http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202437243854&You_Wanna_Background_Check_Me_Well_Be_Careful_emWhereem_You_Look_

going on an interview tomorrow with a temp agency, and tempted to turn the tables on them and ask incredibly invasive/nosy/irrelevant questions. I truly have nothing to lose!

On a serious note, it’s all a joke. That is my attitude going into these places–”do you want me or not?” I KNOW most of the work they offer is more suited to a monkey’s behind, but I’ll play the game for a bit, then show my true hand.
MMMMMWWWHHHAAAAAA!

Hope to report back later in the week.

(*BTW, I recommend others do this, as well..It’s an interesting social experiment, a la “Office Space”–feign disinterest, having someplace to be, etc. When you don’t have the air of desperation, it is really interesting how employers can suddenly want to call you back–OR EVEN HIRE YOU.)

Anyway, it all comes down to what Nick said, “This is where change starts and insanity ends.” Time to flip the script. I’m not just talking about it, I’m doing it!

P.S. I kinda do it to piss of HR, too…Hell, you waste my time, I’m gonna make you pay in some way. A lot of these places just want to collect resumes (and personal info), without a real job, or even having filled the job already. No problemo, muchacha/o. I have nothing else to do, don’t mind sitting and chatting. Gets me out of the house and around town to see different coffee shops and other fine (or not-so-fine) retail establishments. Hey, maybe on the way to your office, I’ll pass a company that I really want to work for, I’ll walk in and talk to the manager, and who knows….

In the meantime, I work for myself, advertising my writing, cleaning, babysitting, egg-frying/etc skills. Nothing beats ca$hola.

Ironic, HR has no problem hiding behind legal liability to justify their existence, but that doesn’t count when it comes to their own questionable practices.

I have always felt that this practice was a thinly disguised (and legal!) way to discriminate against minorities whose credit scores are systematically lower than middle class white applicants. It is only now that white middle class workers have been displaced that I am hearing any protest.

The credit check is nothing compared where the mining of information is going. Using ZIP Code, age and gender there are algorithms that, with 85% reliability, identify you by name.

Ian Ayres in his book SuperCrunchers describes a future of predictive modeling that will through the manipulation of data predict future employee outcome. Think of a world where you will be turned down for a job because some model will predict what you, as an employee, MIGHT do and not getting an offer because of that. Nothing even as engaging as a drug screen or credit check, merely a stochastic process and analysis.

Credit checks are childs play compared to this future. It will all be in the numbers. Talk about a moral dilemma!