Sitting around a lot this winter second winter of retirement and getting a little bored. I get the idea to look for a part time job to get out of the house and make myself feel useful and have a few extra bucks to play around with. My pension is great and I don’t need to work but something is programmed in me to stay busy. I know I could get a job similar to what I did for 43 years but the idea of part time and doing something different appealed to me.
OK no laughing here. I was looking on line and I see the Home Depot is looking for a kitchen/bath designer. I have CAD skills and my whole life was spent doing design work in industry and my hobby is home improvement so why not check it out.
I go on line and I guess I have been out of the loop a long time but you apply on line and a robot system takes you thru the process. It clearly wont let you apply for a random job so I pick kitchen/bath design and it says immediate opening and shows it at the store close to me. Nowhere does it ask my qualification but several times it tells me not to apply if I don’t want a drug test. It then says I have to take a 15 minute test. The test didn’t ask me anything someone would have to know to design a kitchen, rather it asked kind of creepy questions like they were profiling me. Things like if you are in a clean parking lot are you more eager to pick up a candy wrapper than if you are in a dirty parking lot. Or do you think it is important to be friends with your coworkers or if you are asked a question and you don’t know the answer what should you do. Then they give you a test where they show you and 8 digit number and then below you have to match it to one of 6 other numbers. They will replace a 3 with an E or B and 8. Ok I did that. And finished in 10 minutes 13 seconds and it told me great job. Told me then to stay close to my phone and wait for a call. The next day guess what a Robot calls me from HD and says I have to pick a day and time for a personal interview 1 for Monday 2 for Tuesday etc and then a time. Then it reminds me again if I’m on drugs I will be tested and stay tuned for a confirmation email. What the hell they want to try out every method of communication there is I guess. Sure enough I get a robot generated email telling me back what I told them and no name of who I’m to talk to or how to find them and remember you may be drug tested.
So against my better judgment I go down there and go to the service counter and tell the girl I’m here for an interview to be a kitchen/bath designer. She sends me to a room and on the wall is a big sign that says interview waiting area with two big chairs. I wait there and a kid comes in. says follow me and we go in a tiny little office with hard steel chairs. He tells me his first name and gets me to sign a few pieces of paper saying I am who I am. Then he says well that’s the boring part out of the way. and he produces a stack of papers with questions on them like, how important is teamwork to me? and if I don’t know an answer what would I do? When I said find out the answer, He said great answer. Then he asks me if I have any computer skills? and I say yes and he says that’s great.
Then get ready for this he tells me I have the job, and I start in lawn and garden the next day. I say lawn and garden! Like loading bags of mulch into peoples trunks! He says yep pretty much and they will teach me how its done.
I said but I applied for a kitchen/bath designer job. He looked at me funny and said well we have two of them now but maybe they could use three. So I asked do you need 3 or not and he said he didn’t know he would have to ask someone. I said well you must need one you have one listed on the Internet. He said well thanks for coming in we will be calling you if we need someone for that. I said ok thanks.
Before I left I walked around the store and counted employees there were dozens of them mostly in groups of two and three talking my guess is 2-3 employees for every costumer. At least 6 were in the break room a really nice place I had to walk thru to get to the waiting chairs. I saw at least 5 people pondering an item looking like they could use some help and I witnessed one guy worker come up to a woman worker and tell her to go help someone and she answered I don’t know anything about that stuff down there. I did actually see one person that was working other than the checkout people and that was the lady designing a kitchen or something on a computer in the kitchen area.
So I left there and went for lunch at Burger King. I was the only costumer in the store and it was shortly after noon. The girl told me it was a 1 minute 30 second wait and I could sit down. I told her oh its ok I should be able to stand at least twice that long. She smiled and said oh good. As I was waiting I counted 10 people “working” to make me a fish sandwich and fries. I had to fill my own drink they must have cut back the 4 people that used to fill cups. Our governor wants to raise the min wage to $15 per hour. They are going to have to sell a heck of a lot of sandwiches or charge me a heck of a lot more for my one.
Ok end of my rant. The good part was I didn’t get a job but I had an interesting afternoon. Better than watching The View and getting my blood pressure up.
The world I live in is a different place than the one I knew. I remember my granddad saying stuff like that and I thought he was crazy. So I’m hoping I’m crazy and it’s not really this bad.
OK no laughing here. I was looking on line and I see the Home Depot is looking for a kitchen/bath designer. I have CAD skills and my whole life was spent doing design work in industry and my hobby is home improvement so why not check it out.
I go on line and I guess I have been out of the loop a long time but you apply on line and a robot system takes you thru the process. It clearly wont let you apply for a random job so I pick kitchen/bath design and it says immediate opening and shows it at the store close to me. Nowhere does it ask my qualification but several times it tells me not to apply if I don’t want a drug test. It then says I have to take a 15 minute test. The test didn’t ask me anything someone would have to know to design a kitchen, rather it asked kind of creepy questions like they were profiling me. Things like if you are in a clean parking lot are you more eager to pick up a candy wrapper than if you are in a dirty parking lot. Or do you think it is important to be friends with your coworkers or if you are asked a question and you don’t know the answer what should you do. Then they give you a test where they show you and 8 digit number and then below you have to match it to one of 6 other numbers. They will replace a 3 with an E or B and 8. Ok I did that. And finished in 10 minutes 13 seconds and it told me great job. Told me then to stay close to my phone and wait for a call. The next day guess what a Robot calls me from HD and says I have to pick a day and time for a personal interview 1 for Monday 2 for Tuesday etc and then a time. Then it reminds me again if I’m on drugs I will be tested and stay tuned for a confirmation email. What the hell they want to try out every method of communication there is I guess. Sure enough I get a robot generated email telling me back what I told them and no name of who I’m to talk to or how to find them and remember you may be drug tested.
So against my better judgment I go down there and go to the service counter and tell the girl I’m here for an interview to be a kitchen/bath designer. She sends me to a room and on the wall is a big sign that says interview waiting area with two big chairs. I wait there and a kid comes in. says follow me and we go in a tiny little office with hard steel chairs. He tells me his first name and gets me to sign a few pieces of paper saying I am who I am. Then he says well that’s the boring part out of the way. and he produces a stack of papers with questions on them like, how important is teamwork to me? and if I don’t know an answer what would I do? When I said find out the answer, He said great answer. Then he asks me if I have any computer skills? and I say yes and he says that’s great.
Then get ready for this he tells me I have the job, and I start in lawn and garden the next day. I say lawn and garden! Like loading bags of mulch into peoples trunks! He says yep pretty much and they will teach me how its done.
I said but I applied for a kitchen/bath designer job. He looked at me funny and said well we have two of them now but maybe they could use three. So I asked do you need 3 or not and he said he didn’t know he would have to ask someone. I said well you must need one you have one listed on the Internet. He said well thanks for coming in we will be calling you if we need someone for that. I said ok thanks.
Before I left I walked around the store and counted employees there were dozens of them mostly in groups of two and three talking my guess is 2-3 employees for every costumer. At least 6 were in the break room a really nice place I had to walk thru to get to the waiting chairs. I saw at least 5 people pondering an item looking like they could use some help and I witnessed one guy worker come up to a woman worker and tell her to go help someone and she answered I don’t know anything about that stuff down there. I did actually see one person that was working other than the checkout people and that was the lady designing a kitchen or something on a computer in the kitchen area.
So I left there and went for lunch at Burger King. I was the only costumer in the store and it was shortly after noon. The girl told me it was a 1 minute 30 second wait and I could sit down. I told her oh its ok I should be able to stand at least twice that long. She smiled and said oh good. As I was waiting I counted 10 people “working” to make me a fish sandwich and fries. I had to fill my own drink they must have cut back the 4 people that used to fill cups. Our governor wants to raise the min wage to $15 per hour. They are going to have to sell a heck of a lot of sandwiches or charge me a heck of a lot more for my one.
Ok end of my rant. The good part was I didn’t get a job but I had an interesting afternoon. Better than watching The View and getting my blood pressure up.
The world I live in is a different place than the one I knew. I remember my granddad saying stuff like that and I thought he was crazy. So I’m hoping I’m crazy and it’s not really this bad.