MR WRONG: Personality crisis.

COLUMN DEP’T.

MR WRONG: Quiz: How Badly Do You Want This Job?

I SWEAR THIS is the last time I am going to complain about not having a Day Job, and I’m not even really complaining about it right this minute, but there are a lotta new faces around here, and I gotta assume that you might possibly be reading the Mr. Wrong column for the first time ever, so thank you, and please don’t go, and in my Capacity as a Professional Columnist (i.e. that I Gets Paid to type my Columns) I gotta set this up so that you understand I am looking for work, OK?

OK! Being an Underemployed American means I am spending a lotta time thinking about Jobs and looking at listings for Jobs and applying for Jobs, and yesterday I applied for this one at kind of a big Company, and I figured they might have some sort of fun/not fun bespoke applicant-winnowing thing going on, gold from dross-wise, and I’m not trying to be all gassed-up and tell you I am Gold, but I ain’t dross, see? Anyway, just saying, I figured there might be some sorta Special gimmick when I applied at this place.

The application was pretty typical, there’s a thing where you can choose to enter all your Information yourself, or you can click a thing (apologies for being so technical) to have an Artificial Intellect scan your resume and poop poop poop it into all the little info-fields, and then you go through and fix all the spots that glitched, no big deal, I fixed all the glitches, and at this point I don’t even get mad that I gotta attach a resume document and then also make sure most of the resume is re-gurged into the little boxes on the web site, it’s fine, I mean, it’s not fine, and I get mad about it, but not like I used to, because who am I going to discuss this with, right? These are the hoops!

I jumped ’em, the hoops, and then came the Gimmick part! I forget what they called it, but it was basically a bunch of questions with photos illustrating the questions, and you had your choice of two answers. The instructions were like “Don’t worry, not a big deal, just answer fast and be honest and everything will be all right, there are no mistakes, let’s go.” Har! Yeah, sure, this the real application, the application for my application, right? If the answers go a certain way, the application goes a certain way, I get it!

I got kinda excited, I mean, now it’s kind of a game, eh? So I answered a buncha questions, and some of ’em were puzzlers, but basically it was like, do you like to hang out with people or do you sit all by your onesies and look at your phone? Are you a perfectionist? Do you clean up after yourself at work, and then do you clean after some other slobs at work even though it’s not your job? I got this shit down to a science, taking tests and answering questions. I love a good quiz!

So the fun part is after the Machine eats your application, you get the results of your test. Here is an image from the test:

Now, I am in some disagreements with this chart. I think I manage Pressure really well, and I also think I am somebody who engages with people when it is appropriate, so I am a little bit offended, let’s call it Medium-offended, to be found as less-than in Emotional Stability and Engaging with People. I’m a goddamn People Person, I tell you!

The quiz also named me as a certain type of Personality. I don’t know all the types, but it’s weird that I got the tag ”Mentor” while I don’t engage with people, or I only Medium-engage? How you gonna mentor without Large or Full-size engaging?

Here’s a quiz for you, what kinda job do you think this whole schmear was in aid of? You get two choices:

1. Creative director/graphic artist
2. Dishwasher

The answer will be posted in next week’s Mr. Wrong column! New readers who made it this far, thank you for reading, and please do not think I did this to trick you into reading next week. Here’s a clue for the quiz: Do you think the place is a Union shop?

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, January 10, 2024

★★ A patch of bright silvery blue stood under a gray cloud chased with rose in the northeast. Out the front window the west was mostly gray, with a blurry yellowness toward the zenith. The apartment had gotten stuffy with the windows closed overnight against the chill. The clouds didn't give up, and the 50 degrees listed in the forecast, which had raised thoughts of a light hoodie, turned out to be a sunless 48 that brought on doubts about whether the heavier hoodie was enough. The proportion of blue diminished even more, into gray clouds with white articulations between them. Things blowing by at head height kept looking like they might be snowflakes, though down at the ground there were just leaves and trash. A red-tailed hawk rode the wind sideways over the cross street, just above the apartment tops, against the dim sky.

EASY LISTENING DEP’T.

INDIGNITY MORNING PODCAST

Indignity Morning Podcast No. 196: The standard coda.

Tom Scocca • Jan 11, 2024

BLUESKY DEPARTMENT

READERS OF INDIGNITY who have previously benefited from the Bluesky-code generosity of other readers of Indignity are now daily paying it forward and providing us with even more codes for the still-beta social network. If you haven’t already gotten a code from us, we have lots of codes. Email indignity@indignity.net and we will award Bluesky codes to those who respond, one per reader, first email, first served.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches from One Hundred Choice Recipes and Business Directory of Kannapolis, N.C, published by The Woman’s Club in 1928, now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

Economy Sandwiches
2 hard boiled eggs
4 rashers of crisp bacon (cold)
1 teaspoon of cream mustard
3 teaspoons of mayonnaise dressing
Salt to taste.

Enough for 12 sandwiches
—Mrs. C. H. Graeber.

Apple Sandwiches
3 medium size apples, peeled and cut in cubes
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons sugar

Cook altogether until tender, mash apples until thin enough to spread with mayonnaise dressing.
—Mrs. T. P. Moose.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.

MARKETING DEP'T.

The second printing of 19 FOLK TALES is now available for belated Holiday gift-giving and personal perusal! Huddle up against the cold with a cozy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read within the snowy part of a wintry-mix storm.

HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, available for purchase at SHOPULA.

FLAMING HYDRA will launch in January of 2024. The FLAMING HYDRA Holiday Preview Spectacular, a rich sampling of the writing and art you’ll enjoy as a subscriber to the forthcoming daily newsletter, is available now for your inspection. FLAMING HYDRA is the work of 60 world-class talents, but that’s just one reason to subscribe. FLAMING HYDRA is a 100% cooperatively owned, ad-free publication with no owners and no investors; just a bunch of writers and artists working together and splitting the proceeds equally.

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