Hire me, I’m great…

That’s precisely the big idea that a person’s resume should convey when he/she applies for a new job. A typical resume would range anywhere between two to four pages, all with details about the person’s qualifications, skills, achievements and so on. However, I recently came across a very brief resume which was sent across to me by my brother after he managed to pick himself up from the floor. That's because he was sure to have been rolling on the floor laughing after going through this masterpiece – he was screening a bunch of resumes and happened to come across this one.

I’ve seen good resumes, I’ve seen mediocre resumes and I’ve seen bad resumes. One common trait amongst all these has been that they usually have been more than one page long. But the resume which I mentioned before is a true masterpiece. I have pasted the contents of the resume below –

Looking for job change in Java & J2EE to work in creative & challenging environment where I can deliver my potential

Yes, that’s it! That’s all that there is in the document. Obviously, this is a winning resume! I would hire the guy without even bothering to interview him. After all, his oh-so-brief resumes tells a lot about him, doesn't it? I mean, one would have to be supremely confident about one's abilities to sum them up in one word and use the rest of the sentence to highlight the area of interest. This resume oozes confidence all around it. Heck, it has even got a total stranger dedicating an entire blog post to it! Talk about power of the written word. I am sure that this would set a new precedent in the job market by which resumes would shrink from numerous pages to single sentences, and who knows, maybe just a word! The day may not be far when I would prepare a new resume for a job posting as below -
Job posting - Looking for candidates with 4+ years of experience in 'Sarcastic Blogging'. Candidate must not be a team player and should refuse to work as part of a global team.

The resume that I would post - Me!

The power of ‘medium’…

One of the best places to snooze is undoubtedly the grand chair at any men’s hair salon. It has one of those magical qualities which renders any person sitting on it feel extremely sleepy. And I say this with more than 20 years of experience! But this post isn’t about the chair, in fact it is about the interaction between the person sitting on the chair and the person who operates around it – the barber (or hair stylist [HS] if you like) and the common man customer (like me). This is for those of us who don’t go in for designer hair styles but prefer a simple trim. And in such a situation, there is a very finite set of instructions that one can give to the HS. One of the most commonly used (and yet one of the most mysterious) word is ‘medium’. This is used to signify quantity or amount. Either one could have his locks trimmed short or let them be long. Somewhere in between these extremes is ‘medium’. It is an untold understanding between the HS and the customer specifying the exact amount of trimming required without actually specifying the amount (yeah, that does sound weird!).

HS: “Saar, full short madla?” (Sir, shall I make it full short?)

Me: “Short beda, medium irli.” (Not short, let it be medium.)

The alert ones would notice that in the above conversation, nowhere has medium been elucidated upon. It is just that. Perhaps it’s some kind of telepathy which ensures that the HS understands just how much of medium is enough! It is because of this telepathic understanding that one can afford to snooze blissfully on the chair, while the HS goes about doing his job. So the next time you go for a trim, just say ‘medium’ and snooze away!

P.S. Disclaimer – if you snooze and your HS is an exception to the above mentioned rule (and doesn’t know when to stop), please don’t blame me!

Lost between 32 and 34…

The other day, I accompanied my friend who wanted to pick up some clothes, a pair of jeans to be particular. When the sales rep asked for his waist size, he was unsure what to tell; he later confided in me that he was somewhere between 32 and 34. I guess this is a dilemma which is faced by a number of people out there, myself included. Even I am treading the area of uncertainty between the waist size of 32 and 34. I have many jeans of size 34 and also have a couple of size 32. I look like a complete idiot whenever I wear either of the sizes. Size 32 makes me feel like I have had too much to eat; my face is contrived in an inexplicable way which lets anyone who sees me imagine a whole lot of weird things. On the other hand, size 34 makes me feel as if there’s still a bit of room left in there! God save me if I am wearing a 34 and I forget to put a belt. This means that one of my hands has a full time occupation of clutching my jeans whenever I am vertical, lest the unthinkable happen.

I thought of two solutions to overcome this unique (or maybe not-so-unique) problem: either I could hit the gym regularly, do some extra abs-crunches and get my waist size to 32, or eat some more of delicious, unhealthy food (like my favourite double-coated “butter naan” and some extra cheese pizza) and get my waist to a proper 34. I weighed the two options and there emerged an undisputed winner! There’s a ring at my door as I write this, guess it must be my pizza delivery.

Shove and push…

I was recently searching the internet when I came across this site which offers users with a free ‘direct push’ email. In case you aren’t sure what ‘direct push’ is, this should help you out. I signed up for the service to use with my Windows Mobile powered Smartphone. So far, it has been working just as advertised and I think it’s pretty cool. And since I don’t have a Blackberry of my own, this is the closest that I can get to the Blackberry experience. You can check out the site here – it is called mail2web Live!

EDIT - mail2web has gone for a paid model now. However, Google has switched on push email for Gmail so all rejoice!

The story of my life…

A short one for today! One of my clever friends asked me this question – “What would page 347 of your autobiography read?” I came up with an equally clever reply – “Other best sellers by the same author….”

Laced with Traffic...

Today is the day that I finally did two things which I was planning to do for quite some time: go out and buy me a pair of shoelaces and put up a post on my blog. At least I was able to do one half of this successfully. I took my motorcycle to go to a leading shoe store. I just love riding my bike but it is becoming quite frustrating these days thanks to loads of traffic on the roads. A journey that would otherwise take just under 10 minutes actually took me 30 minutes to complete. All along the way, I had to navigate cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks as if I was navigating through a high sea in full fury. I often wonder if people are so particular about leaving their common sense at home when they bring their vehicles on the road! No wonder the traffic situation is so bad. Things would be so different if only people would just follow the basic rules of traffic like lane discipline, proper overtaking and respect the other vehicle driver on the road. But it seems that all these are things of the past.

After much waiting, honking and not giving in to road rage, I finally reached the shoe store after having spent several minutes to find a proper parking spot for my motorcycle. After a lot of searching, I finally found a spot in a by-lane, not too far from which I could see two cats ‘canoodling’. With utmost care, I parked my bike so as to not disturb the busy couple, and made my way to the shoe store. I walked in and asked the store clerk if I could see some black shoe laces to which he replied with a sheepish smile that the store has only shoes in stock, and does not keep shoelaces!! Technically he was right and I was the moron to have gone to a SHOE store and asked for a shoe LACE. At that particular moment however, I thought the other way round. I gave him one my prized expressions of utter disgust and walked out of the store, thinking that I might as well head back home and look up some ‘Shoelace stores’ in my area on the internet. I also wondered if the cats would be done or what I saw before was just the foreplay. But I guess those two didn’t have time to beat around the bush; they were sitting next to each other purring by the time I got back. In a strange way, I could make out a look of content on the face of the male cat. I wondered what it must be thinking. Then I realized the weirdness of what I was thinking, so I just got on my bike and rode off. Tomorrow, I plan to visit some ‘ShoeLace’ stores. I hope there are some close by!