AOL Hell and job hunting.

Hello All,

I hate AOL. I am a PAYING customer. And they put banner ads in my e-mail AND my journal. I can deal with e-mail, but NOT my journal. I could understand if AOL were free. But I pay THEM to put ads on MY personal journal space. The current ad on my journal is Bank of America. I friggin' hate Bank of America. That doesn't sit right with me. It makes me mad.

I have been blogging here since December 2003. Almost two years of my life were recorded here. I don't just want to leave, but I may end up doing it. In fact, I hope that AOL loses a bunch of customers for this. Most companys are sellouts, but they do a good job to try and hide it. AOL is so obvious about it and doesn't even pretend to care. I am gonna have to think about this one.

On another note, I went to a job fair for sales positions. In a nutshell it was so depressing. Pfizer was on the list to be there. And at the end they "didn't show." I guess that is a code for "Pfizer was the best company on the list, and was only advertised there so people would come and give the other lousy companies a shot."

After I left the fair, a guy walked me out to my car. On the way, he told me this after asking me a few questions: "I watched you while you were talking to the companies, and you did everything wrong. I felt so bad. I wanted to say something."

Excuse me ? But after I got over his bluntness, I listened to what he had to say, and he had a point. He told me he used to run job fairs like this and told me all the little tricks. And in all fairness to him, he wasn't rude about it. And we spent some more time going over "what went wrong."

For starters, I am too nice. They don't want nice. They want polite, yet agressive. I have to be assertive and get them to tell me why I should work for them, instead of me trying to convince them I am worthy. They also don't want me to be so available. As I have come to find out, finding a job is like finding a man. Gotta play a little hard to get.

I also learned that though they say they interview for inside sales and outside sales positions, they really only want people for outside sales positions. I was also told not to mention that I have traveled all over. Apparently employers will think that there is something wrong with me if I want to travel all over the place.

To make a long story short, this career fair was educational, and I am glad that I went. However, it was depressing. Most employers lie, and I could see it. I could also see that I wasn't confident enough, and I could also realize that I will probably not get followup calls to come in for an interview. It bites.

Anyways, I am glad that at least I have a job.