Man-Blog

Mad Skillz

Editor: Baddie | Section: travel-and-lifestyle | Email this | Viewed 691 times.

In the past few weeks, I have been on the hunt for a new job. It was an enlightening experience, really. I got to use a lot of the stuff I’ve been writing about in Bum No More. I got the chance to look back into my professional career (all two years of it!) and build a fairly attractive resume with surprisingly little padding. I also realized that I have several sets of skills that I can use to market myself, much like a young hooker after her first night of debauchery.

The skill I really want to develop right now is creative/content writing. It’s my passion ever since I discovered I suck at music and art. Writing is where I least suck, so what I really want to improve on is being a wordsmith. Drastically.

Potential Employer #1: Please write something about Makati.

Baddie: My pleasure.

Someone’s always playing corporation games. Who cares? They’re always changing corporation names. We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage. They call us irresponsible, write us off the page.

It’s just another Sunday in a tired old street. The police have got the choke hold and we just lost the beat. Who counts the money underneath the bar? Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars? Don’t tell us you need us, because we’re the ship of fools. Looking for America, crawling through your schools.

Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio. Don’t you remember? We built this city. We built this city on rock and roll!

Baddie: Done. (smiles)

PE #1: Umm… these are the lyrics of Starship’s “We Built This City”.

Baddie: ...

PE #1: ...

Baddie: Look, I hate Makati. I can’t write about something I despise. That’s just how I roll! Can I go home now?

I figured maybe I should just develop my blossoming writing chops by blogging. And writing erotic Disney fan fiction.

I have three viable skill sets left. One of those is software/web programming. For a Computer Science graduate, it’s sorta weird that I hate programming. So yeah, that leaves me with two skill sets I want to utilize: web design/graphics and customer service.

PE #2: Here’s a sample email from a fictional customer who needs help in using our online service. Please answer it in a concise manner.

Baddie: Piece o’ cake.

KK! I’z in ur computar, fixin’ stuff. It will work soon? Mebeh. Anyhoo, fer callin’ us today, I give u a free internets! I can has commendayshun from supervisur nao?

PE #2: ...

Baddie: (smiles)

PE #2: We’ll call you.

Hey, it’s been more than a year since I was in the customer service industry. I’ve been exposed to LOLcat speak so much, I think I included it in my resume under “Languages Spoken” or something.

This leaves me with web design/graphics. It’s a skill set that I have acquired even before I graduated from college. This will be my ticket to fame and fortune! Well, maybe not fame. Whatever. To fully harness this slightly developed skill set, I need to build an online portfolio of my design works. Problem is, about half of them are intranet sites, and most of the other stuff still have no content so they’re probably sitting in an old hard disk somewhere. So I thought while I’m devising sinister plans of organizing my design stuff, I might as well put up a new web site that will display my mad design skillz.

Turn up the volume of your speakers so you can get the full awesome experience!

PE #3: I think you gave me the wrong link.

Baddie: ...

PE #3: ...

Baddie: Oh riiight. I think I left the link in the car. I’ll go ahead and get it, OK? Be back in a jiffy.

So, what did I learn? I learned that having several sets of skills won’t do you any good if you’re not entirely sure what you really want to do with your professional career. “Jack of all trades, master of none” is definitely NOT a compliment.

Finally, I just want to say to future potential employers who will stumble upon this blog post that most of the things I said are just a bunch of bull. I can write decent articles and essays, I don’t answer emails and phone calls in LOLcat speak, and I really am serious with the whole online portfolio thing. Also, I’ve reached the end of my job hunt and I’ll be using all of the skills I mentioned here in my new job. So there.