Job Applications!

Well, dear reader, here I am, just a few day away from my birthday! How old will I be? That is not important really, or is it? Having resigned from my last job and finished with them earlier this year, I felt that I needed a bit of breathing space to assess my options as is said in popular parlance. Having a lot of experience with many aspects of life and work, well, you would have at my age wouldn't you, I thought that it was perhaps time that I might be ready to once again join the happy throng known as the workforce. Yes, I decided to apply for jobs that would make use of the social and life skills, education, abilities, insights, maturity and wisdom that I had amassed over time. How should I start I thought. I decided to look on the internet. Now, I am fairly well versed in this new technology and felt confident and happy to complete on-line applications and e-mail them to the recipient. This state of mind was not to last. Read on, dear reader......

I applied for three jobs with one organisation, forms easily completed, sent off, confirmation of my applications received. Brilliant! A great start. Having saved all my details  so that it would make the completion of the necessary forms on line with other potential employers somewhat easier and quicker for me, I applied for other jobs. This is where it all goes wrong. Now, I don't know who is responsible for setting up these on line application forms, but there are great ones and there are the abysmal. I started to enter the realms of the abysmal ones. The very worst, I found were the ones set up for various Councils. About as user friendly as a great white shark with toothache. I laboured to fill in the form, cutting and pasting into the various columns my carefully saved details, taking nearly an hour and a half, wisely clicking on "save" each time I entered some important data. Then, having almost finished entering my education details which needed more than two pages, (smug mode entered), the form had no further space to enter any more! So I went to the ubiquitous diversity form. Being happy to provide the information, I duly tried to click yes or no as appropriate. But, the response on the form was nil. Nothing happened. I tried the keyboard method, my trusty mouse, but all to no avail, not a dicky bird, not my fault as no one else could do it either! So the person that designed the form had got it badly wrong. Now, what does this do for my impression of the organisation. I will tell you. It makes me think that they are not worth working for, because if they can't get this right what else is in need of urgent attention within the workplace that may be of vital importance, like tea and coffee making facilities. I eventually sent the form off anyway, minus some of my achievements (remember, no more room). Another job I looked at was with an educational establishment which proudly boasted their commitment to excellence, advertising for a "permanant" position. I wept with laughter both at the advert and for the poor souls that would be "educated" there.

The thing is, on all these application forms, they require you to state your date of birth, yes, I have returned to the question at the start of this post! I may be wrong (I rarely am, but I will concede sometimes) but what employer would want to give a job to someone who has only a few years of working life left, as in me? I have an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience, I am reliable and honest, but also aware that my age will count against me, even though they will all say that it has nothing to do with my application. (Yes, right, what is that smell? Oh, bullshit again).

So rant over for now, got to get back to filling out forms designed by the inadequate, led by those promoted beyond their ability, all encompassed within a PC environment where everyone is scared to say "Good morning" just in case it gets misinterpreted as some kind of insult. Until next time dear reader..........