Today wasn’t really a busy or complex day. I got up early, after another in a week-long string of lousy nights’ sleep, and trundled off to my local branch of Oregon’s Employment Department. You see, I was selected for some kind of “career orientation” based on some funky mathematics they do to determine one’s likelihood of becoming employed before one’s 26 weeks of benefits run out.

If only that was my biggest financial worry, eh? But they don’t need to know how bad I have it, do they?

The gist of the orientation is that they wanted to provide a group of us with information and motivation. That’s fine, they’re doing their jobs, and in fact I did come out of the experience with a couple of useful website addresses. Neato. One guy, however, and there’s one in every group… he first had to complain about the fact that he was present in the first place. “How do they determine this score? What can I do to lower it?” (My thought: Well, getting a job would be a good start.) He then went on about how he was newly out of work after holding a job for nine years (my voiced response: You too, eh?), and that he’d just spent $500 on a resumé, and…

Wait, what? Five hundred dollars? Wow. So, that brings me to the first “don’t” for today:

Don’t… assume that dropping half a grand for a resumé is going to guarantee you employment.

After fleeing the E.D. offices, I decided to scavenge for foodstuffs, as I’d left the house long before my normal breakfast time. I had a hankerin’ for a Chipotle burrito, but they weren’t open yet. So, I wandered a bit, and ended up at the mall. (Nevermind what I did there. It’s not important, not yet anyway.) While there, my phone rang.

To the best of my knowledge, it was someone offering me a contract job in the Portland Metro area. I can’t be certain of this, however, as the person on the other end refused to do two important things: Speak clear and unaccented English, and speak at reasonable volume. I made out “contract” and “Portland Oregon” but damned little else, and that’s after several attempts to get the woman to repeat herself clearly. So, it’s time for another “don’t”:

Don’t… outsource your job recruitment calls to an outfit based in a country for which English is not the native tongue.

Arriving home as the weather became just a bit too warm to be strolling around in long sleeves, I ate and eventually dozed. A little while ago, after battling with ATI’s stupid multimedia software (“I don’t want the timeshifting ‘feature.’ What do you mean, I can’t turn it off? To hell with this!”), I decided to check what the weather forecasts looked like online. I saw a forecast high of 78 degrees, which is all very nice except that the current temperature read 81 degrees. You can probably guess where this is going:

Don’t… neglect to update the posted information when the facts outrun the projected numbers.

Mind you, maybe I’m the only one who finds stuff like this annoying. Then again, maybe not. At the very least, I was able to derive some amusement, and that’s what matters. Right?