The resume fiasco

Those who know me are aware that I've been trying to find a job for the last 2 weeks. That's a whole story in itself but here's one tiny thing I encountered.

I was going to an "interview" which was actually a recruitment pep rally for a company that wanted people to become insurance agents. Since I haven't been on an interview in 9 years I figured it would be good practice to put my face in front of someone and see how I did. The recruiter had requested that I bring a copy of my resume, so on my way to the meeting I had to stop and get some printed.

I picked a shipping/fax/copy/printing place that looked like a mom and pop shop rather than the big name kind of store and that's where my troubles began. The sweet little lady behind the counter did know what a flash drive was, and she did know how to plug it into the printer but everything came to a screeching halt after that. The flash drive had 4 folders of images and one word document sitting all by itself and she couldn't locate the document.

After about 5 minutes of punching buttons she decided to plug it into the computer and see if she could locate the document that way. The only problem was that she didn't know how to find the USB drive on the computer to even begin her search. I tried pointing out where she might look but things were headed south from the get-go. I eventually sat down at their computer, located the USB, located my document and sending the document to print then...nothing. I made sure I was sending the document to the correct printer, tried again and...nothing.

The employee then invited me to go behind the counter, try the USB on another computer, locate the USB, located the document, verified the printer, hit print and...nothing. I don't know if the computer was hooked to the printer or if the printer even worked - all I know was that I had 4 minutes to make it to the meeting and I had no resume.

I eventually left the shop and went straight to the meeting without a resume. The dude didn't even remember to ask for it when I arrived! 2 coronary attacks in a sub par print shop and the dude didn't even ask for my stupid, unprinted resume!

Lesson learned - if you need something printed for an important meeting, go to a big name, reliable print place. And give yourself plenty of time.