Profunksticated

Well, I didn’t get the chance to throw the consultant pitch at my Monday interview.

After a drive of at least 90 minutes, part of it along a major traffic-clogged toll road, I met with three members of a major telecommunications firm interviewing for a proposal specialist.  I got the sense they were seeking to hire someone to work from this particular office, which markets communications systems to police, fire and emergency medical agencies. Two were from out-of-state offices, so they had no sense of how far away l live; the third came into the interview 15 minutes in.

I had told the recruiter who sent me up there that this office was too far away, but she advised me to go anyway. After all, I guess, her firm gets paid if someone it presents is hired, so of course she was going to encourage me to go see her client. She also noted that there was the possibility I could work at a client office closer to home, but that topic didn’t come up during the actual interview. That’s because the hiring authorities I spoke with were far removed geographically and organizationally from the recruitment sourcing process.

In all, I was just one in a string of interviewees seen that day. I felt pretty confident and offered all the right answers, even if they were bullshit. If I were offered the gig, I would refuse on the basis of distance. Long commutes (over 30 miles one way) are absolutely not going to be part of my life unless I’m offered six figures (highly unlikely) and even then I’ll have to think long and hard about whether to accept.

And enough with the 9/11 retrospectives already! I wish this country would realize that 9/11, as horrific as it was, could be seen as a not-altogether-unexpected response from folk who believe the U.S. has historically fucked with them. I remember reading a think tank’s paper, published in the late 90s, that predicted a terrorist attack on U.S. soil as a matter of "not if, but when."

Reason: The U.S. continually sticks its beak into other nations’ business. Come on, do you see Al Qaeda fucking with Switzerland or Finland, or even Australia?

Shit, if any group had justification to commit terror strikes agains the U.S., it would be African Americans. I can only imagine the chaos that would have occurred down south during Jim Crow if we blacks could have funded and organized ourselves into cells called "Al-Negro" and launched retaliatory attacks against the KKK and the state governments it controlled. This country is very fortunate to have a such a group of forgiving people on these shores.

Regarding 9/11, I was sitting in a cubicle when I first heard what happened that day. As the day wore on, I became ill to my stomach, thinking World War III was about to jump off with nukes flying all over the place. Well, the nukes weren’t fired, but perhaps World War III indeed has started.

Peace.