Company Wants To Hire 100 Workers by New Years

What company wants to hire 100 people just in Delaware County, Pennsylvania before the New Year?

Are you unemployed or underemployed? Are you past the 'prime' hiring ages and do you feel like human resources is circular filing your resume based on your age? Do you need some extra cash to help pay those holiday bills or the cost of your child's orthodontia?

Have you faced the long lines of the unemployed at every job fair or waited in line to be interviewed only to be told 'we'll call.' And you never hear from them. No 'would you come in for a second interview?' or 'sorry we chose another candidate.' Nothing. The great wall of silence from human resources around the country.

One company is aggressively hiring people and offering health benefits. Who is it? Avon. OK, before you groan and say 'I'd never...' or 'I couldn't...' stop and think, Avon is a reputable company who has been aggressively growing over the last century. They offer products that people use up and need to replace as well as impulse buys, sounding easier isn't it? They offer training for their employees and have supervisors whose only job is to make YOU successful. And I have to admit, selling Avon is, dare I say it, FUN!

So if you are searching for a job that pays you for the work you put in, doesn't require a large purchase of a kit or specialized training courses, but will make you as successful as you want to be, maybe it's time to give Avon a call. Come to one of their meetings for potential reps and see if it's the job for you. And men, don't let their previous rep as a woman's cosmetic company make you think you can't sell Avon. Many men are highly successful Avon representatives in our area. So give it try! Come out and talk to us. Email me at nancycels@aol.com and I'll hook you up with the local Avon districts.

So You Want To Be In Pictures?

Looking for a job when you're over 50 is not an easy task! So many ads say 'looking for youthful assistant' or 'must be peppy and energetic'...come on, these are catch phrases to screen out my less than youthful and older self.  Will I be reduced to applying for jobs that are at best bizarre or working for a boss who is such a tyrant no one else will work for him unless they are desperate? So as I was searching a variety of web sites for a new job and lamenting the lack of employment opportunities that fit my qualifications, I came across this ad:

Have you undergone extreme body modification to dramatically alter your appearance?
• Do you want to look like an elf, a mythical creature or a science fiction character?
• Do you have pointed ears? Forehead ridges? Eyeball tattoos?
• Are you more comfortable looking like a non-human?

A non-fiction program is currently casting individuals who've created alternate worlds/identities for themselves. We are interested in featuring people who are going to extremes to change their appearance, including looking more like science fiction or mythical characters.

This series will allow individuals that engage in body modification to educate viewers on their motivation and dedication to this form of self-expression. We'd like to know the challenges and rewards of looking different, and how this transformation has changed your life. We also hope the program will become a non-exploitive outlet to showcase lifestyles and sub cultures that people would otherwise never know about.

OK, I've seen the women who are addicted to plastic surgery, the teens who think they need surgery at 13, but people who WANT TO GET SURGERY TO LOOK LIKE AN ELF? Please say it isn't so!  And the idea that they're going to do a television show about people who have created alternate world identities? I thought Jersey Shore was over the top!

Photo courtesy of Instructables

OK, maybe I'm just getting old.  Maybe this is an 'in' thing with the younger set.  (shuddering!) But somehow, the idea of getting surgery so I look like an elf, E.T. or Mr. Spock... not my cup of tea.  So while I have to send in the names of places I've applied for work in order to collect my unemployment, this one won't be on the list.  A woman (even one over 50 and desperate for work) has to have SOME standards! 

How desperate are people getting in this economy where the available jobs have hundreds, if not thousands of applicants for each opportunity?  How low would you go? Would you get plastic surgery to look like an ELF just to score a job on a television show?  Oh you might get...famous, no infamous maybe, maybe you'd get your 15 minutes of fame...but....please no! So while Congress is debating cutting unemployment, stop and think...is this what a lot of Americans have been reduced to? ELFDOM?


(BTW, this ad appeared on Craigslist, I have no idea how credible the poster is, so if you apply and get hacked up by an ax murderer, ...well you can't say you weren't warned it was a bizarre post! I take no responsibility for anyone who chooses to take part in it! You are on your own!)

Becoming Your Dream

Most kids go through long lists of what they want to be when they grow up.  Sometimes their dreams are based on their parents and what they do, sometimes on wanting to change the world--but me, well, I wanted to be a Lion. 

Yes, I freely admit it, I was not too tightly wrapped!  You see I loved the way lions were always heard--their roar is unmistakable.  And I loved the idea of being king (well queen, but my ideas about gender specific royalty hadn't gelled yet so I wanted to be king) of the jungle.  And that great mane--almost the equivalent of having Farrah Fawcett hair but without dealing with the haircut and blow dry (I have to admit, today I still wish for great hair.)

My brothers and sisters told me 'You can't be a lion' which of course only made me want to be a lion more.  I was sure I would have the very BEST JOB! No boring fireman or doctor dreams for me!  I wanted to be powerful, brave and someone people listened to.  I was surprised when my siblings laughed (in fact they didn't just laugh, they roared with laughter) But I remained firm--LION--that was my career path. 

My sister told my mom to tell me I couldn't be a lion when I grew up--my sister was VERY REALITY based. Fortunately my mother told me I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up. I felt I had triumphed! MOM WAS NEVER WRONG! (at least when I was five, when I got to be a teenager it was another story). 

But as I got older I decided maybe being a lion wasn't the best thing to be, maybe a wizard (remember this was pre-Harry Potter days, NO ONE wanted to be a wizard) or a dragon...or a unicorn.  I always had magical powers no matter what my career choice as a child.  As I reached middle school it was no longer cool to not be part of the crowd, so I spent some of those years with my nose buried in books.  I wasn't one of those kids who listened to all the same music my friends did (you're talking about a woman who didn't discover The Beatles until her thirties!), or who watched all the 'in' television shows.  I still insisted on being what my guidance counselor called 'different.' 

As I was looking for colleges to go to one of my siblings jokingly said "I guess by now you've decided not to be a lion"--still with laughter in their voice.  And while I realized I was never going to find a college with a major in being a lion, (I wasn't that divorced from reality) I decided I WAS going to be a lion in life. I was going to take the best qualities lions have and apply them to my life. I WAS going to be brave and take pride in myself. No one was going to need to tell me how good I was, I just WAS going to be the tops--I was going to be the best. And I wasn't going to live my life based on what other people thought, I was going to live my life the way I wanted to. 

I'm not five anymore, but I still dream, everyday, that I can be a lion in life. Friends got older and went off to more prosaic jobs--teachers, salesmen, mechanics, secretaries. And since I'm not five anymore I didn't grow up to be a wizard or unicorn or lion, but I still dream that I can BECOME a lion. I can be brave, treasure my dreams and try to live them. I can have strength and take pride in myself and who I am. And I try (in this peer pressure world) not to care what others think as long as I take pride in my work.

So in a way, I have become a lion. Just without the great hair! And everyday I thank my mom for telling me "You can be whatever you want to be," a very valuable life lesson for anyone--Thank you mom.