And still no luck

It’s been a week since my interview with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum Preview Site in Manhattan, and I haven’t heard back yet. They told me they were going to be holding a second round of interviews this week, so I’m going to take a wild guess that I didn’t make the cut.* I’m a tad bummed because it would’ve been great to have a full-time job with benefits, especially one that got me into Manhattan regularly. I’ve got friends who live in the City, and it would’ve been a great opportunity to try and see them more, along with having good work. I also had a phone interview (maybe two weeks ago now) for a customer service position with a local publisher that caters to schools, educators, and students. That would also have been a good opportunity, but I’ve been given to understand that they’ve been asking for more resumes from the staffing agency that contacted me. Again, I’ll figure that they weren’t exactly jumping up and down over the prospect of hiring me. I’ll just have to keep looking, as always.

I have found some interesting job openings over the past week that I applied for. The local prospects include positions at SUNY Purchase, the New York Public Library, and Hachette (publishers). I’m also hoping to hear back positively from UCLA, Boston College, Saint Louis University in Missouri, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. Working in Baltimore would be great because I’d get to see more of two good friends from grad school, and I’d be able to make semi-regular pilgrimages to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC.

*I did hear back from them, and they hired another candidate. Best of luck to that person.

There could be hope again.

Hopefully that proverbial light at the end of this tunnel isn’t an oncoming train of rejection this time. I went into Manhattan today for an interview with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum Preview Site. They’re in need of a full-time retail associate, and they’re offering benefits for the position. I was told that the job will be around 85% retail (stock, cashiering, etc.) to 15% giving information (talking about the museum, sharing/collecting stories about 9/11/01, where’s the bathroom, giving directions around Mahattan, etc.).

I think the interview went better than some of the others I’ve had recently, and I hope that I at least make it to the second round of interviews that’s supposed to be taking place next week. Yes, retail has been getting on my nerves recently, but the 9/11 Memorial looks like a truly awesome place to work. It would also be much more interesting than my current job, where certain policies and other elements are bothering me more than the actual work itself. I’ll just have to wait and see, and hopefully I’ll be able to tweak my schedule if they call me back in. As I told my interviewer, a roughly 2-hour commute (there’s the long way and the short way into Manhattan, and the short way is cheaper) is not an issue for this job. I am going to keep looking, though, just in case.

Ponderings on fortune cookies

Fortune cookies are an interesting tradition – vague predictions, pseudo-philosophical advice, Chinese phrases, and/or “lucky numbers” on a bit of paper inside a slightly sweet cookie. Anyone who’s eaten at or ordered from an American Chinese restaurant has most likely encountered the standard variety. Some folks play games with their fortunes when eating with friends (i.e. reading it aloud and adding a phrase like “in bed” to the end), and I’ve seen specialty cookies for birthdays, bachelor/ette parties, and other occasions.  I may have taken them seriously at some point, but I became disillusioned years ago. If there really was a treasure/stash of gold with my name on it, or They were waiting just around the corner to reward my patience and inner awesomeness, I theoretically wouldn’t be struggling along in retail two years after getting my Masters.

I had a phone interview today to be a customer service call-center minion for a local information resource/sharing company that provides databases, printing-on-demand and tech support to schools and individual educators and students. It wouldn’t quite be library work, but I’d still be sharing/providing information and helping students and educators navigate various resources to get the information they need. ::fingers crossed::

Congratulations to Whitney “Whizz” White on his retirement after 37 awesome years with the Salem State College/University Theatre Department. He was a major influence for me, as well as all the other students who have come under his aegis, and I’m pretty sure his letter of recommendation was instrumental in my getting into grad school. Congratulations are also in order for my various friends who have recently acquired spouses and/or furry companions (a.k.a. pets), and to those who are going to be parents in the near future.

A tale of bad customer service

Sorry for the delay with this week’s post – I needed some time to gather my thoughts, along with enjoying my reunion weekend. The job hunt goes as ever, but I feel the need to vent about a customer service issue I had to deal with this week.

I’m attending a special college reunion this weekend that is celebrating the retirement of one of my favorite professors. The event is taking place in a state other than where I live, so I went to the Greyhound Bus Lines website almost three weeks ago to make travel reservations. Come this Tuesday, my tickets had not arrived despite the fact that Greyhound promises a delivery time of “eight to eleven business days” via First Class Mail. I called the customer service hotline to ask about my tickets, and I was told that a Supervisor would be calling me within twenty-four hours with a confirmation number so I could pick  up replacement tickets at my local bus station. No phone call had come the following afternoon, so I called again and was given the same spiel as the day before. I called back and asked to speak to a supervisor because I was unhappy with having been given the runaround, especially so close to my date of departure. I was put transferred to the management’s phone number, which rang through to voice mail. I left a message detailing my problem and including my telephone number and the Customer ID/Reference Number that I had been issued.  Still no reply. I wound up having to purchase a new set of tickets at a higher price in order to make sure I would be able to reach and return from my destination. I began the processes to request a refund for my original tickets that same day.

Something is fishy when a reputable national transit company like Greyhound is giving its customers this sort of runaround and not replying to ticketing inquiries that close to a customer’s travel dates. It has now been five days since my first call to their customer service, and I have yet to receive a phone call in return. The only responses I have gotten were to my emails, and even those were under par. I explained my issues more than once, and they kept assuring me that I would receive a phone call as soon as the proper information had been generated and suggested that I try calling the service number again. In their last email, I was informed that while they will be happy to give me a refund, I will have to wait until the lost tickets return to the Greyhound offices in the mail. I wonder how long that would take since they were unable to make it to my home address within the suggested reasonable time frame.

I am extremely dissatisfied with the quality of customer service provided by Greyhound. If they truly have a “commitment to provide quality customer service” and aspire to “be the most reliable and economical form of transportation to meet your needs” (both direct quotes from their emails), I would like to think their service agents and management could be more helpful and on the ball when folks such as myself want to take a simple and hassle-free trip. Hopefully they will process my refund as soon as possible. In parting, I would like to congratulate Greyhound Bus Lines for successfully alienating me as a paying customer – I will be perfectly happy if I never have to deal with their corporate strategies and policies again after this incident.