In my day job, I’m currently between contracts. It’s one of the hazards of being self-employed in tech, and making sure I only work jobs that are compatible with a life doing stand-up comedy on the road. So I spend a lot (A LOT) of time in talent marketplaces, on job boards, reaching out to people, sending emails, and entering/re-entering my personal data into applications that are probably just harvesting that data for some nefarious purpose later. This year, the whole process seems extra bleak. Corporate America’s goal of removing human labor from every aspect of business has made an already abysmal job market even worse. It’s not enough to have a good resume, interview well, and show competency in the field you’ve chosen. Now your resume has to be optimized to clear an automated initial review by a robot that is known to just blanket dismiss resumes for no reason (there’s a lawsuit for this). If that robot actually moves you to the next step, you have to interview with a different robot that will ask you a series of scripted questions and decide if your answers contained enough of the expected content to warrant further consideration. That robot summarizes everything, and as long as it doesn’t hallucinate some crazy reply on your part, might pass that to an HR person. Assuming there was an actual project here with an actual role. Because really, this could have all been a ruse to trick you into helping some company train their robot without paying you for your time. That’s just the process I’m familiar with. I can’t even imagine what weird hurdles now exist in manufacturing, trade, or service industry jobs. All I know is everyone is trying to get more from workers while paying less for workers. So if you’re out there looking, and you’re ready to smash your head against a brick, I just want you to know that I get it. Apologies to Goya, the artist, not the rice.

IYKYK… I’m not saying United Healthcare is the worst insurance company in America. I’m not saying that because I don’t know enough about libel law to know whether or not I can be sued for saying United Healthcare is the worat insurance company in America. Unless they can’t sue me for saying United Healthcare is the worst insurance company in America. In which case, United Healthcare is the worst insurance company in America. But only if they can’t sue me. I did however get my third rejection that basically says “Why you trying to fix those teeth when every restaurant near you serves soup?” Also, I’m reading a book of old horror comics at the moment…

The original statue was happier. But it stood in front of a church built on the ruins of a pyramid. I doubt the historical accuracy of that happiness. Looking forward to revisiting Mexico City in the future.

A grown up ADHD kid tries to read a book in Mexico and gets distracted by the book’s opening quote.

Sarah was pretty sure Todd didn’t actually know the meaning of the word “fiduciary”. That, or he was a crook. Either way, she’d trusted him with her entire life savings, and now that was gone. She’d spent the day contemplating her financial ruin. He’d spent the day looking forward to a steak dinner at Vitale’s downtown, free of guilt or thought for the consequences of his actions. Not cool, Sarah thought. Not cool at all. His biggest mistake wasn’t wiping out her chances for a comfortable retirement. His biggest mistake was leaving her enough to buy a gun.

I, for one, enjoyed Super True Grit. A lot.

That church is full of vampires…

Everything is fine.

Multiverse coloring book variant #2