Mark Goes to Boot Camp

Today's cartoon is from 1948, another one from Famous Studios. Entitled "Hector's Hectic Life," it deals with a dog and a woman who seems to be Norwegian or Swedish or something. Three little puppies who look just like Hector arrive at the door and panic ensues (why do animated offspring always come in three's?). Fairly pointless, kind of hinting at the vapid, materialistic road post-WWII America was on.



This afternoon I am going to unemployment boot camp. You see, I have the dubious honor of belonging to the "Top 125"; we're clients of the Foothill Employment and Training Center who are the most skilled and employable but who still do not have jobs (I think I must be in the top 10 by now).

So the WIA Program I belong to (which was where I got my grant for my web design training last year) is having this three-day boot camp "to help propel you into the workforce." Sounds a little uncontrolled to me. I imagine, after three days and 12 hours of rigorous corporate brainwashing, being hurtled forward, catapultlike, and landing in a job where I get to say "do you want fries with that?" at least 20 times an hour.

The boot camp is being "facilitated by dynamic workforce professionals from Launchpad Careers, Inc." Well, that's a plus: the word "career," having one and trying to continue with it are concepts that the folks at FETC are addressing less and less the longer I'm unemployed. At a certain point, I think I become an embarrassment and they wash their hands of me altogether: That will probably be about the time my unemployment extensions run out.

Actually, these folks have been very helpful; it's just the employers who seem to have so little interest in hiring a "seasoned" design professional like myself.

So I'll let you know how day one goes in tomorrow's entry. For all the sarcasm, I'm keeping a positive attitude and hoping this will be a very real turning point for the job search.