Hire Ground

But first a trivia quiz.

Who out there knows why the address of the new facility of Zilog at 6800 Santa Teresa Blvd., San Jose, CA 95119 is humorous? My wife just doesn’t get it, she rolls her eyes and mutters, “engineers” under her breath when we drive past it and I point it out for the umpti-umpth time.

So play with me here, folks.

Anyway, back to Kalifornia, State of.

I applied for un-employment with some trepidation. After all, I have made it to this point in my life without ever going onto the public dole. And you hear things. About the bureaucrats. About the “rules”. Scary things.

So I get invited into an “interview” and along with the invitation am given a questionnaire to fill out. It was about my efforts to find work and/or job training to switch careers. Stern warnings appeared in several places telling me to fill out the form prior to arriving for my “interview”.

So I filled it out and appeared with my passport (to prove citizenship) about 10 minutes before my appointment time. (Another habit that makes my wife roll her eyes.)

It’s a huge office. A big bullpen with almost a fifty desks in it. And about four people at those desks.

The people manning the lobby desk seemed shocked at my arrival and further more didn’t know what to do when I handed them the completed form. Several muttered that I had filled it out ahead of time. This was unheard of!

Hmmmm. It turned out that the first step in the process was to fill out the form that had to be filled out before you came in for your “interview”. An example of the Kalifornia Warp of the space/time continuum.

I didn’t realize that more strange happenings lurked just over the event horizon.

So their solution to the immediate dilemma was to have me fill out another, different survey/form that was just like the one I had filled out and mailed in when I first applied for the dole a month earlier.

I filled it out (for the second time) in about 2 minutes and that caused some consternation at the front desk. Apparently, no one had ever filled it out that quickly. I was just coming at these people too fast. They didn’t know what to do. Furthermore, I was smiling and being cheerful. Confusion on top of chaos! They didn’t know how to handle me, so they sent me to sit and wait. With no explanation of what I was waiting for.

Luckily, I had foreseen this development (waiting) and brought the San Jose Mercury News.

There were still 3 minutes before the scheduled start of my “interview”

After waiting about 15 minutes and reading the Mercury News front to back, I was finally called in for the “interview”.

I had no idea what to expect. A ruthless grilling to make sure I was applying to every job that came along? Oblique references on how I was ripping off the hardworking people of Kalifornia by being lazy and worthless? Relentless questions about what job I was “really” qualified for?

I was almost disappointed when the interview was with a very pleasant man who coached me on California’s expectations of me in my job search while I was collecting unemployment. He was very knowledgeable and deftly and quickly guided me through the resources California has for job seekers.

The gem in the whole process was that the state’s on-line data base includes all companies doing business in CA. Not just the publicly traded ones. All the start ups are in there.

Since I’m interested in getting back into a smaller company (if possible) this was a great resource that I’ve been mining ever since.

After that we chatted about shared experiences and after 45 minutes I was sent on my way with packets of information.

I stepped out into the sunshine of a late afternoon winter day, breathed deeply and said to my self, “that wasn’t bad at all”.

As the door to the job center closed behind me, all traces and records of my visit disappeared into the ether. I know this because I got a couple of nasty letters from the state of Kalifornia chastising me for missing my appointment and telling me of my new appointment in a week. And copies of the two questionnaires that MUST be FILLED OUT BEFORE the appointment.!!!!!!!!!!!!

So on Wednesday, I called the phone number in the letters to explain that I had in fact gone to the interview. A recording came on and explained that they had more phone calls than they were used to and told me to call on Wednesday or Thursday when I could likely get through.

Then the recorded lady (who seemed like she had been well brought up) hung up on me!

Things are just different in Kalifornia.