My response:

Whereas I feel like I’m going through life as an endless repetition of what happened to me just now when I went to go get coffee: I showed up at the coffee station, then realized someone had dumped water all over the floor, so before I got my coffee, I got a pile of paper towels and mopped up the giant puddle so no one slipped and fell, and meanwhile, someone I don’t even know came up and laughed at me for making a mess.

Happy Monday.

(i can only assume that the actual editors of the Tribune would be either entertained by this tale of having some random idiot in the basement of the Tower getting their calls by mistake; be irritated by said random idiot being presumptuous enough to take calls on their behalf; or simply be relieved to not have to deal with the calls, most of which are actually very simple requests, if the call center personnel were bothering to listen to the callers’ questions rather than transfer them to “Editorial”-by-which-i-mean-me as soon as the caller turns out to not be calling about paying their subscription bill. i suspect the latter since when i transfer calls to their extension, it always goes to voice mail.)

i did, eventually, succeed in finding someone who is responsible for the call center, and she updated the magical Excel spreadsheet of extensions, but nonetheless, the calls continue. i suspect that someone in Sri Lanka literally didn’t get the memo. it has tapered off somewhat since the sheet got updated, but in a typical day, i still get around 2-5 calls, and i usually get a couple of voice mails per week, generally on Monday morning after the weekend.

i could ask for a new extension, but i actually sort of enjoy the calls, most of the time. it breaks up my day a little, and gives me a little human contact away from the computers. also, it’s an excuse for me to learn more about the paper, which is a side of the business i would otherwise have effectively no exposure to. of course there’s occasionally a real winner that turns up — like Angry Screaming Man, who left me many voice mails about how the fucking this and the fucking that were motherfucking whatever and his fucking issue was too fucking important for motherfucking voicemail (but not so important that he actually left his phone number so i could call him back), a few weeks back; or Crazy Birther Dude a week or two ago who was enraged that a reporter from our august institution had dared to go on the Chris Matthews show and remark, in response to a question, that he thought that the President of the United States had anything at all more important to do than to try and prove his citizenship by birth, which shamed the entire Tribune and we should feel just terrible about it all. (that one was, more than others, a trip.) a few days ago i got to talk with a gentleman who was barely able to restrain his glee about newspapers’ dwindling print circulation, and forecast our complete institutional demise in ten years or less!!! at least every two minutes he had me on the line (to which i responded each time, “Well, I certainly hope that won’t be the case, sir,” because sometimes i’m nicer than the callers objectively deserve). but other times i get to chat with people who organize open-house Thanksgiving dinners for entire communities every year, who want to touch base with a reporter who did a story on them years back, or whose grandkid was in a featured photo and they’d like to get a reprint, someone who is gushing with praise for a columnist and wants to make sure that said columnist knows that her work is appreciated, stuff like that. one time i had someone who wanted to know the exact dimensions of the broadsheet paper, and i’m not sure why they couldn’t just use a ruler, but who am i to judge? so far as the callers know, i’m just there to answer the phone.

the most fun ones are the truly, truly “random” calls though. one person called me to ask about how he could get a Russian travel visa for vacation. someone had told him to call the newspaper because we would know. (i’m not sure why; maybe because of correspondent writers? i guess journalists travel a lot and so therefore newspaper people can answer all kinds of travel-related questions? i’m still drawing a blank on that one. i referred him to the Russian embassy, feeling relatively certain that they could either help him out, or decide he was too hapless to be let in to their country.) another woman called me because she wanted to send fan mail to the Regis and Kelly show. sure, we have TV stations, but … we’re not, you know, WABC where Regis and Kelly shoot. we’re not even in New York. but she was adamant that she’d been told that we would be able to help her, and did not want to hear any of my expressions of doubt. i quickly figured out that she wasn’t going to let me go until she had an answer (and she had my direct extension because the call center happily gives this to the callers, so they can all call me back directly any time they like, now that they know what line goes directly to a human), so i pulled up my browser, put write letter to regis and kelly in the search field, and read her the answer. hey, she went away happy, i got her off the phone, win-win.

but most of the calls are more routine, so i’ve gotten good at answering some of them off the top of my head. i don’t know why the call center doesn’t do the same, but, truthfully, i think they just want to get the callers off their lines as fast as possible, to keep their individual call times down — that was one of our objectives, in the call center i worked in in high school — and so they don’t bother to take the two (to twenty) minutes it takes to establish what the caller is trying to ask, and look up a phone number not on their magical Excel list.

here are some of the things that i have learned, thanks to the random calls:

• Pretty much all the useful phone numbers and emails are listed on the web site, including a list of all the editors, their job titles, and email addresses. There’s also an FAQ.
• The main switchboard is (312) 222-3232, Advertising (including classifieds, announcements, and obituaries) is (312) 222-2222, Editorial is (312) 222-3348. For help with a subscription, call 1-800-TRIBUNE, but if you ask them any question they don’t know they’ll probably just transfer you back to me.
• There is a list of fax numbers and email addresses to submit your press release here.
• To suggest a story idea or submit information, email tips@tribune.com.
• Recent back issues of the paper are available in the Tribune Tower gift shop for $1 each.
• To search the Tribune archives, go to the main chicagotribune.com page, scroll all the way to the bottom, find the column labeled “Perks,” and click on the last item in that list, “Archive.” There are two archives, 1985 to present, which is text-based and fully searchable; and 18-something to 1985, which is scanned print and you can search headlines. Article reprints are available for a fee. If you would like them for free, you can contact the Chicago Public Library or your local library, and learn about the wonders of microfiche and inter-library loans.
• (Kids today have no frigging clue what microfiche is. And they should turn that noise down and get off my lawn.)
• To get photo reprints, go to the main web page, and click on the “Photos” link all the way to the right on the tabs across the top, then click “Buy Tribune Photos” in the right-hand sidebar. If you don’t see the phone you’re interested in in the listings, there is a requests page. Or you can call (312) 222-3080.
• If you want to contact the author of an article, their e-mail addresses are usually printed at the end of the article on the web site.
• Some people, inexplicably, do not know what section of the paper “the front page” is in. Others don’t know what a byline is, or what “above the fold” means (though, arguably, i suppose, that latter one is less important since we started printing a tabloid format.)
• Other people think it is easier to call the newspaper in order to ask what section of the paper an article is in — even when they have the actual newspaper in front of them; they just want to be told where to turn the page to. (i really, really have no explanation for that one.)
• We cannot delete your comment from a blog that you posted and want to rescind now that your rant looks pretty silly a couple days later.
• Most of the writers seem (to me) happy to hear from readers.
• Mary Schmich’s last name is pronounced “schmeek.”
• Jon Yates is The Problem Solver, and can be reached at yourproblem@tribune.com.
• And yes, I understand that he may have upset you with his latest editorial, but no, I seriously do not know what time John Kass comes to work so you can call him and not get his voice mail. I am in the basement, nowhere near the newsroom, and, much as it saddens me, I cannot just go up to his desk and ask him to call you back, either.

Step 1: Employer receives CV. Employer drinks enough caffeine to decide that CV is not completely awful.
Step 2: First pass: HR tries to make sure candidate has a heartbeat and is not a zombie.
Step 3: Second stage: phone screen. Actual sysadmin calls to make sure candidate is not entirely full of shit.
Step 4: Candidate gets to go to actual face-to-face interview! Once, twice, or possibly many times, depending on how dedicated employer is to exhausting candidate’s interview wardrobe.
Step 5: PROFIT.

So you’ll note that very early on in this process, the use of a telephone is indicated. You’d think it wouldn’t really be much of a problem, because phones are, like, old, and stuff, and they just work, and stuff. And maybe that would be the case if I had a real phone. But I don’t. I am the one out of four Americans who has given up her landline and has only a mobile phone, because I’m only one person and how many phones do I need? (Especially because I kind of hate using the phone a little. I never was one of those people who sat around for hours and just chatted.) I haven’t had a real phone as a matter of course for few years. I had one in my old apartment at Printer’s Square, because I had to have one for the door intercom buzzer to let people in, and I had one in my apartment in Wicker Park because I thought pizza delivery people would push back (prank caller!) if I gave an 847 number — which was clearly just me being old and paranoid, nobody cares about area codes anymore. But in my place now, I just have the mobile. And even though sometimes service is spotty in my apartment, it doesn’t really matter much to me because I do all my social outing arranging via text, basically, and about the only time I use phones is if I have to call customer service for something. And I have Skype for that.

Except now, you see, it’s the end of my delicious, delicious summer vacation and I have to go back to being a grown-up now, which means hunting for a job. (I loved you, summer vacation. You were so awesome. Let’s do it again sometime!) And what does Step 2 of interviewing involve? THE PHONE!

Spotty voice service + mandatory use of phone = FAIL.

(Side note: I was going to put in a little graphic here to spice up the blog post a bit, but I didn’t find anything fun and legal to reproduce. I did, however, have a good time browsing the google image search results for ‘phone fail.’ You’re welcome.)

I had a phone screening scheduled with Company A last week. 10:30AM. I untethered the phone from its sync cable and made sure it wasn’t on silent, and just waited for it to ring. Wait, wait. Then the relaxing sounds of Screeching Weasel chimed, and I answered. We had just enough time to mutually establish our identities before the call dropped.

Nice.

So the interviewer called back, and I apologized for my stupid phone, and we almost got a chance to talk, when … drop.

NIQUI SMASH AT&T. NIQUI TRY GET COOL JOB, JERKFACE TELCO. NIQUI SMASH NATION’S LARGEST 3G NETWORK THAT NOT FRIGGIN WORK!

You know, when my phone was first stolen in May — which SUCKED — I called AT&T, and I said, “OK, my less than one year old phone was stolen, I’m not paying sticker price for a new iPhone, what are my options,” and they answered, “anything but an iPhone, because The Steve doesn’t want you to have another this soon, you clearly fraudulent aftermarket reseller.” So then I said, well, the 3g service in Chicago is shit anyways and so if you’re not going to let me buy cheap shiny shiny, maybe you should transfer me to the cancellation department. They promptly transferred me to the Department of We’ll Tell You Anything So Long As You Don’t Cancel. Oh, I have dropped calls and spotty service in my apartment? Well, have I considered getting a microcell for my home? “Why,” sez I, “why would I pay more, and use up my own precious Internets, to make up for your lack of being able to provide baseline service? Yes, I have considered it, and I damn near laughed myself into an aneurysm, so no, sorry dude, you’re not making that particular commission today.” So the Phone Company Designated Liar asks me, well, where do you live? I give him my address. And lo! Guess what! They are doing repairs on the cell tower nearest my home this very month! What are the odds! By the end of May, they expect everything to be just jim-dandy! Surely I can wait just a week or two and then I will see, they really care about me as a customer and about providing the best possible service to me.

Because I am too stupid for words, and also because I kinda didn’t want to pay up the contract early termination fee, and because I am a big giant sheep and I love my iGadget (shut up i am enjoying my stockholm syndrome it is very shiny here), I thought, well, okay, maybe this time they really will fix the phone network and it’ll be better next time, and $friend said I can have his old 3g iGadget when he goes to a Droid on account of ATT being the worst ever phone company. I mean, the phone company wouldn’t baldfaced lie, right? Not to me! I’m a loyal customer! That would be wrong!

So, back to last week’s phone screen with Company A. After the second call dropped, I wound up using Skype to call back to the main number of Company A and asking for one of the interviewers by name. They transferred me to him, then he answered and it turned out he was working on something and had bowed out of the phone interview and wasn’t even anywhere near the conference room, but he offered (very nicely) to try and chase down the other folks doing the interview. Then my phone rang, and it was the interviewer again, and so I told the guy on Skype that it was probably them calling me back, and he offered (again, very nicely) that if it dropped again, I could call him again and he’d chase them down for real. So we hung up, and I answered the cell, and I said, “hey, let me just call to you, ‘cos then I can use !ATT,” and it transpired that he didn’t know the conference room phone number (why, why, why does no one ever put the phone number on conference room phones? Nobody ever does it, yet it would be so useful.), so he actually set up a conference call bridge that we both dialed into, and finally, we got to start the phone interview, like 15 minutes of drama later.

(Ironically, Skype got in on the hijinks and actually dropped me once, like half an hour in. First time Skype has ever dropped one of my calls. I had to dial back in to the bridge. It is to lol, except for, zomg, I felt so bad. It’s a credit to the patience of the interviewer that he put up with this nonsense long enough to actually conduct the interview.)

So anyways, that was that phone screen, and it went well, thank you for asking, and I got to show off some of my interview wardrobe, which was nice because I like to wear grownup shoes from time to time (I get to be tall!). If I am very lucky, perhaps they will get back in touch — though I don’t expect them to use the phone to do so.

And so yesterday I had the zombie-weed-out phone screen with Company B, which went well since I am not a zombie, and for once, AT&T behaved, and the call didn’t even break up once. (Though later in the day, my gym called to get me to quit slacking off about working with my personal trainer, because they are sitting on rather a lot of money I gave them for sessions I’ve been too lazy to use this summer because, dudes, gym < sunshine… and anyways, that call broke up badly a couple of times, but didn’t drop. Improvement?) I thought, OK! Great! Maybe my phone mojo is back. I can do this!

I was pretty sad when, this morning, minutes snicked away after my 10:00 scheduled phone screen with Company B and no Screeching Weasel. I unlocked the screen and yes! It said I had 5 bars! But no ring. Booo. Sad niqui. Sad niqui sadly clicked over to email and …

Subject: what is a good number to call you at?

847 xxx xxxx …automated message says your not taking calls…

*facepalm* Just … just kill me. Oh, come on. What the. I don’t even. But. But. *sad face of resignation*

Why do you hate me, AT&T? Why? Do you have, like, some sort of heat-seeking 3g missile that swoops in on my phone calls in your cell towers, when they’re important, and smashes the electrical signals to bits? What did I ever do to you? (other than make a whole lot of remarks about how you’re the evil empire and i hate you and you’re wiretapping bastards and you’re the phone company you don’t have to care and so on? insults don’t count when they’re true!)

So, forlornly and sheepishly, I emailed and offered to call back if he’d send me a number. Which he did, and I did, and Skype did not drop the call this time, and we had a nice chat for about an hour, and I’m going to get to show off some more interview clothes (YAY SHOES), so it all turned out well in the end, but, c’monnnnnnnnnnn. You’re killing me here!

The really awesome part of today’s wacky hijinks is that, after the call, I tried making a few outbound calls. It would go from 5 bars, to 1 bar immediately after I hit “call,” and then it would sort of think for a little while, and then it would go to “Searching… .” As soon as I hit “end call,” it would pop right back to 5 bars. Okay, seriously, now you’re just fucking with me. I rebooted the phone (i REBOOTED a PHONE) and after that it would let me make calls. So apparently this was not actually AT&T’s doing, unless their heat-seeking phone missile targeted me really, really well some time overnight since it was just fine at 22:30 yesterday, but just the gadget flaking out. Yippee.

And so Company C has gotten in touch today, and expressed some interest in speaking to me using a telephone. I’m practically too embarrassed to actually admit to having a phone, at this point. I mean, I have an electronic thing that has “phone” in its name, but it doesn’t actually have that functionality. It seems like it would be much less embarrassing at this point to offer to use AIM, a pay phone on an L platform, or maybe carrier pigeons.

So, I guess I’ll be revising my CV tonight. Got to add my shiny new Skype phone number to it. If nothing else, it’s in 312…

Proposed solutions:
1) The Rage needs to open up a loop location. This solves actually most of these problems as I would just eat there every day for the rest of my life (until I died of deliciousness poisoning).
2) Finkl’s must come back. COME BAAAACK, PLEEEEEEEASE!!!
3) We need an authentic chippie. With authenticity emphasis on the food, not on the vintage “My Goodness, My Guinness” signage.
4) Or I could just give up and learn to stop complaining. Hahaha, as if that’s going to happen. GIVE ME BUTTER CHICKEN NOW!!

JTIS.

1. When I respond to your initial cold email with “Please remove me from your mailing list,” the appropriate response is not to re-send that initial cold email with certain sentences removed. You fail at responsible emailing.

2. “I have been trying to reach you for the past few days” — well, obviously you weren’t trying very hard, as I received neither a voice mail nor an email previous to this. You fail at making me feel guilty and thus willing to talk to you.

3. “I would like for an opportunity to get into your calendar as per your availability” — yes, my corporate calendar is on Exchange and that does mean it’s slutty, but c’mon, even it has some standards. You fail at phrasing.

4. “This has reference to the open positions on your company website” — our company web site says “We currently have no open positions.” It’s lying, of course, but that’s only because we’re too lazy to call the web designer. Nonetheless, you’re pretty clearly lying to me here. You fail at not obviously lying.

5. “We have the perfect match resources with the following skill sets mentioned on your company website at a very competitive rate [followed by blank line after blank line].” Perfect match resources? For the nonexistent job postings? Does that mean you in fact have zero resources? Also, I like how you don’t refer to people as people. You fail at pitching.

6. “”[OurCo] is one stop IT Solutions Company. We have helped several organizations such as yours in cutting cost and improving operational efficiencies” [sic].” It’s one stop-IT-Solutions-Company, huh? What exactly is a stop-IT-Solutions-Company? And why would you think I want to stop IT solutions? I like IT solutions. I’d like to see the HVAC guys just try and solve my remote software synchronization issues. You fail at phrasing, again.

7. Your company name is really dippy. I’m pretty sure you just had it made up by a focus group. You fail at naming.

8. Googling your company name reveals that you’re a firm which outsources jobs to India. I have no idea how you decided that my one job posting on Monster — not even currently listed at the moment, by the way — means I am searching to outsource jobs overseas to cut costs. You fail at marketing.

9. You fail a lot, actually.

–sabrina

(yes, i would feel substantively less guilty if more people had showed up, and the price per head had subsequently been less. this does not change the fact that they did not show up. and i still feel awful. omfg. people could pay rent for what we paid per person for dinner tonight! we could have just gone to oysy for less!)

one of them is Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk, a young and idealistic writer with whom i don’t always agree, but at least the blog often has things that are interesting and make me think about the topic at hand. unfortunately, sometimes her guest authors miss the target:

…I get the feeling that Generation X is inherently skeptical of who I am. They’re weary of how easy success comes to me, of my desire to bring them into the mix, and of my idealism.

Unlike our older co-workers, Generation Y doesn’t operate out of fear or distrust … The Gen X focus on distrust makes them solitary workers, preferring to rely solely on their selves to see a project through, while Generation Y tends to want to support and work together. A Gen Xer is often found at the office, squeezing by on their flextime, and blocking out the world with their iPod. …

What can I say? I’m a team player.

sheesh. right this very moment, it’s my dearest hope that i never have to manage someone as completely blind to irony as this writer. (and also, i’d really appreciate it if no candidate ever sends her mother to negotiate salary for her. i don’t honestly know how i would react but there’s a good possibility it would involve uncontrollable snickering.)

ORES
STRUCTI

so, naturally, i figure this is some sort of ad banner for some sort of new construction condo building downtown — of which there are countless numbers at this point in time — and so i resume looking around for the source of the emergency sirens i could hear behind us.

we get a little closer to the building and notice that it appears that two people dressed in black are scaling (or rappelling down) the front of the CBOT building, with the enormous white sign, which we can now read a little more of:

AINFOREST
ESTRUCTION

and i say, well, you know, these guys are pretty generous, it’s nice to be a philanthropist when you make stacks of cash, but i don’t know that the building would really be sponsoring a giant sign on the front of the building about saving rainforests, so that seems a little odd. meanwhile, there are sirens around us everywhere but still can’t find them.

then we’re at the front door and i run inside and think no further on this (other than idly wondering, inside, why the hell there are still so many sirens), until around 0900 when i run down the hall to fetch coffee and blair mentions something about the rainforest protest, and suddenly everything clicks.

tribune:

Police this morning arrested two protesters on the Chicago Board of Trade building in the Loop and were trying to get two others off its roof.

The demonstrators, members of the Rainforest Action Network, climbed up the side of the CBOT building at Jackson and Wells Streets at the start of the day’s trading and unfurled a 50-foot banner protesting the expansion of U.S. agricultural businesses.

man, some days it really pays to pay a little more attention to details, you know? i totally could have moblogged that!

dude. i used to live at 5730 S. Drexel! eeeee!