Today was my first job interview in about five years. I had applied for a job across town that sounded promising; according to their description, they were just some people that needed help with webby stuff in addition to a bit of clerical stuff. Webby stuff! Hey, that’s me!

But the first email reply I received from the company made me nervous. The last line read, “We have a good working environment and uphold Christian values.” Hmmm. This marked the first time an employer ever mentioned that sort of thing from the get-go.

I told Bruce it seemed weird and I didn’t like the sound of it, but he told me as usual I was just being negative and I should just go to the damn interview at least.* Whatever. So I went.

I got all dressed up for the first time in, like, forever, and arrived to speak with a very nice woman who was trying to find her replacement because she was moving. The place was in a warehouse. The office itself was very, very small and a weird shade of green, with papers and filing boxes everywhere, and pictures of people on the walls wearing large crosses. I sat down and we started talking, but I couldn’t help noticing immediately to my right this giant whiteboard, on which was scrawled in huge letters: “Praise the LORD JESUS CHRIST!!!” In smaller letters in one corner read something about goals for Jesus. A giant TV almost directly overhead was off, but I was told its purpose was for playing Christian channels. Same with all the radios around…for playing Christian stations. The items that I would be helping mail out, which were not all religious in nature, had to be stuffed with religious tracts before sending off. And! Would I mind that they took regular “prayer breaks”?

And I am thinking, this isn’t a job, it’s a church.

I think it’s very kind that the born-again bossman gave this woman a job when she really needed one and they seem like likable people, but honestly I don’t think I’d last very long in a setup like this. The two other red flags: after actually speaking with them it sounded like the creative webby stuff vs. clerical stuff was a lot more on the balance of the latter (spreadsheet hell) and in about a month they’re moving the job to Santa Barbara county, which is a drive I’d like to avoid if I can help it. To their credit they did seem willing to be flexible with me in terms of my schedule, which is nice, since I obviously have some constraints with my whole childcare situation. (In case you missed that, here it is: twins in full-time daycare = a whole paycheck eaten up to pay for it. So a full-time job that would necessitate full-time daycare is not really an option. Not unless we’re talking real living wages, which nobody actually pays around here).

The good news is I did get them interested in my design skills, so maybe if I am lucky I can score a little cash doing logo design from my heathen home base as a freelancer.

* I’ve now heard that line for fifteen years…our anniversary was yesterday!

** Progress on the community garden

Links

Last.FM Mainstream-O-Meter - I came up 26% mainstream (the husband just signed up–say hi!)
TuneGlue Musicmap - one of those cool web 2-oh things
This Is How We Catch You Downloading
Bad Teddy - I love this shirt
Overcome your fear of frogs!
Things found in books
Apparently “freedom of religion” only applies to Christians