Possumblog

Somebody took away your voice mail, didn't they?

No, something even more worser. I've been applying for a different interdepartmental position, and despite the fact that the Personnel Board's (an independent org the city is required to use) online application software said it was perfectly acceptable to simply copy the information from the required certificate that said I am an architect and paste it into the pop-up box, I found out today that it is NOT.

I wouldn't have known except I checked the status and it said the application was incomplete. After attempting to fix this over the phone and becoming increasingly frantic when it appeared that no one knew why it had been flagged as incomplete, I hiked over to find out in person, which is when I talked to a completely different person who told me that they needed an actual, in the flesh, paper certificate with the pretty multicolored seal and stuff on it.

Now, the problem with cutting and pasting the text is that it seems anyone could just make that stuff up. Well, DUH. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that I could have done the exact same thing with the certificate I gave them. I'm on the state's architect roster, and if you go online they'll fix you up a downloadable form. It's not secure, though, and were I up to no good, it would be a simple matter to alter it after I'd saved it on my computer so that it said ANYone's name. Obviously, if they checked online it would be easy to catch, but just the fact that I had to give the personnel board a paper copy of the certificate shouldn't give anyone any sense of security about the documentation.

ANYWAY, after finding out what I needed, I ran back to the office, printed out the certificate, then ran BACK over to the personnel board and gave it to the secretary, who must have sensed my growning consternation and said she'd go ahead and scan the certificate in and tell the boss lady that I'd brought it in, and then at some indeterminate time they'd update the application status.

Finally got a call from the boss lady that it was indeed all she needed, that it had been attached to the application, and when I got the letter in the mail saying I had an incomplete application that I should disregard it since I had now fixed what was lacking.

Oh, and to please send an email of this whole thing to HER boss, with a copy to her, so they'd have a copy of what all was done.

Again, it was not fun, and it made me have sharp stabby pains all over my head.