Procrastinating...

[wigglewhiz]

... it's the Devil's favourite time to get you, apparently. Idle hands and all that. Fortunately I'm an atheist, so I'm not particularly worried about Auld Nick roundhouse-kicking me in the face anytime soon.

Incidentally, I consider myself a "proper" atheist. Not one of these bonkers people who treat atheism as if it's some kind of weird religion (because holy shit, isn't that a bit of an oxymoron?!) and therefore thinks that everyone else is STUPID and WRONG and OMGless you believe in what?! <sneer sneer> Or one of those fucking IRRITATING sons of bitches who think that religion is something to be debated, particularly because they are a STUDIED ATHEIST and will enjoy quoting all of the academic studies/scientific facts (or, god forbid, Dan Brown) that prove that there IS NO GOD and your pathetic ideals are laughable. MWA HA HA HA! Gits.

No, I just personally don't believe there is a God. If you think there is - hey, that's totally fine with me! I have zero problem with that and wish you all the very best. It's not for me to say what YOU should believe in, and as long as you're not killing anybody just because they don't believe in your particular brand of God, or using your religion as a flimsy pretence for misogyny I am totally fine with being your buddy.

Oh, as long as all the while when I'm saying: "Hey, you believe in Jebuddallah! That's great for you!" you're able to do me the same courtesy and be OK with saying "Hey, you don't! Well, that's OK with me!". Don't take "atheist" to mean "blank slate, please insert doctrine here", because I'm afraid I'm not buying. Not looking either, but thanks.

Anyway! Back on track! To PROCRASTINATION! See, I'm so good at it I even had YOU off on some random tangent to nowhere. Mad skillz.

I'm currently procrastinating (I'm going to call it TAKING A BREAK, but you could also read: WORK AVOIDANCE) on that bane of my life - re-writing my goddamned, mother-effing piece of crap CV. (Or resume, for you fancy types. Just try to imagine a grav over that last e there, I can't work out how to do one. What am I, French?! Get out of here.) You know, you get to a point where you've worked so long and hard on your CV that you quietly believe that it can't POSSIBLY be any better.

It's amazing.

It's AWESOME.

It's a work of art. A thing of beauty. A JOY to behold.

In fact, it shows you SO MUCH at your absolute most frighteningly, awesomely bad-assedly talented that recruiters in possession of it will literally shit their pants while reading it - and then immediately drop Every. Other. Candidate, and call you to offer you the job without even the suggestion of an interview. It's THAT good.

...and then you wonder why it isn't getting you any interviews. (Maybe because they're too busy shitting or cleaning their pants) Because... what the hell else can you POSSIBLY do to the goddamned thing? You Google "CV writing tips" (you even Google "Resume writing tips" in case the fancy-pants pretend French people know something you don't.), and all of their advice is stuff that you put in place about a hundred drafts ago. You are not doing ANY of the completely fucking ridiculous things they advise you not to do - like inserting a gormless picture of yourself, using clip arts of rainbows or frilly borders or fucking Comic Sans. (Seriously, do people really do that?!) You're using ACTIVE! LANGUAGE! - MANAGE! ACHEIVED! DESIGNED! INITIATED!!!1! You're tailoring your CV to every single goddamned cursed application until you've lost all feeling in your fingers (and soul).

And yet? El Zilcho. You draw a complete blank as to what the bloody hell you're supposed to do now.

My friends, that's where I am. And I give you this: http://www.lifeclever.com/give-your-resume-a-face-lift/ It's a very handy little blog on CV's (by a would-be Frenchman, obviously), and it's this guidance that has me re-formatting my CV today. Because - and I'm a little ashamed to admit this - I was totally using Times New Roman. I KNOW! I had no idea it was so gauche! (Holy shit, that French thing is contagious. It's ON MEEEEE! ARGH! etc) And my CV looked pretty much EXACTLY like his "typical" exemplar. So boring. And so much like everyone else's, apparently. Perhaps my pants-shittingly awesome content is lost in the boring, boring drudgery of my just-like-a-bajillion-others formatting.

So, much as the hung bullets thing kind of weirds me out and makes my brain want to just sweep up those irritating little blobs outside the lines ruining the MARGIN OF WHITE PERFECTION, and as much as I loved TImes New Roman <strangled sob> ... I have changed my CV in line with this article. And then I'm going to tailor two versions to use to apply for two jobs that close this Friday. I'll let you know how I get on.

In the meantime though... I'm going to make myself a cup of tea. And then see what's on TV. And then think about making some dinner. And then think about other things I could think about to put off any more GODDAMNED CV WRITING BOLLOCKS!

<ahem> Cheerio, then.

PS - two posts in as many days. I WIN THE INTERWEBS.