Saturday, May 05, 2007

The Younger They Come, The Harder We Fall.


Getting a job in today's busy world is easy; you just have to know how to play the game.
If you are lucky enough to have evolved a turtle-necked instinct for self-negation, then you will have a little reserve of emotion somewhere that gives you a focus for hiding from the slingshots of the powerful, whether they be great, old and mighty, or more likely casual, vicious and cheap.

If you play the game, the pecking-order is established at the interview stage, by little hints and surrenders, with a possible tooth-baring at significant moments to give the impression of having betrayed something under the feint co-option which passes for aggression in this weird world of sniffing arses.

If you don't, they will quite likely turn blindly towards you at the next intersection and write you off as a dead loss, a loser in every sense of the word.

Not for them the outrageous heights of talent, ability, and the blue-sky.
They only tick the 'blue sky' box and the 'thinking-outside-the-box' box when conducting a coerced peer review on the orders of senior management.

Beware the charming interviewer.
If you meet one, explore the possibility of humour; if they have it, this can defuse the rictus offensive; or if they lack it entirely, that is also a good sign, since seriousness runs hand in hand with conviction and convictions can be convinced.

No.

What you really have to watch out for, is somebody who has a little cunning, and an educated ease of manner which vaults any real or imaginary obstacle with a contempt which humiliates the generations of people who have fought against them.

The worst fool is a young fool, and young fools are equipped by colleges to be acquisitive of souls, minds and dignity.
Other people's.

The problem as the interviewee at this juncture is that involuntary paralysis of your mind will engage in order to protect it from the exploitation into which it is being lured.
They in turn will conclude that there is nothing there for them.

Then they will advise against giving you the job.

It's a Long Way to the Top If You Want To Rock 'n Roll!

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