My Current Lack of Subtlety

Hello all. I’ve mentioned this before, but for the past two-and-a-half years I’ve been looking for a new job and a fresh start only to be thwarted by my previous existence through either an interviewer’s inductive reasoning or just the name incongruity on a background check.

The resume background check is probably the most infuriating as it sets us up as deceivers, and consequently unworthy of employment, from the shear fact that we can’t afford to jump through the arbitrary hoops to begin with. Add to that the particulars of being in the media industry in this technological age and stealth been a complete impossibility.

That said, I keep persevering in hopes that laziness, compassion or pity overtakes an HR person and I can get a fair shake – a pursuit that all but drains my time from other projects.

I’ve tried all sorts of tactics from the traditional to the wacky and I’m running out of ideas to get my work seen. So now I’m throwing all subtlety aside and just calling folks out. I have below three possible employers, which I admire deeply, that have recently had job openings that I could be masterful in.

Penny Arcade

Not only have they been able to create a ground up enterprise from a simple web-comic, but they run, a very successful merchandising operation even including video games based on their characters, two huge conferences, video productions and a wonderful charity. They are a prime example of the possibility that the internet held from just ten years ago. All that and they are able to tickle my inner nerd on a weekly basis.

Village Voice

The grand daddy of Alt-media – with a flood of candidates, this one is probably a bit out of my chances. I still am going for it as I have a long history with the alternative press as both a subject and contributor. This is one of the few areas in the media industry where one can still see real investigative reporting tucked in amongst the adult advertising and Dan Savage columns.

Bitch magazine

Slightly more attainable is Bitch magazine. Not only is it within that narrow cohort of publications at which I more than excel, magazines, but they also have an independent streak that I admire. Much more than fellow Toledoan Gloria Steinem’s Ms.; they are not afraid to stand up and include transgender folk within their feminist/pop-cultural dialogue.

I’m a huge fan of those that have been able to make that leap and carve out an independent mark in their industries and I would love to help any of these three broaden their respective reaches even more, but time will tell.

Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure that I’m killing any possible chances with any of these companies by writing about it here. But, nothing else has worked so far. Even now, in a state where trans-folk are supposed to have employment protections, I haven’t been able to even get food service work. So, what do I have to loose?

Tags: bitch, comic, employment protection, jobs, magazine, penny arcade, resume, village voice

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 11:04 am and is filed under Art + Design, Personal, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.