Not a chance…

I’m still getting the same stupid joke about my name from adults that deal with individuals every day. Here is a text conversation I had today with someone I spend a decent amount of time with during the week:

Him: You know anyone at **removed**? I got a guy here now helping me.

Me: No, sorry, That’s our competition.

Him: Whats name of ur company. **removed** never calls me back.

Me: **removed**. We usually don’t take clients east of 34th street.

Him: I usually dont let anyone that has a name with the pronunciation of gay anywhere in it work for me!

And so the search continues. I hope to one day not only find a job where I am a respected member of the staff and get paid a decent wage but also work with real grown-ups that don’t make stupid jokes that I have been hearing since the first grade.

How is everyone else’s job search going?

Hello Galen,

I received your application and would like to speak with you further regarding this position. While I don’t think you have the exact internet marketing experience that we usually require, you have a good set of skills that we think would be beneficial. Because of this, I have decided to go ahead and approve your application.

Just to give you a brief overview of this position, we are a marketing company that uses Google’s advertising platform. So, your task will be to post links on Google’s site. No one needs to order anything from you, our company, or Google. You’re not selling anything. You just post the website links we provide and get paid based on how many you do.

We provide you with the links and directions on how to post them properly (don’t worry, this is all explained in much greater detail in our training materials). Checks are mailed bi-weekly, with direct deposit available for those earning more than $1,000 per week.

As part of the protocols of our growing company, we have deployed measures to limit our liabilities in training new employees. As such, there is a small fee ($2.29) to cover the cost of manufacturing the work materials and shipping them to you. This kit allows us to keep track of the number of hours you work weekly. We do have a minimum commitment of 20 hrs a week from home.

If this position sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can request your training materials at our website:

http://www.wfhconsulting.com/employeetoolkit

Please let me know once you’ve received the training packet so we can setup a conference call. I’d like to walk you through our program step-by-step and answer any questions you may have. Once again, we’re only looking for 10 new employees to help us scale our business. If you’re reading this, you were chosen by our hiring staff. If we do not hear from you, we will have to move down the list of qualified individuals.

I hope you have a great day, and I look forward to working with you.

Sarah Parker
Staffing Director
WFH Consulting
Sarah.Parker@wfhconsulting.com

Beware of WFH Consulting!

Good luck everyone, there are jobs out there (I hope). More importantly, there are individuals looking to cash in on our misfortune so please be careful.

Since everyone found my last post so helpful, I’ll post this one too. Keep your spirits up and keep looking, there are jobs out there, somewhere.

Hello Galen,

I would like to personally thank you for your interest in our company; we were very pleased to read your email.
As an office administrator, you will commonly deal with clients and staff on a person to person basis. As such, one first step of the application process is to complete a short online personality and skills test on our website.

Please take a few moments to complete our questions on our site http://www.ryendmarketing.com/recruitment-test. Your results will be stored under your profile, tracking is handled automatically by our link. We will review your results and contact you if we have decided to move further.

Thank you again for your interest,

Juliet Smith
Rend Marketing
Hiring Associate

Rend Marketing and Fled Consulting, hmm, I wonder if the company names will ever get longer than 4 letters.

I can’t think of anything worse than having no job AND bad credit. Here is a copy of the email I received:

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in our job position. I am Alex Rurstu and I am a Senior Hiring Representative for FLED Consulting. I would like to thank you for your response to our ads. We were very impressed by your credentials. Yours was actually one of the most impressive resumes I saw from the hundreds I read.

That being said, we would like to move forward in your job proposition. The position pays $20/hour starting, with a lot of room for growing. Compared to similar positions in this area, we are paying a very high starting salary for new employees, so I’m sure you will have a fantastic time working with us.

We would like to schedule an interview with you, and discuss what your job would specifically be in our company. Take note that we require all potential employees have a credit report performed prior to their interview. We require as credit check to ensure we are receiving top notch professionals as we take everything into consideration for hiring purposes. In addition, you will most likely be in contact with sensitive financial documents therefore it is imperative we ensure all of our employees are fiscally responsible. We can only schedule a telephone consultation once you confirm you have one (for your safety please do not E-mail it to us).

You may either use your own accredited credit report company, or use one that we recommend. This company provides reports free of charge unlike most others which charge a fee. If you are interested in using the one I mentioned, then please proceed here.

Once you receive your credit report, please email us back confirming. We will spend an additional 5 business days reviewing your resume again, at which point we will contact you if we have decided to move forward.

Thank you for your time, and congratulations on becoming a possible candidate for our company.

Alex Rurstu
Human Resources
FLED Consulting

They couldn’t even bother to use my name in the salutation; amateurs. At any rate, the email address this came from is Alex.Rurstu@fledconsulting.com. Can someone give me a physical address for FLED Consulting?

I'm geared up and ready to ride

I run and I ride but I still don’t know how the game of football is played.

This is me all ready for a 20k ride around Ben’s neighborhood hood.

Hi Galen,

Thank you so much for sharing your troubling experience. It is important to gather such insights to both provide solutions and/or improvements when warranted. While unfortunate we did not find a possibly pending problem, I am at least relieved to learn you did find a resolution. My sincere apologies for the frustration you felt with both communications and service results.

Again, thank you, Galen, for taking the time to share your insights and partner with us. We hope you will continue choosing Best Buy® for all your technology needs.

Regards,

Lesson learned. Even if Apple tells you to take your computer to best buy, use common sense and never let those butchers touch your computer. They were probably selling washing machines the day before.

I received a reply on Twitter (http://twitter.com/geeksquadhelp/status/1724869562) about a Tweet I had posted (http://twitter.com/mrgalen/status/1719851056) and was asked to send details about my bad experience.

To start, I’ll describe the problem I was having. The cooling fan inside of my Macbook laptop computer had been making a grumbling noise, it was definitely nearing the end of its life and would need to be replaced. Finally, while running a few intensive programs, the fan finally broke and began to make a noise like it was trying to spin but couldn’t. I looked at my monitoring utility (istat pro) and saw that the fan RPM’s had gone to 0 and the computer temperatures were rising. A few seconds later, the computer shut down due to overheating.

SInce I had extended Apple Care I called them to find out where I should send my computer. I was told that I could either wait for a box to ship it to them or take it to Best Buy because they are now an authorized reseller/repair agent. Thinking that I had nothing to worry about since I was still under warranty, I took it to Best Buy.

On 17 APR 2009, I dropped my Macbook off at the Best Buy Geek Squad in Gainesville, FL (store 424). I described the problem and the tech seemed to understand. From there, the problems began. The service order number was: (omit).

I received and email on 24 APR 2009, a full 7 days after I had dropped my computer off, telling me that my computer was received. If I had waited on an overnight box from Apple, my computer would have been to the repair center before the 24th. I’m sure I don’t need to go into details about how frustrating it was to find out that a week had gone by and my computer was not touched.

On 27 APR 2009, I received a call from a Geek Squad Service Tech. At the time, I was in the shower and could not get to the phone. The tech left a voicemail letting me know that there was nothing wrong with the Macbook cooling fan and the unit would be cleaned and sent back to me. About 5 minutes after the call came, I tried to get in contact with the Geek Squad tech by calling the number on the voicemail, no luck. I then called the number on the Geek Squad website. The first person I talked to had no idea what I was talking about when I said I would like to talk to the tech that just called me. After explaining twice that a Geek Squad tech was working on my computer and I would like to talk to someone about it, I believe this person gave up trying to find out who I needed to talk with and transferred the call. I was never told to whom I was being transferred to. This person picked up and again I had to explain that I wanted to talk to someone about my Geek Squad service. I was then told to hold while I was transferred to a third person, during the transfer I was hung up on. Frustrated, I called the local store to talk to someone in Geek Squad. After following the prompts on the automated answering machine, I was connected to the Geek Squad desk. The phone rang for about 10 minutes and nobody picked up, I then hung up the phone. I gave up trying to contact Geek Squad.

I picked up my computer on 29 APR 2009. Upon returning home, I turned on my computer and immediately heard the familiar rumbling sound from the bad fan. 45 minutes later the fan failed again and the computer overheated and shut itself off a few moments later.

I took my computer to the Jacksonville Apple store later that same week. I was told that my computer would be hooked up to a diagnostic machine that would run the fan at maximum RPM’s and that if there was a problem, it would be discovered then. 6 hours after I dropped my computer off at the Apple store, I got a call from them telling me that the fan was broken and had been replaced. What Geek Squad failed to do in 2 weeks, Apple did in 6 hours.

I can only assume that the Geek Squad tech that worked on my Macbook, turned the computer on, verified that the fan was on, and shut it off again. As far as I can tell, there was no attempt to troubleshoot or recreate the problem I described when I dropped off the computer for repair. My computer is my livelihood, I make most of my income from web design. The 2 weeks that Geek Squad had my computer were also the weeks that I had to study for my final exams in school. I can’t blame Geek Squad for my computer breaking when it did but I can blame them for having my computer for so long and not actually fixing it.

Thank you for your interest and listening to my complaints. I sincerely hope that the Geek Squad service offered for Apple products will one day meet the standards that Apple sets for its own products and service.

I’ll post the response later…..