Dang, I should Complain More Often

So, this morning, less than twelve hours after my rant on Dr. Benzley's demoralizing exit survey, I checked my inbox, as I often do to find a very encouraging email. This email was from Kathy Buck, a hiring manager with Bechtel Corp. in response to my application to job number whatever in Frederick, Maryland. When I first saw this, I naturally assumed that it was an ordinary job rejection notice like I had received as a result of countless other job applications. When I opened it, I was actually surprised to find that Bechtel was somewhat interested in actually talking to me and not just taking my résumé, folding it into a paper airplane and chucking it out the window. Kathy with Bechtel actually asked for a copy of my transcripts and said that if I hadn't heard back from her by the 13th of next month, which is coincidentally the day that I graduate, that I should call her for updates on my application.

Though Frederick, MD is 1600 miles from my hometown and over 2000 miles from where I am right now making this blag post, I think that I would actually enjoy living in that area and working there. This town is actually about 50 miles west of both the Washington DC metro area and Baltimore, both of which tend to be ghetto, crime-ridden crapholes. I would really dislike living near or between either of those two pits, and Frederick is far enough for my tastes. Additionally, Frederick is only about 10 miles from the Virginia border, and strangely enough only about 25 miles from the town of Leesburg, Virginia, coincidentally where I applied for another job a couple months ago. If I established residency in Virginia, I would be able to get in-state tuition at Virginia Tech and would be able to go there comparatively easily. Naturally, this is all hypothetical, but it would be pretty awesome if it actually happened.

Hooray employment, hooray opportunities, hooray Bechtel, and hooray Hokies.

Thanks for that Dr. Benzley

Today I got an email from BYU's civil engineering department asking me to fill out an exit survey before I graduate and that it's required for graduation, blah blah blah. Before today, I was kind of looking forward to this email because it meant that the CE department had actually been keeping track of me and that I am indeed on track to graduate in two weeks. However, once I opened the exit survey and started filling out the questions, I was slightly less than contented. I'm sure that my department chair, Dr. Steven E. Benzley didn't mean to totally defame my character and make me look like a worthless waste of flesh, but that's pretty much how it turned out. Here are the first four questions from the survey. The rest of them are irrelevant to my point and mostly consist of me crapping on the incendiary evil that is the math department.

1. Where will you be working after graduation?
2. What is the salary range of job offers you have received so far?
3. Are you married?
4. Did you serve an LDS mission?

Those were literally the first four questions on the survey. Of all the failures I've had over the past 4 years, these are clearly the most poignant and agitating. When you submit mission papers and the Church says, "Hell no, you won't go!" you don't exactly feel like you're the king of the world. You could argue that this wasn't actually my fault, but you're certainly not going to convince my subconscious. As the Divine Comedy skit 'Zoobie and the Beast' put it, "The point of college is to get married!" At BYU, this is obnoxiously valid and rigorously followed by students and ecclesiastical leaders. Barring some tragic turn of events that would result in me getting married in the next two weeks, this isn't going to happen. My relationships with both fiancée #1 and fiancée #2 serve as the pinnacle of my inability to fulfill my BYU destiny. And finally, I've busted my A for the last 4 years to be able to earn a degree that was actually useful and would land me a good job after college. Little did I know that in 2010, a BS in Civil Engineering would be about as useful as a BA in English. My BS is genuinely BS at this point. Perhaps it's that I have no real experience to speak of, or maybe it's that my résumé just sucks, because I have applied for ~300 jobs and I have not heard back from a single one of them for an interview. Yeah, that's right, it's not my lack of professionalism or personal skills that are holding me back... at least not yet, it's actually just that people see my résumé and say, "No thanks."

So I thank you BYU Civil Engineering Department for pointing out my most significant failures from the last 4 years and then jamming them into my eye sockets. I would liken my feelings right now to a red-hot cast iron torsion sample thrusted squarely and firmly into the groin... or so. Now the best part is that I get to answer similar questions 2, 5, and 10 years from now as a follow-up. Hooray for reliving this wonderful event... and hooray beer!

Dear Hiring Managers,

Recently I've heard a lot about how you monitor all of my activity on social networking sites, track my credit and spend habits, and may or may not be putting a 'wire' tap on my phone to monitor my calls and/or text messages. With this in mind, I will take a glorious opportunity to explain to you why I should become part of your company as an entry-level engineer, construction manager, or intern. If you're here, you've probably already seen my résumé, cover letter, college transcripts, and maybe even my credit history, criminal background, and driving record, so I won't focus too much on the things covered by those media. I will instead focus on the things you'll find on my social networking sites, and in my various communications with my friends.

The first thing that I'd like to point out to you is my clean and well-behaved lifestyle. As you can see from my photos and posts on facebook and twitter, I'm not much into riotous living with lots of booze, drugs, and strange women. I like to live my life in a way that I can think clearly and rationally most every second of the day. If I was allowed an opportunity at your company, I'd be able to focus on the goals and objectives that were set before me by management instead of being distracted and chemically modified by a riotous lifestyle. I'd like to think that I am just more wise and sagacious than most 22 year-old men out there and that my interests and activities reflect such.

The next thing that I'd like to point out is that I do have a personality and a sense of humor, but I assure you that I know where the line needs to be drawn between humor and professionalism. I believe that I could bring an upbeat feeling and a sense of lightheartedness to many offices. However, I also know and can recognize that there are many situations in which any humor is entirely inappropriate. As you can probably see, I enjoy making playful jokes with my friends and acquaintances, but I know that there are many situations in business which call for professionalism and a stoic character.

Reading through this blog in particular, you may have concerns that I would not be able to work well with or around women. I would assure you, however that any issue that I have with women is only at the romantic level of a relationship. As long as there is no romance between me and a women in the office, there would be no problem. Along those same lines, I am personally no particularly fond of workplace romance, so that would be a minimal concern. I would also have no problem working with others of different races, religions, colors, creeds, age groups, etc.

Finally, I would like to point out that this blog serves as somewhat of a writing sample. Though I would be more involved in technical writing, I would like to point out I am generally pretty good at putting my ideas down in writing. I rarely edit or proofread these blog posts for content or mechanics, but they usually end up turning out exceptionally well. In a work setting, my writing would even improve because I would take the time to double and triple check my writing for mechanical errors and for content since it would certainly be worth my time.

Overall, I believe that the content of my social networking sites and other communications with my friends should not act as a deterrent to adding me as a new member of your company, but should give some insight into why you should hire me. I believe that I would make an excellent asset to any company and would love to have to opportunity to prove my worth, not only intellectually, but with my personality as well.

Chalk One up to 'Opportunities'

In my recent job search I've come across a few opportunities that fall under the category of: "Radically hypocritical reverse discrimination, but I'll take it because of the crapconomy." Just a couple of days ago the Holy Grail of all reverse discrimination job opportunities fell into my hands, but first, a little background.

For any who don't know, I am actually 1/8 Alaskan Native. Before you ask your next question, the tribe is 'Athapaskan,' and it's okay that you haven't heard of it... I wouldn't have either if I was you. In general, I've been putting "American Indian or Alaskan Native" in the EEO box thing of job applications, just to see if I can pique any interest, but there are some jobs for which that distinction is absolutely mandatory, in my mind. A few months ago, I found a civil engineering company that was owned and operated by Alaskan Natives with an opportunity for an entry-level civil engineer in Tucson, AZ. On this application, I not only put that I was an Alaskan Native, but that I am a descendant of an Alaskan Natives Corporation shareholder, but more on that later. Sadly, they ended up deciding not to fill that position, and indeed issue a hiring freeze at their Tucson office, as far as I can tell, but there is still hope.

Before I proceed, a little history lesson for the vast majority of the population is in order. In 1971, good old Dick Nixon signed into law the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act. This act formed thirteen corporations which own and operate land and other resources in Alaska and gives Alaskan Natives almost absolute autonomy. As it turns out, my mother, being 1/4 Alaskan Native was issued 100 shares in the corporation Doyon, Limited. Doyon owns much of the land surrounding Denali and Fairbanks in central Alaska all the way over the Canadian border, which is where the Athapaskans reside, but that's tertiary. The minimum standard for being issued shares in the corporation is 1/4 blood, so I don't qualify to get shares, but when it comes to getting jobs with such corporations, I can indeed claim that I am a shareholder descendant and still get preference.

So, on Wednesday in my finance class we had a computer lab, so naturally I was surfing the internet instead of doing the mind-numbing spreadsheet that was assigned. I was searching for jobs mostly to no avail, when I thought of Doyon and thought that they might have something close to my field of interest. As I came to the jobs portion of the site, I found that there was an opening for an entry-level construction engineer in Federal Way, WA. I wasn't able to apply for the job right then and there, since I didn't have my flash drive, but as soon as I got home I started re-writing my resume and cover letter to fully embrace my Alaskan Native heritage and to express my desire to work for the company that I've heard so much about since I can remember and submitted my application for that job.
I'm not totally sure what will come of this, but I'm pretty positive that there aren't many Doyon shareholders that graduate with degrees in civil engineering. And I'm also pretty sure that most who do don't graduate with a 3.53 GPA. If I do end up getting this job, I'll also be pretty well set to go to the University of Washington for grad school, especially since it's just right up the road. In the end, I'm not sure that I'll get this job, but it's probably the best opportunity that's dropped into my lap since my dad brought my mom and I together and said, "Guys, I'm going back to church, I want you to come with me at least once, just to see how you feel about it." :D

Call Me a Chauvanist Douchebag, but...

Note: This is not my post on militant feminazism, that may or may not come later.

Disclaimer: This post will probably be offensive to everyone, especially married people, women, and double especially married women. If you tend to be offended by things, please refrain from reading this post... Don't say I didn't warn you.

If there has even been a deterrent to me getting married, it has been the way that married people interact. More specifically, the way that many wives treat their husbands makes me want to join a monastery and never see another living woman as long as I live. The following is probably the best explanation of why I may very well never get married and why, for years, I had absolutely zero desire to do so.
A week ago, literally on my birthday, I was blessed to give a sacrament talk on the family. This has made me think about the relationship that I had with my parents and the relationship that my parents had with each other. Naturally, the first marriage relationship that I had the privilege to view was the one between my parents. My parents really didn't have many friends, (surprise surprise) so I didn't see much in the way of other marriage relationships until I was about 16, when I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Knowing that I didn't see much in the way of marriages between birth and age 16 is crucial to understanding my skewed views of both women and marriage.

To start off, I suppose that my mom has an IQ of between about 70 and 75. I don't mean to disparage her, but she is just not a very intelligent individual. On the contrary, my dad has an IQ on the order of 115 to 125. He has always been a very intelligent man and is probably the best-read mailman that you'll ever meet in your life. It's sad how he ended up not being able to go to college, but that's a story for another day. Anywho, the point is that there was quite a disparity in intelligence between my parents, my mom being on the lower end and my dad being on the higher end. Additionally, it is important to note that my mother had very high quantities of both pride and paranoia. She always believed that she was right, regardless of how preposterous or poorly founded her claims were. And, oh gosh, how my mother had other issues, but I don't feel the need to turn my blag followers into a psychiatrist.

From my perspective, this was not conducive to producing emotionally healthy and chemically well-balanced children. In most of the arguments that my parents ended up getting in, my dad almost always made more sound arguments because he just had a dramatically higher IQ. With my IQ and logical pattern of thought, I generally ended up relating more with my dad than with my mom. These arguments most often focused around my mother's inability to stop spending money like a drunken sailor on a 3-day pass and her inability to hold down a job. At that point, my mother was often left with nothing left but emotional responses and unfounded claims. She would usually resort of one of three possibilities: 1) Threatening to divorce my dad and take half of everything he owned. 2) Accuse him of having an affair with random women (this has actually gotten worse since we joined the Church and my dad got a home teaching assignment.) 3) Threaten to never again have sex with him. And was I in the room when these things were happening? Most of the time, yes.

All of this glorious marriage relationship goodness led me to believe that no woman really liked men and women only got married for financial incentives and that non-masochist men would only get married for one night of guaranteed sex. As my dad liked to say, "So, we've already established that you're a prostitute, now we're just negotiating the price."

Since I joined the Church, I've seen many more in the way of marriage relationships. I've seen some relationships that give me hope for the future, still the majority of them fail to inspire me to truly want to become a part of this sort of relationship. Amongst the youngest generation of Latter-day Saints that I've met, especially those who have been married for more than about 2 years, I've found that women seem to treat their husbands like an old, used tampon that gave them TSS. Women generally command their husbands as if they are indentured slaves with no agency to act for themselves, but only to be acted upon. I've seen many a dog that are treated better than most husbands of Mormon women out there.

Allow me to submit that I absolutely despise being told what to do. I'm okay with being asked to do something, but when someone commands and expects me to obey, the uncensored words, "F-ck you!" will eventually come from my lips. The Gospel teaches that we have agency and that the spirit of love will ask and exhort a man or woman to do things and never seek to force and extort. And I'm all about the Gospel.

To sum it all up, I have a really distorted view of marriage, how it has fit into my life so far, and how it might continue to be a part of my life. The marriages I've seen have not been pleasant in my eyes. I'm sure that the people who are in those relationships are happy, but I would not be happy in their shoes. I'm really unsure about how I will be able to view women and marriage in the future. I try to retain optimism, but it doesn't seem to come very easily. We'll see how it goes...

SWOT Analysis of my Life

Recently in both my marketing and HR classes, we've talked about "SWOT Analysis." This method of analyzing a business looks at the both the internal factors of a business' potential progress (strengths and weaknesses) and the external factors (opportunities and threats). I figure that at this juncture, it really couldn't hurt to do this kind of analysis for my own life to help me to attain both my relatively short-term goals and my more long term goals. Some of these goals include: getting a job for after college, getting married, being a halfway decent person both morally and socially, and achieving exaltation and eternal life after this life is said and done. Certainly not an inclusive list of goals but a good start... Anywho, on to the analysis:

Strengths

• Pure Intelligence - It was Marion Morrison who said, "Life is hard, and it's even harder if you're stupid." In my case, I have intelligence on the order of about 4.5 standard deviations above average and it will serve me well in achieving almost all of my goals, as long as I don't begin to suppose that I'm smarter than God, that's always a dangerous path.
• In the Long-term, a Useful Degree - Though right now I kind of feel like I've been getting a very-much-more-difficult-than-usual BA in English for the last 4 years, after the Great Depression v2.0 passes, my degree will actually regain value and I should... SHOULD be able to actually find good jobs that will pay reasonably well.
• My Testimony - I don't feel bad telling all 4 people who read my blag that is says in my patriarchal blessing that my testimony will become a cherished possession. While this hasn't happened yet, I at least know, on the most basic level possible that The Christ is the redeemer of my soul and that the Eternal God loves me whether I feel it or not. And along with this knowledge come hope for the future in this life and hope for the things of a better world, as Ether put it.

Weaknesses

• Social Awkwardness - Based on the way my parents raised me, it's almost a miracle that I made it out of high school alive. People who know me well can tell you that I have virtually negligible shame and am likely to say and do things that will make you feel awkward in social situations; and Aric F@$$w@$$ was even willing to give me an award in the same. This lack of PCness is also combined with the fact that I'm an engineer and have spent several hours a day for the past 4 years in the Clyde Building and just generally that I'm a Mormon. It all adds up to quite a bit of social awkwardness.
• Lack of RM Badge - Serving a full-time, proselyting mission is an absolute right of passage for young men in the LDS Church. Most young, LDS men will tell you that their mission was the "Best two year of their life." I didn't have those two years. I'm perfect willing to admit that ever since I didn't go on a mission, I've had a harder time finding sufficient motivation to live the gospel as I know it to be true. Even the temple of God itself has become a house of remorse and lamentation... and full of old, pretentious douchebags who ask any dude in the baptismal font when he's going on a mission. Also, if you'd told me when I was 18 that first dates could be more awkward than they already were, I would have laughed you to scorn. However the standard first date question, "Where did you serve your mission?" has done a disturbingly good job proving 18-year-old me wrong.
• Insanity - You might think that I'm joking and/or exaggerating when I say that I'm friggin' crazy. I would submit that you're only right some of the time. As an update to my last post, I am not qualified for Army OCS because I've been treating for chemical imbalances in my brain. I don't know if the Air Force has similar qualification standards... it hasn't come up. In some very limited contexts, being crazy might help me to obtain my goals, but for the most part, it's just a hindrance and a limitation as far as I can tell.
• Physical Fitness - The 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants says that those who abide by its precepts will be able to run and not be weary. I've clearly not been following that counsel very well. A lack of physical fitness could very well keep me out of the military for good and is certainly not an asset when trying attract a potential spouse. In the long term, I could end up living like my Grandpa on my dad's side who has had at least 5 heart attacks of varying severity and can barely get up out of chair without being short of breath.

Opportunities

• Cars and Money - If, by the grace of God, I am actually blessed to find a job in my chosen field, I will, for pretty much the first time in my life, be able to afford a car and not live below the poverty line. This will give me much greater opportunity to have fun, do good in the world, and maybe, just maybe the benefits of dating might exceed the social and emotion costs. And if you haven't seen the Good Charlotte Song, you should. PS-The video for that song looks suspiciously like the Single Adults dance that I saw 5 minutes of in Cedar City.
• HDR & RKCI - Probably my best opportunities for employment are with HDR in Denver and with RKCI in the Utah Valley. A few weeks ago, I talked with one of the PM's for HDR who lives in my stake back home and he said that they recently got the contract to design an extension of the light rail system in Denver and they would need to staff that soon. Anyone who has driven through Lehi, UT over the past few weeks has noticed that there's massive construction going on on I-15 in this area. To most this in an inconvenience, but to me it is a sign of sweet, glorious progress. RKCI won the contract to oversee quality control on the I-15 core designs and has been hiring recent graduates in Civil Engineering and Construction Management.
• Women - Over the past several weeks, I've met several women who I'd like to get to know better, which doesn't necessarily happen very often. Let me just say that my current ward is freaking awesome and I wouldn't mind living around here for several more years, even if it meant living in an insect-infested dump. I'm sure that there are nice women all around, but dang, Hampton Court is where it's at. :D

Threats

• Crapconomy - I never would have thought in 2002, when I decided that I wanted to become a civil engineer that some douchebag* would enact AA reform that was meant to give minorities a better opportunity for home ownership, but really just allowed I-banker types to speculate in the housing market. Since this actually did happen, the demand for Civil Engineers has shifted down significantly as those who were working in private development move to whatever projects are left and government infrastructure spending nationwide grinds to a halt. What it all adds up to in 2010 is that anyone without 5 years experience and/or a masters degree isn't going to find a job in civil engineering very easily anytime soon.
• Obamacare - Sometimes I wonder if Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office and thinks, "Hmm, how can I screw over William 'The Hands' White today?" I'm sure that Obamacare benefits somebody (who's probably black, btw) ,but it's certainly not me. Since my health care provider knows that it will have to cover more prospective college graduates soon under Obamacare, it's getting rid of the ones it has now in order to cut its losses. Additionally, uncertainty in the future of health care is making its costs increase, making something that was unaffordable two years ago, ridiculously expensive. With the crapconomy the way it is, if I don't have a job in the next month, I'm not going to have any health insurance... period, and I will be thoroughly Ephed. PS-Vote Republican.
• Militant Feminazism - Over the past few years, I've liked to say, "If chivalry is dead, it was choked out by the smoke of flaming bras," or something like that. More recent generations of women seem to feel entitled to an equal opportunity, and even worse, equal outcome with their male counterparts without sharing in any of the negative aspects or burdens. My generation, in the world, seems to like to minimize and reduce as much as possible the differentiation between men and women. The Latter-day Saints of my generation seem to do the same thing, but to a much lesser degree (ie. without militaristic enforcement) and only picking and choosing the situations in which women should be indifferentiable from men. Overall, militant feminazism is the greatest threat to my desire and ability to procure a spouse... and I might just have to devote an entire blag post to my views on it.

So there you have it. To me, this is scarier than $h1+ and kinda makes me want to cower away in a corner. However I have hope that all will work out and that I will be able to use my strengths and opportunities and the knowledge of my weaknesses and threats to my advantage to be able to achieve both my short and long-term goals.

*It's probably best that I don't know who this douchebag is, because I would find him and shank him in the face with a red-hot cast iron prison shiv.