ANN’S NOTE: Ann makes a splash in the Washington City Paper—Washington Post Profile Brings Up Touchy Subject: What Claim Do Writers Have on Their Bylines? Every time I a write about Viagra men tell me they don’t need it, and they use subtle words that beat around the bush, as if I should be impressed. I’m flummoxed [...]
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
My urge; have to pee. My luck; enter bathroom at The Diner in Adams Morgan. Two stalls. Both occupied; one with a female caregiver (me thinking young grandma) talking to her three-ish something girl. “When did you throw up?” says the caregiver. No answer. I cross my legs. No action in the other stall—feet hanging off the toilet [...]
Monday, October 26, 2009
When I go out with a guy for the first time, some charge ahead with a 3-minute dossier of themselves as if they were interviewing for a job. The conversation goes something like this, “I’ve been divorced twice, have three kids, two grandchildren and used to be active in sports before I injured myself in a [...]
Thursday, October 22, 2009
We work because we have to. We make love because we want to, and we procreate because we feel the need to. Simply defined, we multitask. Why can’t we reset the dial and return to times before the word multitask entered the lexicon of our language? Own a dog or cat? You don’t see Mittens hunched over in [...]
Monday, October 19, 2009
Job-posting boards go beyond telling us who’s hiring for what. They give us advice about how to makeover our resumes, write cover letters and prep for an in-person interview. There always seems to be the top 10 do’s and don’ts. I spend too much time thinking about potential questions on a job application and contemplate answers for [...]
Friday, October 16, 2009
Most online job applications require you to submit references from the get-go. I don’t have a problem with that. I understand a prospective employer wants to make sure I’m not a lunatic. It seems so unfair, though. Why can’t I ask for vendor references to see if the company I might work for pays its bills [...]
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Apparently, you can drink, drive, get busted, serve jail time and still merit the attention of The New York Times to honor you with ink. Enter America’s No. 1 bad (stupid) girl Lindsay Lohan in her latest attempt to reinvent herself. For Lindsay, the world of couture beckons. This is from her point of view, [...]
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Our hobbies define us as much as our job histories. The closer they intersect, the happier and healthier we are. Personally, writing has been both my hobby and career. I appreciate the way words can combine to evoke an image as smoky as a film noir night scene, and I marvel that word combinations seem to [...]
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
When your love-career quests face stiff competition, optimizing them with keywords is often the Viagra that stimulates success. That’s because life has become a ginormous filter through which we make decisions. Employers use keyword filters to screen for the right job candidates. Online dating sites use them to pigeon hole members into likes and dislikes. Search [...]
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I had an interview in the suburbs of Washington, in one of the tall buildings that tower over the beltway. People do secret things in some of these buildings, including the one I had an interview in. Compared to the world of little nonprofits that I usually inhabit, this was positively surreal. First, the nearest Metro stop [...]
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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