Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Miscellaneous
Interesting "featured blog" at blogger.com, related to the connection I (and others) have made between the layoffs in the tech industry and outsourcing/offshoring to India: Blame India Watch.
My son came back from India with videos of street scenes as the Hertz driver drove him and his coworker from the U.S. around Chennai. He said that the first ride to work felt like Mr. Toad's wild ride. The next day when he brought the video camera, the driver seemed to take it easy and to take another route.
He said he could never drive there since people don't stay in lanes but drift around. Horn honking is the way to signal intentions to those in front of you and behind. All the honking reminded me of how bats navigate by bouncing a sound off the surroundings. All the miles of video have a sound track of beep, beep beep, beep.
He also videoed the women he was training and the views from the "smoking balcony" outside of the air-conditioned office. Because of warnings about street robberies, he never went out on his own, except once to buy cigarettes. They drove to a temple on Saturday while they were there. Liberty was not pleased by the persistence of the beggers, who wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd gotten the trots from something he ate no doubt right when they got to the temple, and the beggers and the diarrhea combined with the broiling heat made the whole experience less than pleasant.
The office cubicles and computers looked familiar. What was more unfamiliar was that the air conditioning ducting wasn't hidden. The women wear saris and look like flowers. The prettiness of the women in their saris made me decide to always wear beautiful fabrics. We dress so badly here in CA. There are no rules. I remember an admin at Sun who would wear the wildest variety of clothes. She would be dressed up one day in skirt and dress shoes and in biker leathers with fringes hanging from her chest on the next.
I submitted an article about a Sacred Space competition whose entries were on display at the Presidio last week. It'll be published in the April issue under a pseudonym. Frankly, I'm afraid of ostracism by the liberal Catholics because I'm writing for a conservative newspaper, which is why I am using a nom de plume.
Heard nothing from Linnea Wickstrum at Sun about the three tech writing openings she posted. Got to see if any new reqs have been added to the Sun jobs website.
Two weeks ago a techwriting manager job came to my attention but I didn't respond to the recruiter's call because I don't feel attracted right now to that kind of job. Project management, yes. People management, no.
Former manager once removed John Stearns sent me an email about a contracting job that his wife interviewed for that isn't a good match for her. Because it consists of writing for administrators, he told me to look into it. I wrote his wife this morning asking for more information.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Adventuring at Monday Night Bingo and News from the County
A big permanent wraparound sign on the corner of the fence on the Holy Cross Church parking lot announces to all traffic on busy 13th and Taylor Streets: Bingo Monday Nights. Brother Charlie works the bingo with help from a number of parishioners. When brother graduated from San Jose's Institute for Leadership in Ministry on a Monday night last year, there were almost unheard of doings: They actually shut down the bingo, and people went to the Cathedral of Saint Joseph to cheer Bro. Charlie during his graduation ceremony.
For anyone who might be reading this, it is important to understand that Holy Cross Church is unique in many ways. It seems to straddle Church time, with one foot in the 1950s before Vatican II changed a lot of things, and one foot in the 2000s. One of the anamolies of this church is its bingo night, because nowadays bingo as a means of fund raising is the exception rather than the rule.
I was at loose ends last night. I couldn't concentrate on any of the things I had to do at home. I had expected a call to come in for a second interview for the county job by Sunday night, and it hadn't come. I was sure I'd be called for the second round of interviews they are holding this week.
Then Monday noon while I was at a business in Santa Clara trying to buy a digital recorder to use for interviewing subjects for freelance articles, I picked up last Thursday's paper, which was lying around on the counter, and I found that Santa Clara county will be laying off 1200 people. The commissioner in whose office the position is open was quoted in his role as the current chair of the Board of Supervisors. And he spoke about how they were going to have to spread the pain around to the various county agencies. Oh, I thought, that's bad news. Maybe that's why I didn't hear from Mike McInerney yet. They may not be able to fill that position now.
Just before I left the house in the evening before I went to the church hall, I saw an email from a Sun manager that I know, who thanked me for sending her my resume and promised to look it over. That was a bit of encouragement.
The parking lot was full of cars. To help out a little at the Bingo and keep my mind off the sinking feeling I had, I sold Wild Tic Tacs for $1 each, hawking them up and down the crowded aisles between the rows of tables. Later I sold Popeyes for $1 each. Tic Tacs and Popeyes are pull tabs. If you get the required symbols to line up, in the case of the Popeyes, two Popyeyes or two Olive Oyls, you win whatever amount of money is stamped on the hidden area that is revealed along with the symbols when you pull the tabs away.
The tables were packed with people many of whom frankly don't look like they have two dimes to rub together. They are armed with stampers of different colors and cups and plates full of snacks. Some have special stands for their bingo pages.
The snack bar does a good business in hot dogs, nachos, cookies, soda, and cake. A big seller was what looked like pieces from a leftover birthday cake, the kind with thick frosting roses and piping on top. As one might expect from the sedentary nature of this form of recreation, and the high calorie snacks, most of the players are overweight.
Two of the women working the snack bar are from the Italian-speakers' Mass. I could tell by the better cut of their clothes, their hair styles, the clarity of their skin, their prettiness, and slenderness. Italians born in this country don't have the same style sense and seem thicker from a lifetime of American conveniences and overabundance of food. I introduced myself to one of the Italian women, whose name is Rosa. I asked if she is Italiano. Rosa corrected me nicely, saying, "Italiana." "Oh Si Si!" I pounded my forehead with the flat of my hand. I told Mabel, a second generation Italian who doesn't speak Italian, who came into the snack bar with us, "I just asked Rosa if she was an Italian guy!" Mabel smiled and told me I should stick to English to stay out of trouble.
Helpers arrive at 5:30 every Monday, and the bingo doesn't close down until around 10, so it's a long evening.
In between hawking pull tabs, I picked up a newspaper called the Bingo Bugle [March 2004, Vol 24, No. 3, North America's Casino and Gaming Newspaper, South Bay edition]. The Bingo Bugle advertises locations for Bingo around the area, from American Legion posts to Cache Creek Indian Bingo to First Samoan Congregational Church. First Samoan? Interesting. The Italian Men's Club Bingo promises "The Best Gourmet Food in Bingoland."
The paper contains many photos of gamers. A woman smiles back over her shoulder at the camera, and the caption tells us that her name is Denise and she plays machines in Salinas 9 times a week.
I told Dolores, a woman in her late 30s, younger than most of the volunteers, "There's a woman in this paper who plays 9 times a week." She said, "Some of them here do that. Then they don't have enough to pay their rent."
A full page ad touts the 16th Annual Bingo Bugle World Championship Cruise, starting at only $1823. A column titled "Bugle Cruise News" tells the story of one Betty Stultz of Seabrook, New Hampshire, who for years dreamed of taking the cruise but "felt that with a house to keep up and property to maintain, it was an expense she simply could not manage." But Betty was sure that one day her chance would come. And it did. She'll be going on this year's cruise. "How did she do it? 'Simple; I sold the house!'"
Another column called "Bingo by Bev" has a logo with a woman's head, shoulders, and cleavage showing above her black and white shirt. Bingo numbers are floating around the cartoon woman's thick, wavy, black head of hair. Bev is a philosopher of sorts. "I see God has spoken again to a prominent minister of the Church. It nows seems certain that Bush will be our next president or so says the chosen one. This news could really come in handy when it comes to saving money. If it's all settled there is no need to contribute to the campaign fund of anyone. No need for any of the candidates to get out on the road. . . .. Now if God said it, it must be true. . . . I recall a few years ago when another minister said he needed money and God told him he would die if he didn't get it, no ifs, ands or buts about it. . . ."
She continued, "I ask God for money a lot, like when the utility bills come due, or when I am playing Bingo or the slots, or when I vote for someone I really want to be elected. [Why she needs money while voting is anybody's guess.] . . . Sometimes God tells me to help others when I can hardly take care of my own needs. [Note to Bev, Maybe you would be able to take better care of yourself and others if you didn't gamble the money away?] and I try to obey Him. I have heard that you get back ten fold and so far God owes me millions in tenfolds."
She winds up to close the column by saying that she doesn't believe the minister is right or that the next election is "a done deal."
"Sometimes I think, [sic] it is possible to mistake feelings for inspiration. I've done it. Like the time I was playing bunco and I thought God wanted me to roll the dice one more time."
Wisdom from Bingoland.
When I came back from selling my last 4 pack of Popeyes, I saw another volunteer, Mae Ferraro, an 83 year old dynamo who only missed one week of bingo after her husband of 60 years died three weeks ago. I told Mae that I felt like a dope pusher, and she gave me a large smile. I don't know what that smile meant, but I don't think I can make myself go help out again there.
Editorial opinion: Another of the volunteers, Dave, who showed me how to sell the Tic Tacs and count the money, told me when I asked him that the bingo brings in $3,000 a week. This way of making money to run the church plant and to pay the salaries is convenient for the pastor, who says in the pulpit, "I dohn like to ask for money." But I believe it is a wrong way to fund the church.
Having a big enterprise like this weekly bingo probably started innocently enough. That's how it generally goes. We start with small rationalizations and once the slightly wrong thing gets established in our thinking and gets structured in our lives, then the slightly wrong thing inexorably starts to grow, the original goal is lost sight of, and the enormity of the current large evil is not visible because it has become a part of what we are used to, like the proverbial elephant in the living room.
What would Jesus do? People are asking these days. [The question is an old one, by the way. Author Stephen Prothero in American Jesus noted that in 1897, the year my old Victorian house was built, a writer called Charles Monroe Sheldon wrote a book called In His Steps: "What Would Jesus do?" Chicago: Advance Publishing.]
I can state with certainty that Jesus wouldn't be pushing pull tabs and bingo cruises to addicted people who don't have much income to raise money. That doesn't mean He wouldn't be expecting them to give out of their substance. He praised the widow giving her entire living to the Temple, because in her heart she was giving it to God. And like Bev said, whatever you give is returned to you abundantly. I don't know why Bev hasn't experienced the promised return from God for helping others. I believe I owe my prosperity during the past 20 years to the Spirit-motivated generosity I practiced when I was alone and scrabbling with my two kids and hardly any money. I hold this truth to be self evident: "In the same measure that you give you will get, pressed down, shaken together, running over, it will pour into your lap." Some might call it karma.
Protestant preachers aren't ashamed of asking for money. They quote St. Paul, "The worker is worthy of his hire," along with another verse from the Old Testatment that says oxen should not be muzzled while they push the treadmill to grind the grain. The general run of the mill Catholic does not do any religious observance unless it is binding under pain of sin. Since of tithing is voluntary now, that means it is not practiced by most Catholics. And most Catholics seem to have forgotten that the Church's precepts still apply, including this one, that Catholics must contribute to the support of the church. End of editorial opinion.
Today, Tuesday morning, I opened yesterday's mail. All my speculations about the reason I hadn't heard from the county about the job would have been laid to rest if I'd looked at the mail when it first came on Monday. A letter from Mike McInerney told me that they had identified a number of other candidates that were a better match for the position than I am.
I was on the way out to daily Mass when I opened the letter, and I had to come back in the house. The comfortable mental picture I painted about myself in that job flooded over me, and I had a hard time stopping my tears. For the next 9 months, I had dreamed, I would have a cozy life, an interesting job, a respectable role in the community that I call home, a two mile commute, a chance to learn about the county and meet people and get grounded, while learning to live on half my salary from before. I looked forward to working in an office that was well-managed with a clear chain of command, doing what I was told. I am very sad I didn't get that job. I wish I hadn't gotten my heart set on it.
I had to continue to cry and pray through that loss in front of the Blessed Sacrament after Mass today. With all the uncertainty about my future, all I can do is say, Jesus I put my trust in you
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Interview Report
I called McInerney at the county before the interview date and left him a message about rescheduling. He called me back after 9:30 p.m. again, and I was already in bed half-asleep reading. I got up and wrote down the new time on the new date on my calendar on the refrigerator. The next day I did not remember where I'd written it down. Thinking I'd double-check later, I put the previously-scheduled time of 3:00 into my Palm with the new date.
For the day and a half before the interview, I tried to get around to double-checking the time but my mind was preoccupied by a huge runaround I was having with a handyman. He had called me because a woman at church told him I wanted to find someone to help with projects. On Monday, he came to my house, and he agreed he would have time to run 220 V wiring and to sheet rock the garage before Liberty returns from his round the world trip.
BTW, before he left India on Monday, Liberty emailed a photo of himself with the four Indian women he was training and the other trainer, who is a woman my age. He said that all the women in India are married. (Tongue in cheek.) They get married very young. He liked having a personal driver. And the personal driver must have liked him. Someone had told him to tip the driver 200 rupees. As it turned out that was a tip for the week, and Lib and his fellow trainer were tipping the driver that amount every day. Now Liberty is in New Zealand touring.
Back to Tuesday, the day of the job interview. The handyman had spent $200 of my money on wiring, then he came to me that morning to tell me he couldn't do the job because there was not enough power coming to the house. Later he called from Home Depot to tell me he couldn't return the wiring because he'd had it cut. He said, "That's all right. I'll eat half of the cost." I said, "You committed to do a job you didn't know how to do and now you want me to pay $100 towards the wiring?"
After some other incompetencies I won't go into here on both sides, we terminated our agreement. On top of taking almost all day Monday, dealing with him took all morning and part of the early afternoon on Tuesday. I think the whole thing cost me over $100 with no work done besides the day and a half wasted on my end. On his end, he not only couldn't return the wire, but he also lost about $95 worth of other materials out of his truck.
[NOTE from 3/3/2004: I found a paint bucket full of the missing materials on Sat. and called Carlos, who came over to pick them up.]
My judgement was clouded with the emotions (which you could probably imagine) that were running through me about that whole deal and the stress of having him use up huge chunks of my time when I was trying to get ready for the interview. I handled it better than I would have at other times in my life. At one tense point before I went into the kitchen with Carlos to try to tally up who owed who what, I paused a moment to imagine that Jesus was waiting there at the table for me, so that I could treat the man with respect and kindness. Which he deserved.
I hate interviews. I bought new clothes. Had them altered. Decided not to wear them. Wore something else. Agonized about my hair. Did my nails in the morning. Got them dirty in the garden. Did my nails again. A coworker wrote me, "Don't buy new clothes. They can smell fear." She's probably right.
I was glad to see the offices are in one of the few areas of San Jose that make you feel like you are in a city. The area for the county government offices is on a long block of other similar big buildings, including the county court house and a jail.
As I got out of my car two young black men, a woman, and five year old boy were walking by. I admired the boy's cute outfit, nice pants, a shirt with a collar and a vest. His mother suddenly said, "Jason, don't put that in your mouth." That would have been fine, but one of the men turned around and not really looking at him. "Don't be putting stuff in your mouth or I'll slap you in the face." That wasn't fine.
[NOTE from Tuesday March 3: I thought of that incident when I heard an NPR article about a recently-released CD of lullabyes from South Africa. In one of the songs, the daddy's voice to his child is dripping with love. I was jealous. I don't think anyone ever sang to me. He spoke about how his grandma and his auntie had sung that lullaby to him, and about how we have to fill our children with love instead of blame. That man who was yelling at his child was only passing on what he knew. Oh God, how can we break the chain? ]
After I crossed the street and started heading across a parking lot towards the entrance to the county office building, a phalanx of what looked like members of an Eastern European family was headed in my direction with mother in the middle. They were large and wide and their collective bulk made them look formidable, like a line of football players.
On the way up to the 10th floor, a tall handsome white man got into the elevator with a good looking white woman. She distanced herself from him by putting me between her and him. He was facing front and turned and before he realized who I was said something to me about two women. And then he paused. Now I wonder why she put me between them. I can imagine all kinds of reasons, but again who really knows?
Blithely I showed up at the District 3 office at 2:50. Mike was pleasant. I think it went well. Then close to the end he said, "You'll find a message on your machine when you get home. What time did you think the interview was?" I said, "Three? What time was it really?" He said, "Two thirty." I said, "I'm sorry. I know I cannot be doing this sort of thing [meaning not showing up for events for which I represent the commissioner]." He made excuses for me, said he might have written the time down wrong himself.
There was an awkward pause when he asked me what I know about the commissioner while I sorted out what I should say. I know too much. I know . . . never mind. I said I knew the commissioner had been mayor of Milpitas, and had worked at IBM.
Mike will be selecting eight people to come up for a second round of interviews next week.
Much of what he told me about the job was a relief. It pays better than Annette thought it would, a little more than half of what I was making at Sun. The work hours are very flexible, as they are at Sun. And the best news is that Mike would not be upset at all if I took the job and quit if I found a better one. I told him I would have been prepared to commit to stay until the job was up on December 31, 2004, but he said that he could just call another good candidate who didn't get the job and bring that person in. He would congratulate me, and that would be that.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
9:40 p.m. Call to Set Up an Interview With the County
Last night I fell asleep reading American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, and when the phone rang, I jumped up and tried to answer it in my bedroom. I keep an old phone in my bedroom as a backup that we could use if the electricity goes out. But it's practically useless.
I answered, and as per usual, I couldn't hear the caller and the caller couldn't hear me. I put the handset down on the dresser and went into the kitchen to try that phone. I said, "Hello! Hello!" and then I heard a dialtone. So I went back to reading in bed.
The phone rang again. This time I was ready with my cordless phone on the bedside table. "Hello. I'm calling from Santa Clara county. I'm trying to reach Roseanne Sullivan." "This is she."
The caller introduced himself as Mike McInerney, Commissioner "Don McRay's" Chief of Staff. He was calling to set up an interview. By now they are up to 61 resumes.
He gave me explicit directions to the office, even told me which bus I could probably take from my address if I wanted to avoid parking difficulties [#36], which building to go to, what to say to the receptionist, what the interview structure would be like. After about 50 minutes, during which he'll explain the responsibilities of the office, he will ask me a few questions, such as: "Why would someone with all the writing experience you have, a year towards a Ph.D. in American Studies, an M.A. in writing (3.9 GPA) from the University of Minnesota [he was obviously reading from my resume at that point], why would you be interested in what is basically an entry-level job? And what are your salary expectations?" He added hurrriedly. I laughed, sort of flattered, and amused by the guy's professionalism and break-neck style of delivery. I said, "I'll be prepared [to answer that]."
I've written in an earlier post why I would be interested in that job. I look at it as being nine months of paid training that might help me break into another field. At the least it would be interesting to break out of the high technology mold. I love learning how the world works, and this would give me some exposure to the political life of Santa Clara county.
Monday, February 09, 2004
No Nibbles Yet
No takers on my resumes, yet.
When I saw Pete and Gail McHugh at Baker's Square last week, I went to their table and asked him about the status of the county job I'd applied for. He told me they'd received 45 resumes and that Friday (last Friday now), his chief of staff would give him recommendations of some good candidates to contact. I haven't heard anything.
Thursday, Leyla and I had lunch. Right Management was hired only for this series of layoffs, and now they have folded their tent, left the Sun building, and the employees, who are contractors, slipped back into their old lives. I had a sinking feeling about the usefulness of the career training they were giving us when I found out that Leyla, the receptionist, was an underemployed, former event planner--who hasn't been able to make the glamorous kind of career transtion the classes there seem to promise you.
It was Leyla's first day off the contract. I showed her my house, which she exclaimed over from the front porch to the back deck (which pleased me), and then we walked down the long block to Casa Vicky's together. I bought her lunch in honor of her new status as an unemployed worker. We promised to be a support network for each other. It was a very pleasant part of an afternoon.
Recently, after a sort of lull, the emails among us laid off writers have been flying fast and furious. I fueled the flames by telling everyone what I had heard about the boss's quick remarriage, and the story of how one of the remaining writers got into her bad graces and now fears layoff for protesting orders to work a contractor 80 hours a week to finish some documentation.
After I made some changes to some old emails (to protect the guilty), I added them to this blog under their original dates, including an email I'd written about spiritual methods to defuse anger. When I was done I sent what I'd written to the diocesan newspaper to see if they'd be interested in printing it. Last week, the editor answered my email asking if they paid for freelance work, by telling me they don't have a budget for it. Today I offered the write-up for free. I think that readers of the Valley Catholic would like to know more about Fr. Joyce's teachings, and that they might benefit from knowing that there are ways to master angry thoughts (and significant spiritual benefits doing so.
I got my first unemployment check. They skipped one whole week and are giving me less than the maximum I thought I was getting, so I have to call and see if a mistake was made, at least to understand the amount I received.
[NOTE from 3/3/03: I went over it again until I understood. The weekly amount is $410. When I get paid $35 for tutoring, they let me keep $25 of it, and then deduct $10 from my check.]
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Is a Santa Clara County PR Job In My Future?
Applied for the job at the county yesterday by sending a cover letter and resume tailored to the job description.
I found out about the job when I ran into Commissioner Pete McHugh and his wife Gail, who is vice-principal at St. John's School. I saw them when I came to join "the ladies" at Baker's Square in Milpitas for breakfast after Mass about a week and a half ago. When I told Pete that I was laid off and talked about my writing plans, he got a funny look in his eye. And then he asked me for my resume. I gave him my card. I told him he could download my resume at www.lyberty.com/rs, but instead about a week later he had his executive administrator send me an email with the job posting.
Sunday, Annette, who is close friends with Pete and his first wife, and with Gail, his second wife, told me the job probably only pays $18-20 an hour. :-{ At first I thought, well that won't pay my mortgage. She told me that Pete doesn't even get paid as much as I was making as a tech writer.
But then, yesterday I re-read the job responsibilities and thought the job might be a good thing for me. In spite of the low wages, it would help me get a wider experience in non-technical writing. I could maybe scrape by using my savings to help pay my mortgage for the one year term of the job, and think of it as a paid training course--with benefits. It could be a great way to gain more experience in public relations and a wider experience of the world of county politics. I forgot to write that it is a public relations assistant job--that requires a lot of article writing and event planning. I'll have to see how things go.
I mentioned blogging at breakfast, and Pete asked me what it is. In trying to explain I mentioned the blog that got me started. I described the posting of the high school girl in RCIA who reported that a cheerleader in the class was upset when she heard that the Catholic Church teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. The cheerleader was wondering if she had picked the wrong Church to join. Nobody got why I thought it was so funny or why I was telling that story.
Mary volunteered, "I wouldn't want to read one of those."
At breakfast, Pete and Gail mentioned their new house, which is "behind Mervyn's." I told them I had been to their old place several times, probably to their surprise.
Annette's going to move in with them for about a month. Her house is being sold and she will be moving with her daughter's family into a new house on the way to L.A., and the new house won't be ready for a while.
Darn! The blogger preview function cut off a couple of paragraphs I wrote. Well, here goes again.
I also forwarded the job posting to Leyla, who was the receptionist at Right Management. She told me she had gotten laid off as an event planner a year ago. The job needs both of our skill, actually. Leyla called me yesterday, happy that I had sent her the job listing. We agreed to support each other. She told me that if I get and take the job, and if I needed help with the event planning, I should call her. What a great offer! She's coming here a week from Thursday. We'll walk down to Casa Vicky's for lunch, and put our heads together. Job hunting is all about networking.
If this sentence gets cut off, it won't matter too much.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Career Transitions, Writing, Guys with Ponytails and Tomatoes
Went to the company's career transition office today to look over (let's call him) Harry's database of contacts. Harry shows people his contacts database as an example when teaching the class on networking, so that people who are looking for work can see how to keep track of the people they've contacted. I had asked Harry for a copy of his database to use because I didn't want to go through the trouble of setting up my own.
Harry's database lists all the agents that handle screenplays because he writes screenplays on the side. He keeps track of which ones he sent queries to, whether they replied to his postcards (Check "Yes. I want to read Civil Widow." or "No. I don't have time.") and anything else he thinks would be good to jot down. (For the one screenplay, only eight out of 52 agents sent him back the stamped postcards, and all eight had the "No" checked. Harry had dutifully noted "No" in the column for comments.)
Among the several things we talked about, Harry told me the story of how he made contact with an influential TV producer. It started in the Hollywood area, where Harry, who is an ex Marine, led a boot camp to help people who have enough money to pay the fees build their confidence and get in shape. One student , Carl, came back in after missing a week and told Harry he had been out because he had the flu, and he asked Harry to go easy on him. Harry assumed the curled lip of a drill instructor, and said, "Oh, you've had the flu. Since you've been sick, you should rest. " Harry ordered Carl to rest on the sand, and then while Carl reluctantly laid down, Harry barked, "Okay, now flu bug, start doing pushups!"
Now Carl is recommending Harry's scripts to people who might be able to get them produced. And Harry is dropping Carl's name when he contacts agents.
According to Harry, Carl's first reaction to reading one of Harry's scripts was to say that if a producer were to look at that script he would discard it right away. Harry was taken aback, but gamely said, "Well, I guess I deserve that." Carl went on to say that Harry's formatting was terrible, and explained that if a producer saw such bad formatting he wouldn't even read the script. Then Carl paused and said that the ideas in the script were better than he had seen in years. So Harry started improving the professionalism of his formatting.
I quickly scanned Harry's query letters while he was talking. His ideas are poorly expressed and some of them don't even seem to make sense. For example, in the space of four sentences he had to introduce one story, the first two say something like: "This story is about a widow on her own in the civil war. She has seen young boys killed . . ." Another one's premise is that the tunnel that people (supposedly) travel at death is in danger of being exploited by an evil power that plans to use it as an energy source.
Speaking of how I react to writers reminds me of what happened when I read (let's call him) Mike O'Neil's manuscript about his adventures while travelling around Europe as a young man. He met up with a beautiful young woman in Spain who had visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I first met Mike about three years ago at daily Mass in Milpitas. He was packing up to move to teach Spanish at new Ave Maria University in Texas.
When I read Mike's manuscript I was frustrated by its lack of transitions and (even worse) lack of clarity. Mike was so sparing of details I kept wondering what he was trying to tell us. Since I had volunteered to give Mike my feedback as a former instructor of creative writing, I had written many notes, trying to tell him where he'd lost the story thread, and where he should show instead of tell his opinions.
The market for books about those visions is saturated, but I think a well-written honest first person story could find a publisher. Mike's version of the story does not meet those criteria.
The day I told Mike more forcefully what I thought of his book was when he called me about a month ago. He's retired from Ave Maria and has been back here for six months at least, and I hadn't heard from him. He called me of all things to ask me to type his manuscript for him. I told him I would show him how to use optical character recognition (OCR) software, but I needed to get to my own writing. He's got more time than I do. He was clearly disappointed.
Mike had been bringing the MS. to a writing group at the Ave Maria. When he told me that he had made only some of the changes I'd suggested, I bristled, and that, combined with him asking me to do secretarial work for him led me to be more exactly explicit about the frustrations the book had raised in me when I read it.
What really happened? Why did you give details about one time you met her and mention but not explain about the others? The way you wrote it seemed like the setting for a possible romance. You two were about the same age. You went around the village interviewing people about her. You kept writing about how beautiful she was. Then the girl went out of her way to arrange for you and her to travel to the city from the village together in a car for many hours, and you spent a couple of long afternoons together. You reported her saying many things that to a woman would indicate she was interested, but you never told why nothing came of it. Or had something come of it, and you didn't say because of some sense of delicacy?
When I told this to him, he told me his mother had been upset because he had written personal things about the visionary, (perhaps because she thought they was irreverent?). And so he had left out some information that had offended his mother, including how the girl had let him know she was not interested in him.
I told him that what he'd just said reminded me of another author I'd once known in St. Paul. I didn't say this to Mike, but the author (let's call him Homer) is another one who had gotten to know someone slightly famous and wrote a long book about it. Homer was a psychologist who had met the real Charlie Brown, the person who Charles Shultz had known when they were teachers at the Famous Artist's correspondence school. As everybody knows, Shultz used Charlie's name for one of his Peanuts characters. Homer and Charlie were friends, and when Charlie died by suicide, Homer wrote a three volume book about Charlie Brown the man, writing often about Charlie's tortured struggles with immorality without providing any details. I didn't want to know the prurient details, but the story didn't have any life because the author was withholding so much. I had done a barter with the author in which I had committed to try to market the story for him, but I could not get anyone to carry the first volume of a three volumes tome full of detail-free writing about a fairly uninteresting person.
My not so humble opinion is that none of these men know how to write. And I don't know how a person could teach any one of them about how to effectively use language to tell a story. But maybe I'm wrong, and I'll see a major science fiction movie about the tunnel between death and life being harnessed for energy one of this days. And maybe Mike's book about the visionary will find a publisher who likes his style. And someone somewhere will stock the first self-published volume of the St. Paul writer's story about Charlie Brown.
Anyway, I like Harry not because he can further my career (he can't). I like him because the day I met him was my first day at the career center. I hadn't realized how upset I was about getting my notice a few days earlier until I went to the center. Nobody could do anything right, and I was biting and rude. Harry came up and gave me several long hugs. Which led me to shed a few tears. As I told my daughter today, "What a genius." Harry understood that I was upset and gave me comfort, instead of getting angry at me for being angry.
Harry is short and solidly built with a closely trimmed Lincoln-type beard edging his chin, and the back of his hair is long and pulled back into a pony tail. He says he is a former Marine. It's hard for me to tell his age but he could be 35. I'm not attracted to him as a man, but as a person. What a good guy.
And the rangy old Irishman with uncombed hair, Mike O'Neil, aside from his habit of saying and writing things that he seems to think are weighty in words that don't seem to mean much on the surface and then expecting you to somehow fill in the blanks, well he is a good guy too. One day before he had first gone to Texas, I went to see his condo, since I was still looking for a house to buy. He served me a light supper in the midst of his packing. The meal consisted mostly of fresh tomatoes. When he bought his first floor condo, he had dug up the lawn in the little yard and planted rows of tomatoes. In a world where fresh ripe tomatoes are hard to come by, they were a real trea
