Consistency

As an accountant I learned to despise the word consistency. Consistency rules accounting. All month end entries had to be consistent. Consistency makes information analyzable. At quarterly and year end closings, if an odd entry came up and there was uncertainty about how to reflect it, the first question was "How did we do this in the past? We have to be consistent."
Drove me crazy.
I am an artiste. A creative individual. I deviate from the norm. I think differently from you. You do not understand me. Consistency bores me. Consistency is death.
However, that being said, I have achieved a kind of consistency in my life that I am strangely proud of. Failing at New Hampshire State Liquor Commission interviews.
I am 0 for 3 on interviews that I have actually participated in, 0 for 5 if you include two jobs I applied for that vanished into thin air. I just went 0 for 2 in three weeks. That has to be some kind of record.
The first interview I experienced was a mockterview. My workmates encouraged me to apply for a job I was not qualified for, just to experience the NHSLC interview process. Seemed like weird advice to me but in hind sight it was good advice. Because the process is truly bizarre. You have to get that first one under your belt so you can be prepared to try to ignore the intimidation during the real deal.
I then applied for two jobs simultaneously. Heard nothing for a long time until I got a corporate letter in the mail talking about job pool this and job pool that. The jobs were filled without allowing me an opportunity to compete.
Then the interview on 02/07. Shot down. The interview on 02/21. Shot down.
Might be another one in the pipeline. Should be. I applied for it, for what its worth.
But communication does not exist within the hallowed organization of the NHSLC. When the HR Maven called to schedule the 02/21 interview, I had not been informed about a decision on the 02/07 interview. She called later that day with the "and, oh yeah, by the way....." Yesterday when she shot me down she said nothing about an upcoming interview. Professionalism and respect would suggest that it should have been mentioned.
Tells you everything you want to know abut this organization that employs me.
The Grand Inquisitor has a set speech he performs before every interview. I know this because I heard the exact same words two times in three weeks.
His final comments before the interrogation begins are "so sit down, get comfortable and don't be nervous."
I have it on good authority that these exact words were spoken by Charles Manson just before slaughtering the LaBiancas and writing "Death To Pigs" in blood on the walls.
The NHSLC wants to write "Death To Joe Testa" in my own blood on the wall of The Grand Inquisitor's office. I figured that out. I am figuring a lot of things out.
Their plan is to wear me down with scores of meaningless interviews until I am so weak that I crawl into the final one on my hands and knees. That's when the knives will come out and with it the true nature of Those Who Pretend To Employ Me.
But I won't let that happen. I have a surprise for them. I am doing research. That's all I'm going to say.
The true irony here is that, when I got laid off from accounting in 2005, I became a bartender with the intention of never being puppet-tized by corporate america again. Here I am six years later, fighting to get back into what is probably the worst corporate environment I have ever experienced. An environment characterized by intimidation, condescension, inefficiency, and outright, undisguised lack of respect for employees.
Michael Corleone: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
Joe Testa: "Ditto."
I am starting to figure things out through the pain and disappointment that has been 2012. Every decision I have made is the wrong one. Every outcome that I seek is being sabotaged by a vicious karma that is trying to set me straight before I am eternally laid out straight.
I have no choice but to continue to pursue full time employment through my benevolent employers. The Mortgage Vampire is drooling outside the picture window.
But I better pay attention to The Voice inside my head that is screaming "Watch out, buddy. These are the wrong people. They will use your blood to make writing implements of their knives. Find an alternative."
After all the bullshit, I am still searching for my soul.