Instant Gratification

We all love to stop at a fast food restaurant when we are hungry and in a hurry. We get our meal in under five minutes, gobble it down and our bodies fly off in another direction for new horizons for our next appointment or job interview,  or back to work on our lunch hour. Love that fast lane of service.

 

Our newer wizzy digital cameras provide fast accurate focusing, instant photographs that we can instantly download to our computers and upload to our own web sites. We have gazillions of instant moments as long as we can press that instant go button. Love this fast lane of instant gratification.

 

Our cellular phones provide us with instant caller text messages. Some of them which we return instantly, others not so fast. Love that instant message that we can’t seem to live without. But, in public we tell everyone around us our life story in five minutes on our cellular phones that they all overhear. None of which they wanted to know in the first place.

 

New digital televisions offer a menu that is almost instant for watchers, then we have to decide which tv show to see. As we click through the menu to find what might check into our brains the quickest there are instant decisions to make. Does that make us brainier? Do I really want to watch Desperate Housewives, World Wide Wrestling, Everybody Love Raymond, Dirtiest Jobs, Jay Leno, David letterman, The Science Guy, the NFL Football Game of the Week, or perhaps Animal Planet?

 

This all brings us to the need to know if a retail store has what we need instantly. Take the customer caller who asks “Do you have the washer and dryer that I just saw on Television?”

Telephone operator Well, Mam I’m not sure, what brand is it?

“I don’t know it sells for $499.00”

Telephone operator Mam, what is the name of it?

Customer “I don’t know I just saw it on TV”,

Telephone operator “Mam I need more information than that? Do you have  a Model number”?

“Well that is all I know about it.”

Telephone Operator “Mam I’ll look it up on my computer here at the store and see what we have that those items sell for at that price for you, just a moment please.”

Telephone operator  “Mam, we have a Maytag Washer and Dryer that are listed for $499.00 each. The washer is a 4.cu and the dryer is a 7.cu does that sound like what you saw?

Customer, “why yes, when is the sale over”?

Telephone operator “Tonight Mam at 7:00 p.m.”

Customer “Well, thank you very much for your help. You have been very helpful, I’ll be there this evening to look at them.

Now is that good customer service or what?

Monster.com and Getting Jobs

According to Wikipedia Today, Monster.com is the largest job search engine in the world, with over a million job postings at any time and over 150 million resumes in the database (2008) and over 63 million job seekers per month.

But, does all of that make them relevant to getting a real job in today’s market? Does that sound like a dumb question? Well, it isn’t. How many people do you know who have received a job offer and been hired from a Monster.com advertisement?

Maybe their sheer size prevents many people from even finding a relevant job. After visiting their site, opportunities seem to be everywhere. However, having said that, many jobs require a bachelors degree or higher education.  Three are still many people who fall between the cracks and just do not have their degrees for many life altering reasons. As we all know sometimes life gets in the way of getting ahead.

Maybe employers who really want to hire could take a more aggressive approach and pay for educational needs. Some national employers like Home Depot already do that on a regular basis.

With the U.S. unemployment rate as high as it is the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment rates were higher in June than a year earlier in all 372 metropolitan areas.

A random selection of current statistics are as follows:

The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area is 6.6%.

Baltimore-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area rate is 8.0%.

Winston-Salem, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area 10.4%

Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 17.1%.

Winston-Salem, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area 11.2%.

Danville, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area 12.8%.

Morristown, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area 13.2%.

Mansfield, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.1%.

Modesto, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area 16.6%.

Flint, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 17.6%.

Kokomo, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area 19.2%.

Yuma, AZ Metropolitan Statistical Area 23.1%.

El Centro, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area 27.5%

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The number of unemployed persons (14.7 million) and the unemployment rate (9.5 percent) were little changed in June.  Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points., according to the Labor site.

All in all the many jobs listed on Monster.com could be scooped up in no time.  But, monster has lots more to do because of the high numbers of people who need jobs who do have computer skills and have been unemployed for longer periods of time. In an article from Fortune Magazine April 13, 2009: “You have to take a long-term view and expect that it may take you a full year to land the job you want,” says Nancy Keene director of the Dallas office of executive recruiters Stanton Chase.

Monster.com has taken note of the older workers still out of work, hardest hit by layoffs and encourages them to get into classes, to take on job retraining management skills and an update on their expectations for the current marketplace.

Facebook Won’t Publish Nursing Mothers Photos

The www.911info.net has a new section about parenting. In the section we are accepting photographs of nursing mothers to publish. The only reason we won’t publish one is because of size constraints on our server, or if it is clearly pornographic. So check out  We also accept letters to the editor.

Have a Great Day .

Diane