Happy Birthday, Dear Avatar

It's a special Birthday today, September 12, 2016. 

Let's all sing!

But it's not my birthday I'm talking about. 

Quite frankly I haven’t celebrated my birthday since Haley Joel Osment was cute. 

I’m wishing happy birthday to my Avatar.  You know, the profile picture I use on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog.

I was 54 years old when my profile picture was taken and I’m now 67. If my Avatar were a person, it would have already been masturbating for years now.

Although male pattern deterioration had already set in for me at age 54, I was still somewhat marketable. Nobody threw up when they saw me coming and attractive women meeting me for the first time could conceivably have thought “if a horrible catastrophe wiped out all of the men on earth, I could probably get drunk enough to consider mild petting with him.”

None of my facial features had as yet been placed on life support.

The picture was taken on a beautiful warm summer's  day which turned out to be one of my best hair days in a decade, in Disneyworld. Hard to imagine more optimal circumstances under which to muster a decent enough photo of myself to later press into service as my official internet emissary.  

For seven straight years.`

C’mon, don’t play so innocent, fellow Boomer! 

You can’t tell me you’re not rocking an online picture that's been around so long it might have been cropped from a selfie with Kaiser Wilhelm or one in which you’re wearing enough makeup for it to accompany your application to clown school.  

 

Next year, my Avatar will celebrate its Bar Mitzvah.  Mazel tov!  

And in another 13 years or so we may all be together to celebrate its wedding. 

You better believe if I’m still here, my Happy Birthday Avatar will be too!

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Rejection's Like That

There’s but one thing in all the world that links every last one of us. Even people as different as you, me, and the unemployed guy who used to be Vice President in Charge of Morale at NBC.

All of us hate rejection! And that applies every bit as much to the inestimable Rejecter as it does to the lowly Rejectee.

Frankly I don’t know how professional Human Resources recruiters handle the rejection --- that is, the dishing out of it. A regular part of their regular grind is telling job-longing folk a longed-for job will not become a regular part of their regular grind. Think how bad you’re feeling right now for rejecting me just for that ridiculous and annoying last sentence! 

As a a former HR professional who has handled recruitment matters, I have always anguished over how to tell unsuspecting applicants the vote on their employable worth has been multiple thumbs down. As someone who is not exactly a bastion of personal security myself, I’ll put myself through sheer living hell to avoid putting anyone else through modestly living heck!

“So what did you do with the guy you interviewed last week you said was all wrong for the job,” asked my colleague Bruce. “Get back to him?”

Of course I did! I haven’t pulled the old “no call back” trick since I broke up with my barber in 1982 after he neatly trimmed off half my ear, but at least then evened the other with it.

Yes, I might have just sent the standard letter/e-mail:

“While we were very impressed with your qualifications, we are seeking someone whose specific experience more closely comports with the requirements of the position.”

But every job seeker on the planet knows that this letter, as translated from the original Sanskrit, means “take a hike, loser --- if possible, on an unmarked boulder-strewn trail abutting a deep and gaping natural chasm!"

"We're keeping your resume on file for future opportunities."

the letter often reassuringly continues.  Actually "we're keeping your resume on file for laughs" is how the original Sanskrit actually translates.

So, I made the personal phone call. Nervously, tentatively, I made the call.

 “George, this is Perry Block! How are you?”

“Oh, Hi, Mr. Block!” It was unmistakable – that sound of positive anticipation in his voice. Eliciting that sound of very negative anticipation in mine.

“George, I called to say that ... umm ...we are very impressed with your qualifications ... but, uh, we are seeking someone, uhhh .....”

No, I didn’t exactly get the message across to George. I’ll have to do that tonight at dinner just after the movie.  Probably Avatar.

God, I hate rejection!

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