Rank #2,460: Too Much Monkey Business

Yes, that is the appropriate title for what went on with myself and my family yesterday, and quite honestly, I am not going to be telling you the half of it--

But what I am going to tell you is that if a frustration level can be measured, mine right now is at meteoric heights.

Here are two examples of what went on yesterday, both of which added to my frustration level big time:

1) You Vote, I Vote, We All Vote: I decided to go with my son to vote after I picked him up from work in mid-afternoon. I personally could have done it much earlier as I normally do when I am working, but since I have to be there when he votes--I have to help him with the ballot, as his disability makes it a bit more difficult for him to vote--I thought it would be beneficial if I went with him and voted at the same time.

We went to the polling place, and we noticed that everything related to checking in was done on a tablet computer. I went first, signed in, and voted, which took about five minutes, maybe even less.

Then it was my son's time to vote, and they looked up his name on the tablet, and could not find it. I told them that he is 24, he has voted since he was 18, and that his name had to be in their database. They looked him up by his name, by his last name, by this full name--with his middle name--and nothing.

They told me, "We don't turn anyone away who wants to vote," which is kind of a loaded answer in today's world, what with ballots being cast by people who aren't legally able to vote, but my frustration level was beginning to rise, and I didn't pursue it.

they could not find his name, and they were going to call the Board of Elections for guidance, and while in the process of calling, the woman behind the counter must have typed in my son's first hame incorrectly, and lo and behold, they found it--under the misspelled first name. How it was misspelled is beyond me, it has been spelled correctly for the past six years, and all of a sudden his name--a common name, a biblical name, a name that if I told you what it was that you probably know somebody with that name--came up wrong.

An "h" was missing in his name, so mirroring a popular ad slogan, drop the "h" for "help," I guess.

I asked how this could be, they did not know--probably when they were changing over their database to an electronic one something got lost in the mix, I believe--and I asked how it could be changed to what it should be. They said that I would have to call the Board of Elections, and right as I was ready to say that no, they were going to change it right here, right now, another woman came to our desk and said they could change it right now, which they did, or at least I hope they did.

I had to sign some document electronically so I could accompany my son while he voted, and then we went to the voting area, ballot in hand.

I explained the different categories, how many he had to vote for in each category, and we were off to the races. The only problem, and it was my fault, was that my son--who like his dad spreads out his vote among all the major parties, not just one--voted for one candidate twice, because the candidate had two parties' endorsements. When I looked over his ballot, I did not realize that, and so the machine would not take his ballot, and we had to do it all over again.

They discarded his previous ballot--we had to stamp it that it was ineligible and it was put in a special container with such discarded ballots--and then we voted again, perfectly this time.

We went to the machine, fed the ballot into it, and it grabbed the ballot, but then spit it out, telling us that there was a paper jam. Somebody came over, took apart the machine, could find no paper jam, and we proceeded to feed the ballot in again. It was taking its time scanning it, but we finally got the message that it was counted.

We were done!

But a 10 minute visit to the polling place took more than 30 minutes, and it really shouldn't have.

2) Fit To Be Tied: We came home, I went back on the computer, and at about 3:30, I received a call from the place that I had the job interview at today, as briefly described yesterday.

The woman who I originally spoke to had called, and she told me that I needn't come in for the interview, because somebody else had already agreed to take the job, She told me the usual, that they would keep my resume on file, "because you never know what comes up here."

I "thanked" her, and that was that with that.

There was something funny about this job to begin with, something that I did not allude to when I briefly spoke about it yesterday.

When I applied for the position, the description stated "full time." It even listed all the benefits that came with the position, and it said at least two times on the job description that this was a "full time" job.

Late last week, I received the initial call about the position, and the woman--the same woman who later told me not to come in--told me it was a part-time job. I said to her that I applied for a full-time position, and she said it was a part-time position. The phone call pretty much ended right there when she realized that I "must have misread" the job description.

When I got off the phone with her, I pulled up the job description, and Eureka! I was correct, the advertised position was for full time.

I proceeded to call her back, but she beat me to the punch. She called and apologized profusely, it in fact was for a full-time position, and that "somehow, your resume got into the part-time pile (her words, whatever that meant)."

So we agreed to a date and time, and I was very happy to get the interview, because the position fit me like an undersized T-short would.

And then I get this.

With all the hubbub about the nature of the position, yes, I do think there was some type of monkey business surrounding it, and maybe it is better off that I didn't get the interview or work for this company, because to act like they did, and then to give me less than 24 hours notice about a canceled interview--I have not had a real job interview in several years of looking--really casts doubt on the nature of the company and how they do business.

Well, at least I tell myself all of this, but yes, I was disappointed, and my frustration level reached its absolute apex after this phone call.

I just have to move on from it. It was just such a frustrating day--again, I am only giving you two pieces of the whole pie here--that it figures that I would received such a call on such a day.

Oh well, let's see what excitement happens to me today.