Looking For A Jay-Oh-Bee

The other morning I was driving to the train station and listening to the radio for the road report because here in Canada, we’ve moved from last week’s warm weather, known fondly as “fool’s spring” to this week’s “second winter” which would account for all the snow we’ve gotten over the last few days.

Morning radio is a lot of boring talk, interspersed with a little music, and a LOT of commercials. And it’s a strange mix of ads for lawyers, bankruptcy trustees, tax accountants and something called ‘Sell-Off Vacations.com’ and I can’t help but wonder if the target audience is mobsters:

Big Jimmy: The fuzz are closing in. What are we gonna do?
Mack the Spatula: I’ve been listening to the radio and I have an idea…

Anyway, I was driving and switching back and forth between stations (I have a cool thingy on my steering wheel that lets me do that with my thumb) trying desperately to find some actual music, when I heard a commercial for a recruitment agency. They detailed the advantages of signing up with them, and then said, “Start a new career now at Zip Recruiter.com/Canada. That’s Zip Recruiter dot com slash See-Eh-En-Eh-Dee-Eh” and I was like WHAT?! Of all the things in that web address to be more specific about, you chose to spell out the name of the country we LIVE IN? So you assume that the person can spell ‘Recruiter’ but not the most phonetically obvious country in the world? I mean, it’s not like we live in Kyrgyzstan or Azerbaijan or even Britain (which sounds like it should be spelled ‘Brit-in’). In fact, I think the only country that would be even easier to spell than Canada would be Finland. And let’s not even get started on that slash, like WHICH SLASH? The forward slash or the backwards one, because personally, I would want more information on THAT and especially where to find it on my keyboard since one of them is under the question mark, and the other can be literally ANYWHERE. And frankly, if you can’t spell the name of the very country that you live in, I think you have bigger problems than not being able to find a new job.

I had mostly put it out of my mind, except to randomly shake my head every once in a while, until yesterday, when it occurred to me that I might indeed need their services. I was working from home, and I got up early to start working on a report for a 10 o’clock phone meeting, and let me just emphasize PHONE here, as in, the people you are meeting with can only hear your voice. I called in at the appropriate time and told my director that I’d been working on a doc that I could email for her to look at. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I just figured out how we could all look at it together in Teams—let me send you the link. When you get it, just click on it” and when I clicked on the link the screen opened and there I was, ON CAMERA, in my housecoat, not wearing any makeup, my hair standing up all over the place, because I WAS WORKING FROM HOME so why the hell would I be all fancy?!! So I kind of screeched and ducked and said, “I didn’t know this was a video link” and I heard laughing and someone gasp, “Oh my god” and then my director said, “Click on the video camera icon and it will turn the camera off” but I couldn’t find the icon at first so I had my thumb over the camera lens on my laptop until I was able to locate it, which I finally did while everyone else waited in silence, and now I think I need a new job.

And because I DO know how to spell Canada, I figured I had a leg up on all the other applicants so I headed over to Zip Recruiter to see what they had for me. The first thing that caught my eye was Private Investigator. I think I’d be great at that because I read a lot of Nancy Drew as a young girl and my shoes always match my handbag. Also, I’m really good at solving mysteries and I have the reflexes of a middle-aged ninja.

Me (leaping out awkwardly from behind a door): Aha!! It was YOU who ate the cake that was on the counter!!
Titus (nervously licking icing off his whiskers): You’ll never be able to prove it!
Me: Prove it? Ha! I saw you do it with my own eyes!
Titus (confused): Then why didn’t you stop me?
Me: (whispers): Because you looked so cute and happy…plus I filmed the whole thing with my phone so I could post it on Facebook.

Is there cake?

OK, maybe I wouldn’t make the best detective, which was a shame because it came with full benefits. Another job that piqued my interest was Video Game Developer. I don’t know what kind of technical skills you need for that, but I have lots of ideas that I could give to someone to make a game with. My current favourite is The Commuter. In this game, you have to get from the train station to the subway in under five minutes, while avoiding the following obstacles:

  • The university student who stops at the bottom of the escalator to post a selfie on Instagram.
  • The two elderly woman who are drifting back and forth erratically while discussing their cats.
  • The line-up at Pastry Hut that stretches across the concourse.
  • The group of teens playing hacky sack right in front of the doors.
  • The man who can’t find his subway pass and is blocking the turnstile.
  • The people who apparently don’t work and who can see the subway coming but are in NO HURRY TO GET DOWN THE GODDAMNED STAIRS.

It’s a very stressful game actually, and I don’t know how much fun playing it would really be. I do it every day and I don’t enjoy it at all if I’m being honest. So maybe my video game ideas aren’t the best. I was getting a little discouraged in my job hunt so instead I just put the word “Fun” in the Zip Recruiter search bar and waited excitedly to see what came up. The first job on the list was “On-line Math Coach”. And now all I can think is that a) Zip Recruiter is the most f*cked up job agency on the Pee-El-Eh-En-Ee-Tee and b) from now on, I will get completely gussied up when I’m working from home, just in case.

47 thoughts on “Looking For A Jay-Oh-Bee”

  2. Maximum effort! This one had me roaring and ohh-ing (Titus does it every time) and, believe it or not, really thinking. For example, your video game reminds me of another really boring video game that, I should say, was loads of fun while playing it but an absolute grind while living it. I’m talking, of course, about Sims.

    When I was a much younger man, perhaps in my early 30s, I played a lot of Sims. One day I remarked to myself how incredible I was at it – I had an amazing job, beautiful family, clean house, and endless friends. All of that would take so much work in real life!

    Commuter is like Sims, I think. Wonderful to play and terrible to actually live. Frogger, I dare say, is the same.

    One more thing: I train a lot of people on phones and computers, at work. Let’s not get into the why of that yet, but I can tell you that almost to a man every time I say “slash” they type “-“. Sometimes, just to fuck with them I’ll say “dash” just to see what they say and, almost to the man, they say “forward dash” or “backwards dash” to which I say, “you pick.”

    Don’t get me started on the tilde.

    As always, this was amazing ef-you-en, you’re still the bee-ee-es-tee. Now I have to go do my aitch-eh-eye-ar and get my eh-es-es to cee-aitch-you-ar-aitch. CUK-BY!

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  3. Every time we hear the ad for Zip Recruiter on the radio my wife thinks it’s “Zipper Critter”, which tells me they’re spelling the wrong thing. And they’re potentially putting information out there for Mack The Spatula. Seriously, a private detective job that offers full benefits? That’s got to be a front for something. Private detectives are always shady guys who have shabby offices in a bad part of town, and they sleep in their offices because they’re behind on their rent. And if you look in the right hand drawer of their desk there’s always a revolver with only two bullets, a dirty glass, and a quarter of a bottle of something called MacLemmon’s.
    Those two old ladies talking about their cats are “private detectives” working for Mack The Spatula.
    Anyway I’m missing the important point, which is that I’m very impressed that Canada’s seasons are so organized. Also did Titus really eat an entire cake?

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    • It also came with life insurance, which may point to the shady nature of the job. And Titus has not only eaten a whole cake, but numerous other things over the course of many years–I think the weirdest was an entire box of hot chocolate K-cups–he chewed each one open and ate all the powder (and quite a bit of tinfoil as we discovered later!)

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  4. Yes, bloody Teams and it’s desire to always turn the damn webcam on. We’re slowly migrating our company meetings from Skype For Business to Teams and it’s not fun. Skype For Biz has reached the autumn of its days, like an old man who sometimes forgets things, drops things or just stays asleep – but when it works you know exactly what you’re going to get and there are some nice easy to use features. Teams, on the other hand, hasn’t grown up yet. It’s an eager pain in the arse kid who gives you things you don’t want, refuses to copy Old Uncle Skype in useful functionality, and still sometimes just stays in bed and doesn’t work. I’m not sure we’re making progress…

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  5. Bryntin says:

    I often answer the door, perhaps to a parcell man or something, unshaven and house-coated (‘dressing gown’ here) at midday or gone… It’s only because I haven’t stopped working/writing since 7am, not because I am as lazy-assed as it must look!

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  7. Okay, Player One, I’m thinking that the super secret agency you work for needs to keep your identity secret.

    Wtf is up with those video call-in meetings? Seriously, how do they expect one to retain ones secret identity if YOU HAVE TO VIDEO A MEETING?! Zip Recruiters adverts are the same everywhere. 🙄

    I’m going to second the question that Christopher asked, did Titus really eat an entire cake? 🐕‍🦺🐕‍🦺🐕‍🦺🎂🎂🎂

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    • I was shocked to discover that Zip Recruiter is an American based company so maybe they’re spelling out Canada for people in the States who want to relocate but don’t know how to spell? And yes–Titus has eaten many cakes over the years. Last night I left some Quality Street out on the counter and he ate those too, although he’s denying it vehemently.

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      • Haha! Well I’m sure Titus has a great poker face when he denies doing something. Ohhh Quality Street, I love those candies! And of course we can’t get them here in the US. I mean we can, but I have to order them online. I wish I could just buy them at the market.

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  8. / = slash
    \ = whack
    ! = bang

    SLASH! WHACK! !!

    We love Teams. I thought everyone had electrical tape over their laptop camera? (And their facing phone camera…)

    Team Hacks:
    • Private channel within a team between you and your team lead.
    • Integration with Azure DEVOPS: like a feed of all project ticket edits.
    • Record a meeting (or walkthru) and drag it up to the team channel menu bar… (video gets saved in microsoftstreams.com)
    • Search across all chat, docs, excel, ppts, even text in images (but not wikis, yet).
    • Open doc/folder in Sharepoint to set customized permissions. (Teams is hosted on top of sharepoint.)

    As an author, shouldn’t you be listening to books on tape (Audible, etc.)?

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    • We’ve recently discovered how to share docs and edit them in Sharepoint–very efficient. And I’d love to listen to audiobooks but I need to know if there are any accidents to avoid so that I can win The Commuter!

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  10. Wait a sec. You weren’t wearing any makeup? Oh, that’s shocking!

    As for the all those seasons in Canada, I agree and remember all of them. We’ve had Ice Age I, II and III here recently. I don’t recall witnessing so many storms, like ever, so yeah, the climate change sucks bit time.

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  13. I have always kept the camera on my computer covered with black tape but as I was about to type this I looked at it and the tape was gone. I am a little freaked out. Don’t know when or how that happened. I may need a private investigator.

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  17. Your video call experience reminded me of a friend, whose wife didn’t know he was still smoking. When he was with us, and smoking, if his wife called, he would totally panic and try to hide the cigarette 😄

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  19. I LOVE your idea for a video game! I think 100’s of people would play it assuming you could knock the people off the escalators, throw them in front of a train, photo bomb someone’s selfie…you get the idea. The whole Titus and cake thing, I totally understand since I am that GIRL ( especially when it comes to the grandkiddos)

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  20. Having just read that 38% of people are not buying Corona beer b/c they’re afraid of Coronavirus, I’m no longer convinced people know how to spell Canada. Sheesh. Shouldn’t we be getting smarter?!

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