William F DeVault, click
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Blogs by William F DeVault
weirdness in a mundane universe 1/26/2005 3:02:52 PM
I went for a check at the local jobs bureau today. Poetry don't pay and with the economy being in the robust shape that our current economic geniuses have it, I lack the overseas connections to find much work in the technology fields anymore (most outsourcing numbers do not include the large number of imported workers active in the tech fields.)
So...despite my credentials and my resume, I said "yes" when they asked if I wanted a temp job.
In what has to be the most sham interview I've ever seen, I was ushered into a room with about a half a dozen other applicants and given the front page of an "interview form" to fill out. The woman who was running the show, from K**** Services, lectured people on what the job was and the rules were and that she was leaving right after this to go to Wheeling. It seems if you could sign your name, they handed you the rest of the paperwork and told you to report tomorrow at 6:30 am to unload trucks and sort merchandise for a local store. No interview, no oversight, although they did ask to see my standard I-9 documentation (which I carry with me all the time anyway) and had me fill out my withholding forms.
The client is obviously getting ripped off by the jobshop markup, considering the actual level of service they are getting. I've had housepets that could have done what these guys did. No screening, and they let me leave my reference forms basically blank (I had not expected to have to fill them out when I walked in, but that was okay "If we need to check later, we'll get the information from you.)
I could get no sane answer on the parameters of the job (although I was asked to report to the service providor if the job duties "changed") and there is an "indefinite duration" flag hanging over this.
Add to that I'll make in a week what I normally get for an evening's reading or a day's work on website development (or in the three nights a week I start teaching adult ed classes next week for Mon County) and I can understand why WV is in the crapper, economically...in Mississippi I got almost double this hourly rate for similar work...
