Jobless Berle

Looking For Jobs In All The Wrong Places

As I’ve written before, I’ve been accused of writing wish-fulfillment strips by some people. Those comments have always been underneath strips that were nearly verbatim transcripts of what happened at work. So that’s fun.

The real wish fulfillment strips have been Berle’s job interviews. I always thought it would be interesting to go on as many interviews as possible to see how badly I could answer their questions. I’m sure it would be a great YouTube channel if I were into prank humor or, potentially, lawsuits.

It was much easier to send Berle.

Interviews are, and I say this both as somebody who has been on a lot of interviews and has conducted a number of them, stupid. Interviews are mostly a personality test and a sales pitch. I have had the pleasure of seeing quite a few people who were excellent at the interview and lousy at the job. I call it a pleasure because I was not the manager, just a fascinated spectator.

And Berle is the perfect liar to go on interviews. His base personality can be described with the next strip.

I kind of admire it. He has nowhere to go but up. He’s also as good at relationships as he is with jobs.

Fellow cartoonist Garey McKee pointed out that Berle also has a surreal life. I point this out because I want to give a quick plug to Garey’s strip, Batched Rejection on GoComics. Check it out!

Berle is quick to point out the inequality in life, but it’s not like he’s going to do anything about it.

Berle can even inspire me to quote, yes, Carl Sagan.

Most people would’ve just googled that Carl Sagan quote. Not me! I dropped what I was doing and watched several hours of Cosmos. It’s that kind of hard work that makes me the chiseled cartoonist that I am.

Chiseled cartoonist? That would be a sculptor. Chiseled sculptor. Surely, it’s an inked cartoonist.

But I digress.

Say what you want about Berle, he is happy. The only one he hurts is himself. And credit card companies.

Back to job interviews. I’ve had plenty and there really should be a buzzer that goes off to signal the end of the interview. I’m not talking about when the final question is asked and answered. I mean that a buzzer should go off when the interview is really over.

We all know when that is.

It’s when the fake smile comes out.

At some point, somebody is going to smile while they are thinking “Ewww” and it’ll show. There could be twelve people in that interview room, and they’ll all see the fake smile. They’ll go through the motions, continuing the interview, but everyone knows it’s over.

Sometimes the fake smile doesn’t come out until the very last words are spoken. You say your goodbyes, “It was great to meet you, we’ll let you know, blah, blah, blah…” and it’s too much for somebody’s brain. Someone’s brain is saying, “We’ll let you know? Hell, I’ll tell you right now! The answer is no!”

A fake smile detection buzzer could solve all of that nonsense.

I know there are company reviews on various websites. They’re littered with disgruntled employees. I’m sure there’s some great employees who want to spend their precious hours off reviewing their employers, but I’m a tad suspicious of such people. Maybe they’d be happy in an alligator pit, let alone whatever company I’m applying to. No, I want to call former employees when they’re the least prepared.

I need three references from former employees before I work for a company, and I’ll detect any fake smiles. Yes, even over the phone. In fact, the vocal fake smile can be way more obvious than a visual one.

You’re really interviewing each other in a job interview. Employers like to ask “Do you have any questions for me?” at the end of their questioning, and I think that’s the wrong approach. You should trade off. They ask you a question and you ask them a question.

Interviewer: “Tell me about a time when you finished a task ahead of schedule and saved the company some serious cash.”

Interviewee: “I ignored all red lights when I was a driver. They made a lot of money before the crash. My turn! Does this job require a drivers license?”

Happily, those days are behind Berle. After a comic strip lifetime of being chronically employed, he’s now stuck in retail. Who knows? Maybe he’ll wind up conducting an interview or two himself.