Job Hunt Report: World Access Marketing

I had an interesting, if not intense, interview last Friday with World Access Marketing. http://www.worldaccessmarketing.com. I urge you to check out their website which is mediocre at being long-winded and high-impact while stating nothing. I also urge you to check out the bad things people are writing about them at http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/097/RipOff0097045.htm. That link is the number two hit on Google when you search for “World Access Marketing.” Also, searching for “World Access Marketing scam” on Google leads to this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=HF4&q=world+access+marketing+scam&btnG=Search .

Anyhow, this is how the entertaining day went: It starts the afternoon before the interview on Thursday, March 6. I was bored with the job search, sick and frustrated with spinning my wheels when I opted to post a less than professional resume on a job search site under the name Tommy Kirchmeier. (I use Tom Kirchmeier professionally the way that Bill Shatner uses William Shatner.) The resume read as follows:

Where I have worked is not important, short of dropping the name Pfizer (Management, 2004-2008). Anyone can manage but can they interact? If you want specialization, there are a thousand resumes on this site. If you want someone intelligent and adventurous who can grow, adapt and react in a changing situation, get to know me:

Career Highlights:
• Wilderness firefighter - National Parks Fire Service
• Tutor, mentor, teacher, social worker – Washington DC School District
• Published photographer
• Video artist with shows in Soho and Provence France
• Published writer
(Examples of my work can be found on tommykirchmeier.com)

Travel:
• France - 2 months
• Vietnam - 1 month
• United Kingdom - 1 month
• Italy - 2 weeks
• Spain (2 weeks)
• United States (Several cross-country road trips)

Books Read Recently:
• A History of the World by J. M. Roberts
• State of Denial by Bob Woodward
• Youth without Youth by Mircea Eliade
• Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov in English), Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
• The Trial by Franz Kafka

Magazine Subscriptions:
• The Economist
• The New Yorker
• The Nation
• Runner’s World

Skills:
• Photography
• Web design
• Video editing
• Animation
• Long distance running
• Can explain why the 21st Century began in 2001
• Can say “Thank you” in Vietnamese
• Will always speak my mind
• Cooking with eggs
• Can beat Contra on Nintendo
• Can understands the binary language of moisture vaporators
• Can understands the binary language of load lifters which are like vaporators in most respects
• Can speak Bocce
• Name every United States President since Hoover
• Make a convincing case for Libertarianism
• Make a more convincing case for Socialism
• Explain the difference between intelligence and wisdom
• Get you coffee
• Get you copies
• Explain why the Russian Church would reject the return of Christ
• Argue against globalization (having seen it firsthand)
• Argue for globalization (having seen it firsthand)
• Read ten pages a minute
• Comprehend one page in ten minutes
• Spare a rod
• Spoil a child
• Sell gold
• Sell junk
• Sell the Brooklyn Bridge
• Find Iraq on a map of the world
• Find Kansas on a map of the world

Within a half hour of posting the above, I had a phone call from World Access Marketing. I thought, “Great, a place with a sense of humor. I can get on there.” The woman on the other end of the phone stated that they were a marketing company and they needed someone right away. They were moving quickly to hire someone and she asked if I could come in at 1:30 the next day. I agreed and she went on to say that they were in Lodi and asked if I knew where that was.

“LODI,” I said, “Is that a new neighborhood? Long on down Island, perhaps?” I mean let’s face it, in my lifetime NYC has added SOHA, NOHA, NOHO, and LIC . Not to mention, we have started calling New York City “NYC” in that time.

She replied that, no, it was Lodi, New Jersey but that it was only twenty minutes from the City.

Now, before I continue, I must explain a few things:

1) Everyone in ‘Jersey thinks that everything in ‘Jersey is twenty minutes from the city. This might be true but it also assumes that everyone in NYC lives just outside the Lincoln or Holland Tunnels and owns a car.

2) I have all of two friends from Brooklyn who own one car. They are a couple. This effectively indicates that I only ever have one friend, of all the people I know in BK, who is driving her or his own insurable mode of transportation at any given time. The rest of us are lucky if we own bikes. Bikes are not insured. And, come to think of it, that couple moved out onto Long Island last month. So I essentially have no friends in Brooklyn with a car, only friends from Brooklyn.

So I neither live near the tunnel nor own a car which means that twenty minutes from the city automatically turns into a half hour on the train from Penn Station.

I ask her if they have a train station nearby. She tells me, “No, but there is a bus stop right around the corner at a 7-11.” She will send me public transit directions.

Now, before I continue, I must explain a few things:

1) New Yorkers distrust busses. They don’t go on tracks and they remain above-ground in the city. They can take wrong turns, break down, blow a tire. Also, bus stops aren’t labeled nearly as well as train stations.

2) There are a lot of 7-11’s in ‘Jersey.

She sends me directions and, as it is almost 5 PM, I feel committed at this point to take the interview.

I leave my glorious BK apartment/castle at 11:00 on Friday, giving myself two hours to get to Lodi, if this place does exist. I walk fifteen minutes to the G Train. Wait forever. Connect to the 7 Train. Wait a little less. Take the 7 to the eastern end of the Port Authority. Walk to the western end of Port Authority and buy a bus ticket. Walk back to the eastern end of the Port Authority. I wait a really long time for the bus. Board the bus and follow a map I have brought along to the 7-11 in Lodi. Being a bus and not a train, bus stops are not labeled and there are a lot of 7-11’s in NJ, I can’t stress this enough. I pay particular attention to the streets and I do make it to Lodi with time to spare. I hang out in my suit and tie in front of a Pathmark, wishing I at least smoked so that I wouldn’t look like a ne’re-do-well. Finally, it is time to cross the lot and go to my interview.

I enter the building which appears a little run-down. I assume that the rent is good. Up a flight of stairs, I find a long hallway with lots of sports logos. (They are supposedly a sports-marketing company of some kind. This should have set off an alarm as no sports marketing company should be that close to NYC but not in NYC.) There are also a lot of jackets hung on hooks, grade-school style. No one is in the office but a big fun plasma TV is blaring some cable sports network. I want to watch politics. I call the woman from the day before. She comes running from some dimly lit hallway, past the main office and plasma TV, and meets me. She seats me by the TV. She asks me to fill out paperwork but it does not include tax info. The whole time she is impersonal yet aggressive. I can’t remember ever making eye-contact but I felt obliged to fill out the paperwork or loose my opportunity to interview, similar to how I felt obliged to take a walk, a train, a train, a bus and a walk to get here.

I oblige, and fill out the paperwork.

At this point, I remember the time I walked into the Scientologist headquarters on 82nd St to check them out. I consider using a false name as I did when I visited the Scientologists. By the time I have completed the document, another person has shown up. He begins filling out paperwork as well. I hand in my paperwork and am told someone will be with me shortly. Again, no eye-contact.

At about 1:40, I am greeted by a Napoleonic version of a frat-boy in a tie. He is affable enough but also strangely aggressive. He is about ten years younger than I am. He is meeting with me because the owner of the company, whom I was supposed to meet, had to be off in Dallas. He states this as if Dallas is somewhere exotic. As far as I know, there is no city named Dallas in Asia, so I assume the owner is in that wonderful state, Texas, which I would so love to give back to Mexico.

The kid brings me into his office and we begin the interview. He asks what I have done in the past and I launch into my usual spiel about recently managing at Pfizer and all the great things I have done before that. Within two minutes, he asks what I want to do. Having never received a job description from World Access Marketing, I have no real way of tailoring my answer to his question. I figure they are a marketing company, so I start talking about Photoshop and graphics design. He points to some amateurish color printouts of what appear to be coupons and tells me that they do some graphics design. Great, now I’m getting somewhere. I also know that I will not be taking a job where I wear a tie and need a bus out to Lodi each morning. Knowing that I will not be taking a job where I wear a tie and need a bus out to Lodi each morning, I suggest he look at my website. He loves it. The animations put him into a trance.

Now, chances are very good that you are on my website at this moment. I like my website. It’s artsy. It displays the fun I have with photography, video and animation. I also love the way the baby-head logo sticks in people’s minds. But it is not a professional website in terms of content or execution.

This guy eats it up.

He turns from the site and asks me, “No, but what do you want to do?”

Now, I hate this question. I want to get a job that ends at 5 and pays for my art, my reading, my drinking and my rent, pretty much in that order. I of course can’t state that on an interview. I generally stumble past this question with grand plans about how I like to be a part of Continuing Medical Education and ensure that patients receive proper treatment. I can’t use this either because sick and dieing patients don’t need sports marketing.

I fall flat on my face.

He tells me that I am awarded a second interview.

I will be in business for myself (hence, the lack of tax paperwork) and everyone starts by making phone calls for the first six months.

Those of you who know me, and chances are you know me if you have read this far (after all, I can’t see someone who doesn’t know me reading this far, and I thank you for being my friend and reading this far) know that I hate telephones. They are impersonal and inhuman. I have broken up with women because I could not spend more than ten minutes on the phone. I have never had phone sex. If it were up to me, I would turn all phones into calculators or planters or shoe trees if I could figure out a way to do it.

The guy writes “110” on my resume and tells me that I will receive a call that night around 6:30. I’m not sure what 110 means.

So let me get this straight, I will wake up each morning, don a suit and tie, take a walk, a train, another train, a bus and another walk in order to make phone calls for six months and apparently stay until at least 6:30 on Fridays.

I tell him that I will be at the Knicks game at 6:30. He says he will leave a message and we start talking about the Knicks. I know about as much about the Knicks as I do this new job but somehow, I make it through the conversation. I give him a copy of my real resume, figuring he can show it to the guy in Dallas. He doesn’t seem to care and lets me go. I say he lets me go because he doesn’t walk me to the door. He doesn’t say goodbye. He just kind of says we are done, I will have a second interview and he calls the next person into his office.

The whole interview took less than seventeen minutes. That includes the paperwork. At 1:47, I found myself in the parking lot, walking to the bus. In the end, I never received that call during the Knicks game. It was an entertaining Friday until I went to the Garden and watched the Knicks loose a no-contest to Detroit. I also had an entertaining Saturday when I finally had a chance to research World Access Marketing and had my suspicions confirmed that they were in fact, a scam.