Tales from the Sound Booth
Because I have a lot of free time, I’ve hurled myself full force at Canned for the last month or so. I recorded over a dozen sessions and there are more on deck. I’ve buried producer Amy in audio files and people keep showing up in the Canned inbox, ready to spill.
Also (deep breath) I’ve started a book proposal for Canned. In the interest of accountability, I’ll state that I hope to be finished by the end of August and pitching in early September. It’s close to done and from the perspective of someone who has not yet pitched, it feels viable. Relevant.
If you were a guest, I will be in your inbox asking for a release to use your story — and confirming if you want to use your real name or not. Canned works in part because we respect your autonomy. That will carry through to whatever other work comes from this crazy ride.
Between recording sessions and tortured document wrangling, I’m looking for paying work. I landed a small editing and production gig, and have content work coming my way, but I’m still benched on my main thing, awaiting a green light from the client — which may or may not ever arrive. So I keep looking.
Last week, I got email asking me to set up an interview for a role I didn’t remember applying for. All good, I have a lot of applications out. But something was off. That the mail merge was borked up top was the first thing, though good lord, mail merge can be messy. I was willing to overlook that but I still had bad vibes. Why?
- The email domain was close to but not the same as the company name.
-- The domain completed to a 'coming soon' page, not the hiring company.
-- The domain was registered last week.
- I couldn’t find a profile for the talent acquisitions contact.
- I couldn’t find a job listing on the company's website.
- I couldn’t verify the details about the hiring company.
- All the communication was over the weekend.
- They wanted me to register for WebEx rather than just be a guest.
- The job description mentioned API docs, something I don't do. I don't apply for jobs that require it.
In this job market, we have real jobs, for which there are hundreds of applicants. We have ghost jobs to create the appearance of growth, but they don't really exist. And we have vampire recruiters on your porch with bad intent, waiting to be let it to harvest your personal data, hijack your hardware, or somehow get money from you (Yes, I did just see Sinners)
With DEI practices caving, it's open season on progressive hiring; that doesn't help women, minorities, and older workers. And in tech especially, employers see AI as a replacement for — rather than a tool to aid — roles like mine.
I took the call, which turned out to a text only session, and they abandoned me at my first question. “Can you tell me who I’m chatting with today? I can’t find any of the contacts from our correspondence on LinkedIn.”
Daylight and the holy water of fact-checking keeps the monsters at bay.
I’m obsessed with the DC Sandwich Slinger. Our heroes inevitably let us down, but this guy modeled the bold, court jester-like behavior this era requires. In addition to shouting down the jackboots deployed to terrorize DC, he put his money where his mouth is and sacrificed his sandwich in the fight against fascism.
We have some cool Canned Goods coming your way, but to test the shop I hammered out a Footlongs over Fascism design; you can get t-shirts and stickers. They are set to benefit The Bail Project, which seems fitting.
There are Canned stickers too, but get them from me while you can. If I sent yours, send me a photo of one in the wild? And if you’re still waiting, let me know. I do all the things, so maybe I forgot?
In this season’s interviews for Canned I’m hearing a lot of “OMG, do something that’s not work, already.”
On it. Not fully by choice, but on it.
Keep throwing those sandwiches, friends, whatever that means for you. ✊🏼
//Pam