Wasting time with Jet

You remember the movie "Boiler Room"? If not, it's worth a nice saturday afternoon viewing. Great use of classic hip hop music, good narrative, killer dialog, and an intresting story. Without giving much away, the movie follows Giovanni Ribisi (He played Nicholas Cage's little brother in "Gone in 60 Seconds") as a guy who stumbles into the dark world of Wall Street by working for a brokerage firm selling fictional stocks and scaming people out of their money.

A term that stood out in the film was the nickname the stock brokers gave to a client that was easy to manipulate and had a lot of money. They called them "Whales". A "Whale" was someone with a lot of money and little brains to do with it. And that's what I feel like today...A big, fat, gullable, whale.

I got a call yesterday from a guy named MARK. To told me he found my resume on the internet (I'm going to mention which site, but my resume is on at least 4 major carrer sites anyway...). He told me that my skills were perfect for an "URGENT" indefinate temp assignment that his company had to fill by monday, the 21st "by the latest". He talked fast and used a lot of spin words to sell the job, but there was one problem...it was in White Plains. Westchester...why on earth would I go back working upstate? A year ago I left the Health Insurance company so I could work in the city again! To make things worst, there was still a bus strike going on between the bus line that links the bronx with westchester, the only way I had to go up there was the Metro North.

When this MARK guy called, I should of just explained that I was too far away, that no amount of money, would be worth the commute, declined politely and hung up the phone. BUT this guy was so damn good. He restored hope in me, that if I made it up there somehow, the job would be mine, and it would be enough to make it worth it. So, not knowing HOW I would actually get there, I agreed to a 1pm meeting.

SO I get up this morning and start out at 11am. The nearest station on the "White Plains" line was across town at Melrose. I get to the station to catch the 11:36 train that'll get me up to White Plains by 12:30. This station was deserted! Not a soul for yards in each direction. Do you know what it's like being the only living being in a wide empty place for a couple of minutes? The whole time waiting I was thinking, "Ya know, someone could come up and KILL ME and no one would know about it for hours, maybe even days!" It was scary as hell. I started talking to myself after awhile...

"Good morning Mister Phelps, your mission, should you chose to
accepted is to make it through the end of this voiceover. Should
you or any of your IMF operatitves be caught or killed in this
mission, the agency will disenvow any knowledge of your actions.
This message with self destruct in five seconds..."


The train finally shows up, and I'm off to Upstate New york, yet again. After recent advice, I wanted to do something diferent with this interview. I knew the minute I walk in, I'd be asked to do some paperwork, fill out forms and such. I wanted to go in brash and confident this time...along the lines as...

ME: "Good afternoon, my name is Les, I have an one o'clock appointment with MARK"

Receptionist:"Okay, Les, I need to see two forms of ID and just fill out these forms..."

ME: "Excuse me, miss...I don't mean to be rude, but it's 12:30 and I came all the way out here from the bronx. Please inform MARK that his 1 O'Clock is here, and he's here a HALF HOUR EARLY! I'd like to speak with him about the position and see if it's worth my effort, AND THEN I'll do your paperwork."

Receptionist (shaken):"Yes Sir"

ME:"Thank you."

That would be so against my character, it just might work!

I get to the building and I go the floor in question, I find the office and I step in...

Chaos.

The agency's waiting area is the size of a walk-in closet. There were at least 4 people waiting to be interviewed, and two more in a testing area. People are walking around everywhere like it's Times Square, I was so turned around, my confidence few right out the window. Apparently MARK had sold his pitch to at least 15 other people that had appointments today. The position in question was for medical coding and billing, and there were at least eight open positions at two sites in isolated hospitals far, far from public transportation. I did the paperwork, did the test, spoke to a female recruiter name SANDY who pretty much explained that with no car or any means to get to those two sites, I was pretty much wasting my time. She gave me the parting gift of a couple of timesheets and a booklet with the company history and tips of what to do while on assignment and false hopes of calling me if they get anything near public transportation, blah, blah, blah....thank you come again!

I got back home at 4:00 where I got a couple of more Bank of New York job offers from JOE's Executive Agency. One was in real estate, doing mortage applicaions, verfying documents and data entry. It sounded simular to the enrollment work and it was paying 14.00 an hour so I gave them the go ahead to pass my resume along (It's not like they called me on that other assignment they offered me two weeks ago!). I felt so stupid that I let MARK con me into wasting my time today, he probably gets paid on commission by every fool he gets to go up there. I am such a whale...

Well, there's still the document thing that REBEL gave me, but there's some issues with that too...but that's a story for another day. Now, I just feeling like swiming around looking for Ahab and Queequeg to do me in...

"Anybody who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn't fucking have any." (Ben Affleck in "Boiler Room")