Jobs

I've been trying very hard to acquire a summer job lately and I have noticed that it is very very very very difficult to do so with no previous experience. I've been so many turn downs from people that I'm thankful that I'm a confident person or I would take everything personal and become unhealthily depressed I'm sure. I have also noticed that there is a common theme in most of the turn-downs from jobs that I have received  that I am inexperienced. No shiffftttt!!!!! (not really feeling comfortable on swearing online, my mother probably reads this) Of course I am inexperienced in the jobs! I've only worked at two places in my life, camp and a janitorial job. So of course I would have no experience with retail or cafes or hospitals (besides I didn't do so well with Bio 30 so the hospital not accepting me is more understandable). My bottom point is, getting a job is brutally hard and if anyone out there is hiring.... I would love to have a summer job!

Two weeks ago though, I had a very interesting encounter with a job interview where I had to turn them down (I know what you're thinking "Why would he turn down a job if he wants one? Obviously he's not taking getting a job seriously" but you're wrong, I have a complete valid reason behind not accepting this job). Anyway so I was online looking for a job when I recalled that friend of mine told me I could go on Kijiji for jobs because that's where she found her's. I am desperate and so I decided that I would check out Kijiji and see what jobs I can find online. Luckily there was a job that sounded like I would help around with events at certain vendors, in the city, a couple times a month. The pay seemed like it was pretty decent and so I thought it would be a great job if I had a second job near where I lived so that I wasn't only working 3 times a month. I called the company and talked to them about the add that I found on Kijiji and the lovely lady on the phone was talking to me about the job (word for word from Kijiji pretty much) and assured me that I did not need any previous experience. This news excited me!!! It sounded like I could actually be getting a job here, like finally!!! However I was so excited I was not really listening to what the lady on the phone was saying, especially when she mentioned acting. I just politely arranged an interview and forgot about what she said about acting.

So I take the transit to the building and I walk in, I check the board with all the various room numbers and look for number 160 (because that is the room that I thought the lady on the phone said) however there was no room 160. This meant that I started to freak out wondering if I was even in the right building! Luckily there was a young guy in a cane (not sure why he had a cane if he was young but he was limping so I guess it made sense for him to have a cane) and this young man got into the elevator and asked if I was going up. I told him sure why not. This response struck him as odd (that was word for word what I said so I think it's fair to say that that response would surprise anyone) and he asked what I was doing here. I replied and told him how I believed that I was here for a job interview (I started loosing confidence that I was even in the right place). The young man told me that I should probably know if I have a job interview before leaving for it and that I should probably bring my resume if I hoped to ever get hired (hey I'm new to this getting a job thing so it's understandable that I didn't bring a resume).

After being questioned by this young man with a cane and an Irish accent (forgot to mention that before) I decided that I should make polite conversation and ask him what he was doing here. He told me how he was applying for a job that worked a couple times a month at convention centers and he can serve alcohol (this started to sound like my job) and he was pretty excited because apparently this was an acting job (this confused me greatly because I forgot what the lady on the phone said). The man told me he was going to room 420 in case I was interested in applying myself, I stayed by the elevator instead and called in the company so I could figure out where my interview was (I had about 2 min to get there and I still wasn't sure if I was in the right building). The lady tells me to go to room 420 (this is the same room as the guy with the cane and I'm still not sure how I got room 160 from 420 cause they do NOT sound the same at all).

First thing I notice in the room are two life-sized Oscar awards in front of me and on the walls there were stars and camera reels. I started to get a feel that this place wasn't so much about event but about acting. The lady behind the desk asked me to fill out a piece of paper and the questions seemed pretty normal until they started asking about my drama experience. This first question was simply "What have you done with drama" of which I put: high school classes, church production, and college class (which I thought this would look pretty pathetic). Then there was a check box asking if I wanted to star in movies, tv, or commercials (this really confused me because I was unsure how this fit into events but I checked it anyway); next was a check box asking if I wanted to be a background person for a movie, tv, or commercial (of which I decided to check because who wouldn't want to do this); last question was if I was ok with doing live events at convention centers doing more live performing (this is where I figured the events fit into the acting so I checked the box).

So I go into the interview after filling out the form and I decide to be super friendly to the lady because I didn't have a resume (if I decided that I wanted the job then I should try to make up for the fact that I am not fully prepared), which worked cause she seemed to fall for my charm (who wouldn't). She then proceeded to ask me if I have done set designing so I told her about my college class (this was the only question she had about my acting career in the whole interview). I then find out that this was an acting agency and that they hire people for acting and modeling positions (this surprised me because I have no idea how I really got into this predicament and why I was even there to begin with). She proceeded to explain how they were going to take my picture after the interview and take my dimensions if I chose to join their team however this was going to cost me. All in all, she told me that I had to pay them about $100 upfront for advertisement (which I don't have which is why I'm looking for a job), I would work very infrequent (3 times a month would apparently be lucky), I could start off being paid $11/hr but they could ask me for 20% of it for their cut.

When I worked all that math in my head I realized that I would no longer be making a great deal of money. To further my skepticism of this agency, I was shown a catalog of the guys that work for them for acting but also modeling. And I have to say, most of the guys I saw were not blessed by God with the ability to be a model (at least that's what their pictures look like). This cause my heart to break because these guys hoped to be models but this agency scammed them into believing a lie, the lie that they looked as good as models out there and that they can make the same kind of money.

At the end of the day, I turned them down, I could not work for them, especially knowing that they were pretty much scamming people. But I guess that's what you get when you job search on Kijiji. Hopefully I will have better luck in the future with getting a job and actually find a place to work this summer cause I really do need something to keep me busy throughout the summer and make me money.

Intro

Hello, not too sure who I am writing this out to but I feel like I should introduce myself to whomever you may be (extra points for being grammatically correct... I think). I am Ryan, and I go to Ambrose University College studying to be a psychologist because I like to help people. Besides helping people I also enjoy making people laugh, which apparently comes naturally to me as people like to point out. I have a tendency to not pay attention to my surroundings and this results in funny stories of my life. I was sitting in a Tim Hortons on Sunday with a group of friends and they encouraged me to start a blog about my life because other people need to be informed about my stupidity I guess. Something about knowing that they aren't the stupidest person out there maybe, just knowing that somewhere out there, someone is worse than them (me). To maintain my theme of humorous stories of my life, I would like to share with you about a recent one that my friends have thoroughly laughed at.

About two weeks ago I was in my Cultural Anthropology class and we were talking about sexuality in other cultures (scandalous I know but I was able to persevere). Anyway I had a nagging question in the back of my mind that I couldn't get out, however I felt that people would laugh at me if I asked it. I'm not sure why I thought people would laugh, probably because I knew deep down it was a stupid question, however I was deeply concerned for people that were experiencing this tragedy. In class we learned about female circumcision where overseas they pretty much sow together a woman's vagina so that she doesn't have sex before marriage and that sex becomes very painful for them (obviously females are the sexual animals here, lets all be honest). However upon hearing this news, this deeply disturbed me, and not in the way that you might expect. I was confused as to how these females would pee. My ignorance lead me to believe that if a woman's vagina was sowed together, then she couldn't have sex or pee because the opening was now closed. This caused me to wonder what would happen to that urine.

I started then believing that the urine would store up on the other side of the surgically closed vagina until there was enough pressure to burst the seems. I thought this would result in even more pain for my female companions across the globe and I shuddered at this thought. Imagine how awkward it would be to walk even, every step you take you would feel that urine sploshing around, waiting to build up enough until the seems could not handle the pressure. Eventually I decided that I needed to ask the question, I needed to know how we could save these women, I needed to know how they peed.

I turned to my friend sitting next to me in class and told her I had a question but I wasn't sure if I should ask it in class, this resulted in me confiding in her about what I believed about female circumcision. She tried to contain her laughter, and this made me even more confused. To me, this was a legitimate issue. We needed to save these females!

After class she decided to explain to me the flaws in my thinking. It started off with her asking if I ever took Bio 30 in class? What does that have to do with anything? I told her I did take it but I found that it wasn't interesting, didn't pay attention, and didn't do so well in it. From there she explained that women, unlike men, do not have two holes like I have previously believed. Apparently there's a third that's hidden! And this hole is where the urine exits so the females can still pee if their vagina is sowed closed. This started my embarrassment.

Because we were talking about such a weird topic and there were other females surrounding us, people decided to cue in on our conversation eventually. Funny how people will ignore anything that you say but if you talk about a vagina everyone will zero in on you... Next thing I know, I'm being questioned for my legitimacy of not knowing that females had three holes. I mean give a guy a break! It's not like I can check anytime that I want to make sure that there are three holes, therefore it is foolish for these females to just assume that I know about their anatomy  And then, one decides to ask if I knew where periods come from.... Why should I know!? It's not like I am about to have a period, I'm not even dating a girl! All I need to know about periods is if a female close to me is going to kill me because she is having her period. Beyond that, I see no purpose for that knowledge. Needless to say the girls in my class were surprised about my ignorance I am sure.

However I would like to end off saying that I do know where periods come from now... not that I was thinking about that a lot after the conversation and I remembered by Bio classes about that topic, but I now know. I should come back next week with a new funny story, so if you liked this story, share this with friends.