I have spent 15 hours a day for the past 3 days in a wind tunnel wanting to kill myself. I took today off to search for jobs again, and let me tell you... I can't wait to get back out in that tunnel. Don't get me wrong - I spend several hours surfing the internet for different positions all the time, but usually I walk out of my room stretching my forearm and lying that I just took a nap instead of actually needing one.

I honestly think that men have a deficiency in visual data processing that women do not, demonstrated by any trip to the mall. We both walk past the stores, looking, looking, comparing, checking things out. We go in a department store and there's just so much stuff to look at. It's exhausting, and I can't explain it. It's not like, "I just hiked Kilimanjaro" exhausting, it's "I just finished War and Peace" exhausting. And it doesn't happen to women.

They will be over rummaging through the racks for sales on cute tops or whatever the fuck women do in department stores, while men zone out to another planet on anything that can possibly help support their weight. You'll notice women never shop near the bed section, because we'd never get up off them.

"Sir, are you just testing that bed before you buy it?"

"Lady, there are three ways I can test out this bed. One involves me dragging my girlfriend out of shoe department. I can do the other two by myself; one requires forty five minutes and some ocean sounds, the other just six seconds."

"Three if you watch."

One might think our incredible lack of energy is from deprivation of the oxygen consumed by their yapping, but there's just so much to look at that we get sensory overload and shut down. Women can do all this and text message.

This job search is the same way. There's Monster's purple and Careerbuilder's orange, all spewing out thousands of identical results for "Mechanical Engineer." It's just looking, looking, comparing, checking them out. Clicking all those little links and reading why the job doesn't match my qualifications, and then stretching my resume to the brink of believability and applying anyway. Requires 5-7 years of experience in a design..... *send* Salary based on experience between $90k and...*send* I'm going to have to start referring to my resume as Jenna Jameson because it's been with so many God damn people.

Then you come across jobs titled, "entry level engineer" that require "3-5 years experience." If someone has 3-5 years of experience and you still consider them entry level, I hope you're hiring them to be your janitor. When I do find a job I'm qualified for I'm not sure if I already applied to it because I blacked out there for a minute and they all look the fucking same.

I wonder if they can see what time I'm applying for the job. Then they'd know that if I'm applying for jobs at 4 AM on a school night, I'm pretty serious about finding one. Some companies post the same job on three career sites. Do you know what that means? That you're going to get three resumes from me. It's a broken system.

So you know what happens? As my eyes glaze over and my pulse trails off, I start sending emails like this as I continue slutting my resume around the country. This is what I sent, word for word.

--------------------

Hi S****Tech,

If the Mechanical Engineering job on ************.com is still open, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring.

I'm a very sharp, successful, and personable Mechanical Engineer about to graduate with my Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. I can back up those claims with high test scores, good references, and several long term ex-girlfriends.

Right now my employment options include massive companies where I will either get to design one tiny piece of some giant machine for the rest of my life, or my personal contributions will blend and vanish into a program where, ten years down the road, I will only find myself ten years older. I'm looking for something where I can see my contributions.

I think that job interviewing is a lot like dating in that we both have to be a good fit for each other, and there's got to be some magic. Also, that if things work out we would agree never to tell anyone we found each other on the internet.

If you feel the magic please let me know.

:)

Mike Perry

------------------

I really feel like the smiley emotiocon sealed the deal. They should be calling anytime now.