Here’s something I’ve been wondering: Do managers and recruiters give employment applications placed online — whether an e-mailed resume or a Web-based application form — equal weight with employment applications placed in person? I don’t know…some people I know insist that it’s best to do it in person, but I’m really not so sure about that. I seem to recall having a conversation with Matt a while back in which he scoffed at people who would use snail-mail to apply for a tech position, and he’s in a position to know, since he’s at least partly in charge of tech hiring where he works. And when I was in restaurant management, it was quite impossible for me to remember the faces of every person who came in to hand me an application, so the ones who would insist on talking to the manager directly (as opposed to simply handing the thing to the host or hostess at the door) really didn’t have much of a leg-up. Sure, the ones who looked presentable and clean-cut might get a more immediate perusal of their application, but we never did “on-the-spot” interviews, and unless that person had obvious qualifications — say, five years or more of restaurant experience — they’d basically get the “We’re accepting applications now, and we’ll review them later and call the people we want to interview” spiel.

So I don’t know. I like to think it’s really convenient that I can apply with a lot of companies online and thus not spend a lot of time driving around picking up applications, but I’m likewise uncertain how that translates as far as getting an interview.

(There were other concerns we’d employ in the restaurants: for instance, if someone would call us during the Friday dinner hour or during Sunday breakfast/lunch hours to enquire about their application status, we’d take their name and immediately file them as an “also-ran”. Ditto people who would see our classified ad, which always included the “No phone calls please” clause, and call anyway.)

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IMAGE OF THE WEEK

I’m not actually going to show them here, but if you want to see what the Hussein boys look like in their post-romantic-interlude-with-United-States-soldiers state, click here. That’s about all.

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Note to job recruiters: When you call me and leave a message on my machine, and you leave your phone number as part of that message, and when said number is your cell-phone number, could you make sure your cell-phone is actually accepting calls when I try to call back? Pretty please?

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Jane Galt on telemarketers and the Do-Not-Call registry.

This is an excellent post, really and truly. Read it. Indeed, heh, and huzzah.

I remember when I watched some high-up guy with the Direct Marketing Association talking about why his industry is against The List, and he said something to the effect of, “Why would consumers willingly put themselves in a position to not receive offers that they will find valuable?” Well, that’s basically like asking someone why they never shop at K-Mart, despite the fact that K-Mart almost certainly has something there that’s (a) of use and (b) cheaper at K-Mart than where they usually get that item.

As the consumer, it is my right to decide when, where, in what manner, and with whom I will part with my money. If I want to do it with Person X and not Person Y, even if Person Y’s deal is better, well then, that’s none of anyone’s business but my own. So there.

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Rachel Lucas is in a snit over a poll that shows a substantial amount of Germans believing that the US government is somehow behind the 9-11 attacks. I’m pretty-much with Matthew Yglesias on this: you’ll find people believing stupid stuff anywhere, and in this particular case, since a similar portion of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was involved, I’ll just consider it a wash.

But Rachel does have this cute item: “Dubya can’t even put on a flight suit without liberal journalists accusing him of trying to enhance his crotch so as to gain votes, fer Crissakes.” Well, Rachel, since you yourself advanced the idea that Dubya’s donning of the flightsuit somehow re-invigorated American manhood or some such nonsense, is this any wonder?

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My evil compatriot is on the subject of comic-book movies. I’ll just comment further on the Top Ten that he comments on:

1. Batman. No. I did not like the first one. I did like the second one, and I think the third one (with Val Kilmer as Batman) is the best in the series. Now, the one with George Clooney….

2. X-Men/X2. Outstanding, if we’re talking about the second one. Good, but could have been much better, if they’re mentioning the first one.

3. Spider-Man. An outstanding first half, a lackluster second half, and a last-five-minutes that nearly sinks the entire film.

4. Superman II. I believe this, after Batman, to be the most overrated superhero movie of all time. The fights at the end drag on and on, Superman is given powers we’ve never heard of before, Gene Hackman serves not much by way of useful purpose, the Clark Kent/Lois Lane love story is handled in a cheating manner (“I’ll just make it so she doesn’t know it ever happened!”), et cetera.

5. Superman. My favorite superhero movie of all time, even if the climax drags and involves pure deus ex machina.

I haven’t seen any of the following, and I’m not sure if I even want to:

6. The Hulk.

7. The Crow

8. From Hell. (Actually, I do kinda want to see this one.)

9. Blade.

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is one of my least-favorite pop-cultural phenomena of all time. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

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On the heels of my brief survey of liberal response to the sending of the Hussein boys to sleep with the fishes comes James Capozolla‘s response. Add another to the “Good news, but that doesn’t automatically assuage my original reservations” camp”:

Let me ungraciously interrupt the collective wet dreams of the demented right wing to say, without equivocation, that I’m pleased to learn these little cretins are dead, gone forever, and that I hope our otherwise admirable military forces will prove similarly successful with respect to Saddam and the altogether thoroughly forgotten, yet truth be told, more threatening menace to the U.S., Osama bin Laden.

Indeed.

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Matthew Yglesias has some thoughts about the whole California-Gray Davis recall thing. I have to say I agree with his take, in general, even given my limited knowledge of what’s going on. I think it sets a pretty bad precedent to have a recall for someone who’s merely unpopular, as opposed to criminal or somehow unable to execute the duties of office entirely. In cases like these, I’m reminded of the George Carlin take on democracy that I quoted last Election Day: “If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain.”

Matthew is also right about this: “One does note in this, along with the ’98 impeachment effort and the re-redistricting going on recently, a somewhat disturbing disregard for the procedural norms of the American republic on the part of the GOP.” This is something that’s been disturbing me for a while now. It also shows up in the current judicial-nomination process, when during the Clinton years, the Republicans made use of every procedural trick they could to deny pretty much any Clinton nominee who happened to be opposed by any Republican, but now, with a President of their own party, gladly change the rules at will to deny Democrats the same ability. We seem to be entering an era when everything is about partisan advantage. I expect the ugliness to only increase from here. (And, to be frank, it will probably happen on both sides. But right now it’s the ascendant GOP that’s reworking the entire political infrastructure to its own benefit.)

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We took a break from animated movies this week to rent Herbie Rides Again, the less-well-known sequel to The Love Bug. (TLB was out, unfortunately.) I’ve always been a sucker for the Herbie movies, although I never saw the last one, where he went to Mexico. What I liked about Herbie Rides Again is that the filmmakers bothered to come up with an entirely new set of circumstances under which a sentient car might be useful, as opposed to simply retreading the race-car story from The Love Bug. Besides, watching Keenan Wynn’s nearly-insane millionaire developer is a hoot, in and of itself. And you won’t find too many Disney movies, rated “G”, that include the line “I’m going to take this letter-opener and stab him in his ungrateful breastbone!”

In other video-watching news, the local library has a number of Original Series episodes of Star Trek. Last week I watched “The Menagerie”, the brilliant two-part episode that was written to utilize the footage from the first Star Trek pilot episode, called “The Cage”. And last night I watched “The Trouble With Tribbles”, which even now reduces me to helpless laughter, even after I’ve seen it many, many times (though not in quite a few years).

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Well, now.

I’ve been around the Net, in one guise or another, for almost ten years now. I remember when Gopher was the coolest thing going. I remember the hey-days of Usenet, and the wonderful days of yore when people thought that simple shame would deter spammers. I’ve used FTP, I used the Web in its early days when NCSA Mosaic was the only browser. I’ve seen the oncoming of blogging. And yet….

Nothing I have ever seen or done online has risen to the level of this. It’s all downhill from here, folks. Would the last person off the Net please turn out the lights?

(Via Teresa Nielsen-Hayden.)

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