Non Sequitur: Do you love your job?

       I once told a manager of mine that, while I enjoy my work, it would never come before my family.  While this is typically viewed as career suicide, I have reasoned this out.  It comes down to defining love.  But first, lets look at my job.

       I work for a company so large, you are currently sitting where you can see something they made.  You may not know it, and I'm not going to say who they are, due to corporate policy.  Which is point one: rather than say you can't ever mention your job, or that you can't blog, or even that you are not allowed to speak ill of the company, they simply made a policy that you don't disclose precisely who you work for online.  A well-reasoned, smart policy, actually.

       Also, they pay above scale.  The benefits to the employee are simple: higher pay.  The benefits to the employer are manifold.  They gain higher morale, better productivity, (because someone is waiting for you to vacate that seat) and generally, a better class of employee.  This idea is so old, and so obviously beneficial to the company, that Henry Ford himself, notorious cheapskate, used it.

       My benefits package is what you would expect from a company that size, and my 401k is managed by better fund managers than yours.  Overall, they are a great employer who respects the workforce they have.  Yet I do not love my job.

       I enjoy my work.  I am doing the kind of work that is challenging, and for the most part, fun.  I am surrounded by like-minded people who enjoy the job at least as much as I do.  The conditions are good, the commute is less than the national average.  Overall I am happy there.  Yet I do not love my job.

       Love is not only a mutual exchange, it is something that has a clear definition.  It is putting someone else's needs before your own.  When you love someone, that is what you do.

       My employer does not love me.  They respect me.  I do not want my employer to love me.  I want them to respect me. They do not put their needs ahead of mine.  The benefits, pay, etc. are not examples of putting my needs first; rather they exemplify the acknowledgement of my needs.  Each of those benefits comes with an offsetting benefit to the company.  Mostly this takes the form of a better workforce.

       I do not love my employer.  I respect them.  (Well, as much as I'm capable of respecting anyone, or anything.)  My family, I love.  Love conquers all.

How to cheat a prospective employer.

       I recently read a helpful article on how to get your resume past the robo filters that most employers now... er... employ.  See, when you submit an electronic resume, or even when you don't, they are filtered by a computer program that looks for certain key words.  There are some legitimate reasons for this.  we will examine those first.
       In the early days of this technology being employed, it was used mostly for technical positions.  The filters would look for specific names, acronyms, or programming languages, so as to filter out those who did not have the required proficiency.  It then became applied to every type of position at every company, and as such, is now quite detrimental.  How can such a powerful tool work against you?  Let's see.
       We have all been there.  Surfing Youtube looking for lolcats or whatever, when you stumble on a video, usually adult, that is somehow in the mix with the "I can haz cheezburger" videos.  After the shock wears off you look at the "tags" associated with the video and see that there are many tags for lolcats, etc.  Now ask yourself: could not someone add such a list to the end of their resume?
       I bounced this off of someone with a bit more computer know how than myself, and he asked why have the "keyword paragraph" at all.  You see, you can insert something called a meta-tag to most documents.  Like the salmonella virus; it is invisible to the naked eye, and yet the hero of our story.  The computer would read these key words, and yet the person calling you for the interview could not see them.  This effectively means you could list the entire friggin' dictionary as key word set if you felt like it.
       Since the type of person who would embellish, enhance, or jargon-load their resume is likely also good at gaming any variety of rating system; as an employer you are showing a preference for the people who will do the least amount of work, but which looks best on paper.
       This will undoubtedly skew payroll in favor of those people, and away from the truly deserving.  Or as a co-worker put it:  "Numbers are b------t.  You want me to make 'em sing, I'll make 'em sing.  You want'em to dance, I'll make 'em dance."  Sound like the guy you want getting the biggest raise?  (For the record, he did exactly that.)
       What do you think the rest of us did when we saw that system working?  We had no choice.  Game the system, or be left behind, bitter about not getting a good raise.  That is what the modern American employer is buying with their reliance on filtering technology.  This is especially true when you are filtering for management buzzwords, marketing non-words, or any of the other crap you are likely to find being made fun of in the funny papers.
       As a side note, some of you no doubt, have noticed that I like to flex my vocabulary from time to time.  Honestly it is because it makes me feel like I'm better than you.  Kidding.  That's not why I'm better than you.  My point is that someone who has a big vocabulary, and is not in a field where filters should be used, may choose to employ words that the filter will not be looking for, but which a human would see, recognize, and accept.
       In short, corporate America, you are filtering out the people with a bigger vocabulary, (not necessarily indicative of a greater intellect, mind you) in favor of those willing to game your system.  Game here being synonymous with cheat.  Human Resources is the last place that computers should be used instead of people.  Also the most dangerous place to allow this level of laziness.
       Enjoy the workforce you have purchased for yourself corporate America.