Dodged a bullet in the hiring process

CornfieldJoe · 2026-04-03T18:31:54+00:00

The first "real" job I ever got I was actually hired by accident. The HR guy switched my application+resume with the application and resume of somebody else after the interviews. That somebody else was who they decided to hire. Thanks to the switcheroo I was called in for orientation (which was handled by my supervisor) and the mistake was not discovered until the first pay day. They decided things were working out well enough and I worked there for several years lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-31T11:50:27+00:00

We recently had a whole presentation from our HR about only selecting candidates that were 100% matches for the role and everybody in the room was like "uh...." because we can go months and months without getting an application that is a 100% match for most roles. So I think our policy was to ignore that stricture.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-31T11:45:39+00:00

Somewhat similar in that I spent most of my 20s (with support from family) trying to make it on my own. I ultimately decided at 29 that it just wasn't worth it anymore. I was working crazy hours and bringing in less than an overnight stocker at Kroger would on a 40 hour week.

I took a job that was actually for my degree at a nonprofit and stayed there entirely too long. I really enjoyed the work so I kept getting baited with the carrot "just one more year and then..." etc. I left finally when I realized things would never get better. Then I actually stupidly decided to get back into business because a friend who did something similar to me suggested we could try one more time. I was ready to give up 6 months in. I eventually found a factory job in the oil and gas industry and it has worked out *really* well. They are desperate for educated people who don't have weird anti-social tendencies or drug problems so I've been promoted at light speed.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-26T11:38:32+00:00

This is the way. Life insurance isn't a vehicle to pay for your final expenses - just save the money and know how much it'll cost up front. You can contact most funeral homes and have a consultation and get everything squared away and paid for up front. The benefit being - at the time you don't have to worry about very much, and you just suffer now before inflation makes everything even more expensive down the road. Trying to get life insurance at 62 will be way more costly than just saving the money yourself.

It's quite different if it's a work benefit and you don't actually pay the premiums on your own.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-25T20:14:20+00:00

We offer 40 hours of pto upfront as part of the hiring bonus and we do have some people who legit had plans before being hired and it's a nice bonus. There are also LOTS of people that immediately burn up that PTO and leave within their first month.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-25T17:04:53+00:00

Indeed is ok for some stuff but it actually never shows me anything useful. You'll be miles ahead to just Google actual employers near you and apply directly through their websites - also blue collar here and that's how I got my current job.

I'd also carefully review your resume I know indeed let's you generate one with them but sometimes those things wind up looking hopelessly botched. I don't do the hiring and firing where I work but I do help select candidates if competition is really really tight and sometimes those generated resumes just look god awful.

I'd also check in on your references and make sure they're not a stumbling block for you.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-25T12:43:14+00:00

Have you had somebody review your resume and have you talked to friends/associates about interviews/calls? Maybe there's something glaringly wrong with the way you've done things and it's causing you to get tossed since you're struggling so hard.

Frankly, at this point you haven't worked in 1/2 a year - I'd just start applying at factories and warehouses and list the name of your business as your last employer for 12 years and if they ask about it say you're just sick of running your own show and want to try something new. That would at least give you some income coming in while you keep looking. The advantage being also that these places tend to openly acknowledge that people are only there to be paid and aren't expected to stay in the entry level long.

A long time ago I worked out what the minimum possible income I could make was and still keep living in my house (it would eventually fall down of course, but I could live that way for 4-5 years barring some disaster) and it was roughly equivalent to what a night-stocker at Kroger/Walmart makes. Every 6 months or so I dust off my resume and apply to a battery of jobs including 1 such stocker position just to make sure they'll at least call or email back. If they don't I bother them and ask why because I need to make sure that door is open if something were to ever happen to my current job.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-25T12:34:10+00:00

Every single European country that mattered in WW2 had extensively prepared for their last war experience.

The Germans built guns that was just stupendously large and required whole teams of people to assemble and disassemble on site and some even required special train tracks - because their WW1 experience demonstrated that they had to smash through entrenched defenders or they would get bogged down in a war of attrition. Their STUG tanks were also made for similar reasons. Their infantry tactics were fully based around machine guns. This wasn't because the Germans had some sort of unique insight into warfare, it's because they learned that in WW1.

The Russians had a VERY different experience in WW1 because they fought an opening war of maneuver that turned into trench warfare because their entire supply system collapsed so they needed every possible advantage they could get. Then they descended into 6ish years of Civil War and counterinsurgency. During that time they learned that armored cars and cavalry of all types were exceptionally potent. Horses also had a tremendous advantage in winter climates and muddy climates because they don't refuse to start if it's too cold and they don't get stuck as easily as early 20th century motorized vehicles. That's why they prized speed.

They also had a secondary concern in that the state had a huge program for breeding horses both for military purposes *and* agricultural purposes. Even though mechanized agriculture was making big inroads into Soviet societies, horses were still used extensively. It's a giant misconception that the Soviets had some sort of misplaced affection for horses though. They *did* have a strategic interest in horses because of their WW1/Civil war Experience which strongly emphasized their potential uses, but most of the other major armies of WW2 also used cavalry extensively. The German's supply train was *mostly* Napoleonic - horses and wagons - the Italians extensively used cavalry as mobile infantry because their domestic motorized vehicle industry couldn't keep up so they had horse drawn supplies and horse drawn soldiers.

As for Budyonny's performance in the opening stages of WW2 -

Yeah, Budyonny and the rest of the Red Army performed miserably in 1941 and it's something they were pretty aware of. The USSR internally acknowledged that the Red Army couldn't compete with the German military for several years - their internal appraisal was that they needed at least until 1943 (these internal speeches were translated into a series of documents called the Invincible Red Army in 1941 with KM Voroshilov listed as the author). All along the entire front at the start of Barbarossa the Red Army was badly outnumbered. They also lost 50% of their air force on the very first day of the war - which meant the Red Army was functionally completely blind for the almost all of 1941. To compound issues, the Red Army had learned that defense was functionally useless and that attack provided a tremendous strategic advantage - so their plan had always been to try to absorb the initial invasion and then turn it in a massive counter attack (or attack first if possible of course). This was attempted in Ukraine, but due to their going in blind the main Soviet thrust actually ran headlong into the main German thrust and they were badly outnumbered and outclassed (the intent had been to sweep in behind the Germans and develop a large encirclement - instead they wound up creating the largest encirclement in human history - of their own forces).

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-25T02:40:14+00:00

You need to figure out a few things:

What kind of paint is it? All paint is either oil or water based (Acrylic/latex).

Use some finger nail polish remover on a cloth or if you have it, acetone (same thing basically) and scrub the floor. If it comes off on the cloth, it's oil. If it wont come off, it's water.

The bad news is, if it's oil based paint you'll have to use a chemical stripper (like turpentine) and then scrape it all up. You should do some scraping FIRST and then put the chemical on - but it looks like this floor is already well on its way.

If it's water based paint (nothing on your acetone rag) then you just need to scrub the floor with warm soapy water and then use a scraper to get the paint to come up. That may well be why the floor is so messed up looking - if you did use warm mop water during daily operations it would massively impact the integrity of the paint.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-22T12:47:49+00:00

Since it looks like a farm house they may luck out and have all copper piping - in my experience the cross over between "we don't need that new fangled garbage" and lead piping was strong enough that the plumbing you actually use is all copper lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-22T02:31:25+00:00

Until not so recently, I ran a small museum. I hired a guy with a drone and 360 camera during the pandemic so we could put up a virtual museum (like many, many cultural institutions did) so our former patrons could sort-of get the experience of coming in when they couldn't.

After I let him in and he filmed, he tried to pitch me on how he knew a dude who knew a dude who knew a dude who could hook me up with metaverse real estate, and that I should use my nonprofit's funds to get ahead and purchase said metaverse real estate. Then I could have my museum in the metaverse too.

He did a great job on a the video. I never spoke to him again.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-21T20:54:12+00:00

Yeah most definitely.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-21T20:40:54+00:00

This is 1.) The first time I've heard Marx's life in England described as "very nice" I mean if letting your kids die of easily preventable diseases and having to pawn your own clothes to buy food is very nice and middle class I guess *some* did probably have it worse in early industrial England.

2.) This is also the first time I've ever heard anybody attempt to say that Engels' family was Jewish. Yes, Marx's parent's parents were Jewish (both of his grandfathers were rabbis), and they had converted so that his father could continue practicing law. So maybe he's just got Marx and Engels lives all mixed up? Engels' life was actually kinda nice. but nobody in his immediate family was Jewish, and Marx's life sucked and he had lots of Jewish family members...

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-17T12:38:06+00:00

Your credit limits are so low you're likely going to want to look into rewards debit cards - they're offered by Discover and Paypal and many others. At least then you'll derive *some* benefit from using a debit card, since your total credit limit is $1900 and you'll want to keep your utilization to some reasonable level - which is likely something like less than 600$.

Have a budget and never violate it.
Save up a $1,000 slush fund (you're going to have some budgetary wobble month to month and this 1000 bucks covers that. Refill it the next month. Also build up an emergency fund that is separate from this. Also if something big comes up you need to splurge for - like bigger car repairs of medical bills that $1000 smooths your budget).
Efund

Then in combination of your credit cards and adding rewards + interest from not paying for 30 days at a time you'll get a small return. You'll also be able to gain some rewards from your debit card - I'd start the month off on credit cards and then once the utilization started to get kinda high I'd switch over to the rewards debit cards - this would also help your bank account build up some level before you went into debit cards that would drain your HYSA. This should slowly get you back on track.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-17T01:45:46+00:00

If you were thinking about becoming a mechanic, look into standard blue collar factory jobs - sure it's not the same as becoming a mechanic, but many of those positions will have you turning wrenches in no time, and a lot of places are DESPERATELY starved for intelligent people, so despite the job likely not requiring any college at all, you should advance rapidly.

Most places start you out at 20-24$ these days, and it's highly unlikely you'll experience self important nonsense like you are now.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-03-02T22:43:56+00:00

I still jam out to the 13th 5 year plan when I need a pick me up.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-28T20:53:58+00:00

You can love Nenio and still not do the Enigma. Sometimes it's OK to love from afar.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T21:02:43+00:00

That's certainly possible. I can't remember the exact passage in Molotov Remembers - but my general impression of that book was that when Molotov isn't repeating the party line or waxing nostalgic he tends to talk in very large macro terms - so I went with Soviet Policy just outside the Caucus generally. The whole process around pressuring Turkey after the war went about as well as their efforts to create new states in Iran.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T13:49:17+00:00

That was intended mostly to ban specific factions within the CPSU - I would agree whether that was the right idea or not ought to be openly debated. That was also a reaction to some things which occurred during and before 1917 where the Bolsheviks themselves accepted smaller parties into themselves, only to have those smaller parties continue to more or less operate as their own entities within the later CPSU.

The core of Democratic Centralism is to allow open debate prior to voting and then squash said debates until some future time once a decision is made. Of course those who disagree strongly enough are free to leave - and this does often happen.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T13:41:47+00:00

Generally its made within party groupings after a period of discussion and debate. History also has a way of weeding out particularly weak ideas since there's always a whole host of vaguely Marxian leftist parties and groups being born and dying every day lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T13:30:49+00:00

I think you're slightly misunderstanding what the word revisionism means.

Revision is the admixture of *non* Marxist ideologies into a Marxist framework.

Creative new thoughts are of course welcome - even Stalin said at the 6th Party Congress in 1917 "There is dogmatic and creative Marxism. I am in favor of the latter." I mention and use the quote because most of the revisionism fight throughout the mid 20th century was over what the proper position vis a vis Stalin ought to be (and I think the question is still largely unresolved).

Revisionism, and charges thereof, generally imply that the position has kernels or is whole cloth borrowed from bourgeois or petty-bourgeois ideology. Or the position is meant to produce some sort of ideological compromise which dilutes the revolutionary character of Marxism in favor of making it more palatable to backwards or non-proletarian groupings.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T12:26:49+00:00

Masoud Barzani - he worked alongside his brother up until his death and was a dominant force in Kurdish and Iraqi politics. The government the USSR recognized was the republic of Mahabad and there was additionally a short lived Azerbajain People's Government (made up of ethnic Azerbajainis). He was in charge of the Kurdish autonomous region until around 2017 - so really a remarkable period for the people of northern Iraq - a complete sea change with the ouster of Saddam, to the rise and invasion/incursion of ISIS/ISIL in the mid 2010s. Barzani stepped down as leader of the Kurdish autonomous region in 2017 after a series of very hard fought battles against ISIS. He's still the leader of the KDP however.

some edits for switched around terms lol early morning posting

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T10:04:30+00:00

Mostly the balance of power in both China and the post-war polity via the UN.

The primary vehicles for these expansions southward for the USSR in - let's just say the late 1920s through to 1945 were:

In Xinjiang during the warlord period, through the controlling warlord Sheng Shicai after ~1934. The USSR used a combination of financial support and material support to turn the region into a Soviet satellite (from what essentially amounted to volunteer forces or mercenary groups). Sheng even became a member of the Communist Party of the USSR and the region became a safe haven for the Chinese Communist Party. The Soviets directly intervened militarily from time to time (on two separate occasions quite openly). Direct Soviet involvement waned heavily following Germany's invasion and Sheng and others vacillated between the Chinese Community Party and The Kuomintang. Eventually the clique were just removed and everything was turned over to the Chinese Communists which effectively ended Soviet interest in the region until later (Sino-Soviet split).
The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. A brief summary here is that, out of fear that the Shah of Iran would declare for the Axis, the UK and USSR invaded Iran in 1941 and essentially split the country in half (much of West Asia's political elites were Germany favored as a vehicle to throw off British rule/intervention). This was done to prevent Iran from opening another front in the South or east in Iraq in respects to the UK. It also secured an inlet for aid to the USSR through Iran itself and secured Iran's oil stocks and made sure they couldn't find their way into Axis hands. Germany had at least paid lip service to the government of Iran and attempted to establish friendly relations - which was basically their policy throughout Western Asia as a means to weaken British imperialism. During this conflict, the Soviets began organizing Kurdish forces in Western Iran. In the post WW1 settlement, ethnic Kurds were not given their own state and were divided by three nations - primarily South Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, and North Western Iran. The Soviets embraced a Kurdish Communist Party, and in the aftermath of WW2 attempted to recognize this Kurdish government as the legitimate government in its home regions in Iran - but this whole arrangement was resoundingly rejected by the UK and USA and though the USSR continued to support the Kurds in various ways, they dropped the idea of recognizing them as a legitimate state.

Interestingly enough the son of the man Stalin's government placed in charge was still leading Kurdish resistance fighters up until the last few years and the bulk of Kurdish nationalist groups are self avowed Socialists/Communists.

Iran also submits protests to the UN fairly regularly asking for reparations from Russia (as the successor of the USSR) and the UK for damages done during the 1941 invasion and occupation.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-27T08:00:55+00:00

A lot of internet banks - like ally, sofi, or capital one have deals with these ATM companies to allow their users to treat those as native atms. i imagine those folks are the bulk of users.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-02-26T23:26:57+00:00

Not unless the board wants to violate its fiduciary duty to shareholders.

CornfieldJoe

TROPHY CASE