Interview vs. Ambition

During a job interview, should I lie about what I want to be doing?

It seems like there's an obvious answer.  Of course you shouldn't lie.  Interviews need to be polite, maybe reserved, but you should always be honest about your experience and your skills.  

But everyone you meet wants to fit the square peg in the round hole.  I walk into a interview and I know what they want from me.  They want me to be the job description.  They want me to be the corporate culture and all the other marketing-speak on their website, and they want me to figure out the subtext of our interview and the job description (examples: we need someone organized because the last person was a mess; we need someone with perfect grammar because these documents go to our clients; we need someone who's no nonsense because this role gets very little intrinsic respect).  

They're going to ask about why I'm looking for a job now and what I want to do in 5 years, but I'm not sure they care.  More than that, I think they might prefer not to know.  

It's a dichotomy:  On the one side, most companies aren't interested in hiring someone who has no ambition.  On the other side, no one wants to hire someone who walks in thinking their role is a stepping stone to something more.  Or do they?

I'd hope a good employer would want the person with crazy strong ambition.  As long as that person is also loyal, wouldn't it to be great to grow a customer support rep into a vice president or an administrative assistant into a director?  I've seem team leads say they would be interested in that, but I don't know that it's true.  

I do know that many companies prefer pigeonholing.  They hire you to do X.  Maybe in 5 years you can move to Senior X.  Maybe even X Team Lead.  But what if you strive for the sort of dynamic career that the most interesting and successful people have?  I am starting to feel like no one wants to hire that person. 

If There Was a Grammar Police for Links, I'd Be So Arrested Right Now

Today is Memorial Day!  It's freaking hot here and I believe that holds true for most of the country.  For reasons unknown to me, holiday weekend and hot weather means cooking food on a scorching hot grill under the scorching hot sun in the thick-as-mud humidity.  Yay?

It's also Meatless Monday.  All Mondays are Meatless Mondays.  Even if you aren't an awesome ova-lacto vegetarian like me, you can avoid eating meat for one whole day a week and make an impact in animal rights and environmental issues.  If you follow Meatless Monday, you might see links like this one. It's pretty much the saddest barbecue ever.  Most of their links and tips aren't this bad.  I mean, really?  Salad and grilled veggies aren't most people's idea of a good day.

Here's my idea.

Fruit + Salad.  Not "fruit salad" in the traditional sense, but lettuce, mangos, apples, strawberries, carrots, and anything else you want to throw in.  Depending on the blend of fruits and veggies you throw in, I'd do either a raspberry vinaigrette or an asian peanut sauce.

You could also toss either sauce on extra firm tofu and grill that shiz.

Or throw it on tempeh.  I know, tempeh looks scary and moldy, but it's substantial and holds in flavors very well.

Tofu or tempeh are great as a main course with some grilled veggies on the side, or can be cooled and tossed in your salad.  Hell, wrap it up with the salad for a summer wrap you can take on a picnic.

For desert?  You know what's almost always meatless? Liquor.  Take any leftover fruit and freeze it with some juice and put it in a blender.  Liquor all over before serving.  You know what makes you forget you haven't eaten meat even though you've been grilling all day?  Being drunk.

Okay, okay, you wanted a burger?  Make your own but for the love of god, it should involve black beans and rice, sweet potatoes, or some combination thereof.  Boca Burgers taste gross.

EA Games and The Sims Social

I promised myself I wasn't going to write about this, but I need to rant.  If you don't feel like reading a rant I'd highly recommend skipping this post.

I love The Sims.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say I used to love The Sims because I'm never playing it again.  I have played The Sims since 7th grade when I went over to my friend Paige's house and she showed it to me.  I've owned several editions of The Sims and countless expansion packs.

I was really excited when The Sims Social came out because I thought it would be a great way to play The Sims with my friends, and it was free!! I hyped it up to my peer group, and even got my boyfriend playing.  And then one day I stopped cold turkey.

The Sims Social was buggy sometimes, quests would be announced but wouldn't show up, my skirt would appear and disappear, floors were missing, accomplishments wouldn't be recorded, but none of that is why I quit.  I quit because one day I finished a quest and my game wouldn't load.  I finished building a room in my house, and this completed the quest.  A box would pop up telling me about it, and as soon as I'd close out of that pop-up, I'd receive an error message.  Every time I logged in the same thing would happen.

After a few days I reached out to EA customer service. At first they were really responsive.  I got a case number and a real human being emailed me (albeit with a form response) and I went though all the basic troubleshooting but to no avail.  Clearly the issue was a bug in the software and not something on my end.

After a few days of emailing, my customer service rep told me he needed to escalate my problem to his manager, but after that I didn't hear back from EA.  I gave it a few days, and then I emailed EA. No response. I emailed them again. No response.  I went on their site and emailed their formal customer service system.  No response.

After two weeks of this I emailed them again, explaining that I was upset with their level of service and that my game still wouldn't move past the error message.  I told them I was quitting the game and would never play or purchase EA products ever again.  And that was the end of it.

The end until today, when ONE MONTH after they stopped getting back to me they emailed me again with a survey and an apology.  A month in a game that rewards you for each day you play?  It's total crap.     I'm more mad than ever and I'm standing by my commitment to boycotting their goods and services. Rant over.

Maybe I Have 500 Page Views Because You Can't Look Up Pseudo Problem on Wikipedia Today

Today I reached 500 page views.  Woohoo!

I was planning on writing something momentous when this day came, even though it isn't really that momentous and is actually sort of sad when you think about the number of people who read things on the internet and the tiny fraction of who have glanced at my blog. 

However,

This post isn't actually about the number of page views I have.  It's about SOPA/PIPA.  I'm against these things. I have about a million links about this stuff, here are a few:

http://theoatmeal.com/sopa
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/One-Page-SOPA_0.pdf
http://dyn.com/sopa-breaking-dns-parasite-stop-online-piracy/
https://www.eff.org/free-speech-weak-link
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html
http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

I'm not asking that you take action, just that you be well informed. 

List Series: Pleasant Sounds

A basketball hitting pavement
A shovel scraping against the pavement and through a foot of heavy snow
Small zippers
Cloth rustling against cloth
A knife passing through a juicy apple
My new keyboard with its cover on when I’m thoughtfully typing slowly and without too much pressure
Skin brushing against skin
Coffee beans pouring
Scooping ground coffee beans with a plastic spoon scoop
Water trickling through a small brook or a water feature
The new carts rolling through Target
The fan whooshing noise of the TNG Enterprise
Steady rainfall on trees, wood, plants
Seismic charges in Star Wars episode 2
British people saying "luv" as a term of endearment

List Series: Annoyances

Jack Johnson

Lack of oral hygiene

Facebook posts like “I have the best girlfriend ever”

Kissing profile pictures

Caring what race you date/marry/have babies with

Anti-gay marriage

Anti-cross dressing

Afraid of sexuality

Too much in the way of PDAs

Girls who dress like Kim Kardashian

Men in leather thong flip flops, a loose polo, and khaki shorts who haven’t showered in days

Axe body spray

Old school pink bottle Herbal Essences

Gross bathrooms

Lol cat writing or speech

Festering wounds

Condensed soup

Raw or partially cooked eggs

The smell of burning cheese

The fact that I have internal organs

List Series: Reason's Relationships Can Suck

Swapping a cold or flu back and forth

UTIs

Risk of STIs

Risk of pregnancy

Having to shave closely

Caring what underwear you’re wearing and when you last wore it

Washing the sheets more often

Having two sets of everything

Clearing out space for his stuff

Watching his shows

Listening to his music

Watching him play sports

Watching him play video games

His friends

Fights about nothing

Knowing 90% of what you talk to your friends about is him

Knowing you don’t hang out with your friends enough

How it changes things with male friends

Never having a moment to fart or pick your nose

Your period

Spending money on dates and presents

When he doesn’t get along with people you love, or they don’t like him

Beardface hair in the sink

Face stubble

The way the bathroom smells

Feeling fat or not sexy

Stressing in the beginning about how he feels about you

Are we moving to fast or not fast enough

When do you know it’s over

Is he cheating

Would I be happier with someone else

What if this is it forever