedIn, and while finding them was easy, there was still no way of personally contacting them directly.  Fine.  They were going to have to deal with ME, personally.  Persona, take the day off - go play video games or something.

Relativity - M.C. Escher
www.mcescher.com/gallery/back-in-holland/relativity/

No matter how often this happens, the frustration boils up inside, then out my mouth in steaming profanity, each time I cannot find a path to human contact.  Oh I know this is done on purpose, otherwise companies would have to hire an army of HR bodies to handle the new world's onslaught of applicants.  But as the ga-ga-ness over the growing Internet of Things continues to escalate towards euphoric expectations of paradise-at-last, I remain firmly grounded in our millions of years of fantastic and complex human evolution, and our advanced sociability among food chain members.  I still revere human interaction - not just eye contact and verboseness, but those finely tuned instinctual signals we consciously and subconsciously send and receive from each other.

I remember debates with managers in my previous life over the complete automation of a safety-critical system or process, with zero need for a human watch.  I argued that it was a lofty goal, but that until we could code facts + rules + experience + common sense in a neat, complete and always up-to-date IT system, it was far too serious a risk.  The most powerful AI systems, which are not likely assets of a regular company, still have beans compared to the human synapses.

I understand I am giving a lot of credit to the human race at the moment, when on the other hand we are still capable of and regularly practice inane stupidity.  However, by taking us out of the interaction completely, we risk erasing our need for human existence.  Because, contrary to euphoric expectations of a paradise involving the digitization and automation of everything, resulting in indefinite free time, haven't we already proven to ourselves that we are not capable of a life of only idle pleasure?

The strange but obvious thing that happened the other day was that, after having seen portraits of my potential contacts, read bios, seen some of their history and values through their LinkedIn profiles, it took only minutes to dash off a cover letter.  It usually takes me well over an hour, and much editing, to try and write something personable to nobody in particular.

While I was not able to hand my resume to the VP of HR directly, the nice lady in reception promised to pass it on.  Within a week, I got a personal note from the VP - he was interested, was going to pass on my resume where I might be of use, and if I hadn't heard back in a week or two, please bug him again.

To date, all my interviews, meetings, coffees have resulted from the involvement of some form of human interaction.  I have not received one call/acknowledgement/interview from an online job application.  And yes, I have sent a few.

Dancing Hardware

I know, what if I just plan an open house, all about me!  Prospective employers, entrepreneurs, people with money who want to pay me to do something useful can come by, check out my skills, see some gnarly spreadsheet samples, TALK to me...

Because this life-sucking persona-branding of myself in one resume page or less is shriveling my soul.  The recruiter I met last week says I have too many words.  I lose them at "Hello".

The new world wants to be entertained, wowed, smitten, things to jump out and dance for them so they only have to burn one, maybe two calories of effort to decide whether to bring me in for an interview.

The previous world wants the nuts and bolts of what I have done so they can decide if I have enough skills to be useful sooner rather than later.

My resume is max four pages.  How to make nuts and bolts dance in two pages or less???
Hours of my life.........

Me, My Persona, and I

I still don't have a job. Which in many ways is great, as I learn the art of free time. Back from three days of fantastic skiing, eating, wine-ing with good company up around the Duffy, to temperatures in the double digits and sunshine. So I set up a chair on the balcony and grabbed the last few rays of the afternoon sun with a beer and my book. The first thing on the morning-after to-do list was follow up on a posted job I was actually excited about. While the job was still posted, they were already in the final interview stages with a promising candidate when I talked to them before the ski trip. Alas, the candidate managed to avoid destroying his shiny credibility, and I was out of luck. Again. Which instigated an aimless few hours of moroseness while I contemplated my next steps. Because, after 5 1/2 months, my current approach is not working. Clearly, nobody has caught on to me, and the fabulousness I have to offer. I am straddling two worlds: in my previous world, there exists an entire sector and infrastructure for hiring, job searching, career paths, leadership development, creating a "ridiculously awesome resume", etc. - this is actually the new world; in my current world, it's not what you know or how much you paid to get your resume makeover, but who you know - this I liken to the old world.

Rohr Ridge Across the valley from Rohr Ridge

Because I grew up in my previous world, I naturally still gravitate towards the tools that I know.

An article in this month's issue of the PEG (Alberta's Engineering and Geoscientist Association magazine) discusses tips for "getting noticed" among the 7+% of other unemployed people in Alberta [1, page 50 of the pdf]. What it seems to come down to is the necessity of "branding yourself" on the internet - having a clean presence on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn; "liking" the right things, posting articles in LinkedIn relevant to your industry and values, commenting on these via the various social media, joining "interest groups", following "thought leaders", getting as many good LinkedIn connections as you possibly can whether you actually know them or not... because search result rankings, according to the article, are driven by your connection count, among other things.

I read David Eggers' "The Circle" a couple years ago, and while it seemed hastily written (I suspect to get it published ASAP before his foresights become realities), it was a good story in its disturbing outlook on our internet-ized (and never-ending-survey-feedback) future.

I am on the end-cusp of the pre-social media generation, and still find it rather foreign to want to post my entire self on the internet. I reluctantly created a LinkedIn profile on the advice of friends when starting my job hunt in September, and I regularly get hit up by LinkedIn to market myself further by trying "a free trial of the Premium Experience!" ...so I'll get even more noticeably internet-ized...? With digital fireworks behind my photo while an "I'm" variation of Tina Turner's 'Simply the Best' tinnily blares out upon clicking my profile???

At the time I was getting into all of this, I coincidentally caught Terry O'Reilly's 'Under the Influence' episode on CBC radio (a fun little show on marketing today and some great historical anecdotes) about "the art of personal branding". I picked up some good common-sense tips which helped start my LinkedIn profile and resume dusting. But again, the key message was about relating everything you put out there on the internet back to your "personal brand".

Meanwhile, Canada's spy agency is up the St.Lawrence for having accidentally shared a pile of Canadian identity metadata with partner countries [2].
(I don't even know what all the app logos are for at the end of the article!!!)

And the FBI and Apple are heading towards the final knockout round in an extended fight over security and access-to-private-information rights on Apple devices [3].

But I digress. While the electronification of myself in the form of an internet persona is unappealing in so many ways (topics for other posts!), I have yet to find even underwhelming success with the current/old world approach - not a bite from all the people with whom I've "mingled" and to whom I have tried to offer my fantastic self since moving to Squamish.

Squamish is not a base for any one big industry or company. Instead, it is home to a few box stores, local shops, industrial and artistic entrepreneurs, Quest University, the bare scratchings of a few start-ups and tech industry initiatives, along with its municipal operations. It's a place for the individual to make of it whatever they can. So how the heck do I go about finding a market for the geeky analytical stuff I like to do?

I'm taking my Self to North Van tomorrow to meet with a recruiter. She's probably going to tell me I need to work on my Persona.

Absurd.

p.s. The irony of my writing this blog on the internet is not lost on me...