I had a frustratingly close chance at getting nearly everything I want two weeks ago.

    Recruiter Jeff Hammock from the Hall Kinion branch office in South Austin called March 8 about a technical writing job at Collective Technologies, brimming with confidence about my prospects.

    My existing prospects looked quite unpromising. Getting the job, at $16-17/hour for essentially rewriting Collective Technologies' intranet¹ profiles of its contractors into something resembling English, would solve almost all my problems. Certainly all the immediate ones. (In other words, the work realm jabbed in "Office Space"² is my ticket to the good life.)

    But I'm skeptical. I'd heard this too many times from recruiters before. They talk like it's a done deal before submitting me to some client — the hiring manager and the recruiter are tighter than my stomach when I get a plastic-bewindowed envelope in the snail mail — before nothing happens. And they're merely out a commission, whereas I'm still jobless and broke.

    Moreover, I'd rate the Austin branches of Hall Kinion among the city's 10 worst, for their sloth and defensiveness by their mall chick-talking drones³ during my 1997-98 search.

    No, Hammock said, I've got a great shot. He hustles, too. By March 11, I'd interviewed by phone with Gordon Gallagher, director of methodology, and Judy Ashworth, sight lead. That's speedy, in an industry that hires at glacial speed.

    Unfortunately, the rejection was also speedy. The next day, Hammock told me Gallagher thought I lacked enthusiasm about working for Collective Technologies, at least in comparison with returning to Austin.⁴ Gallagher fears that, being overqualified, I'll get bored with Collective Technologies, and will take another job when I'm "back on my feet."

     Apparently, that company doesn't realize there are worse things than boredom. Like being unemployed, and running out of money. Maybe these people would like to explain to my creditors, like the IRS, as to why I soon won't be able to pay them. My situation is not yet as bleak as that. But I have to wonder how long it's going to be before these employers wise up, particularly with a 100,000-worker shortage in the industry, with Austin alone in need of 15,000.⁵ Most troubling of all, the Austinites don't seem to have a good grasp of what's in their best self interests, like their anti-"sprawl" stance at the recent 360.Alpha Summit.⁶

    In retrospect, maybe the clue came when Ashworth joking compared working at the company to the Borg (" ... a shared consciousness in which the idea of the individual was nearly a meaningless concept."⁷). I was as enthusiastic as can be for working at Collective Technologies. But I suppose to a Borg-like organization, that's insufficient.

     Meanwhile, I've enrolled in classes at Linn-Benton Community College and Public Electronic Access to Knowledge.
 

¹ "An internal network ... closed to outsiders while allowing users within the office or company to access the Internet ... ." Kobler, 177.
² Office Space. Dir. Mike Judge. 20th Century Fox Film Corp., 1999.
³ More, Riley, et al. "Valley Girl/Dude." Retro Hell, 234.
⁴ For a good overview, see Zelade, Richard. Austin, rev. 4th ed. Houston: Gulf Publishing Co., 1996.
⁵ Hawkins, Lori. "Workers Make Leap to High Tech." AAS 7 Sept. 1998: A1+; Mahoney, Jerry. "Employers' Labor Needs Going Unmet." Ibid. 6 Sept. 1998: A8.
⁶ Breyer, R. Michelle. "On a Winning Streak Economically, Las Vegas is Going for Broke; Boom Takes Austin Down Another Path." Ibid. 1 June 1997: K1+; Postrel, Virginia. "Raise Your Hand If You Hate Traffic." Forbes 25 Jan. 1999: 81.
⁷ "Borg." Okuda, Michael; and Denise Okuda. Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future, rev. ed. New York City: Pocket Books, 1997: 51-52.