happydalek | Things of interest

1. Spiderman is real! At least, he is to an autistic Thai boy who crawled out on a ledge because he was scared of starting school.

2. Saturday morning Watchmen! Behold:

Isn't it fecking brilliant? Makes me nostalgic for those bygone days of Hannah-Barbara animation domination!

3. A federal tax return of $291! Cha-ching!

In other news, I filled out an application for Americorps, and it took all friggin' afternoon. Let's just say their application is pretty much the Big Bad of all applications, ever:

Remember those dreaded "personal experience" essays you had to write to get into college? The one where you had to pick some event in your life and try to make it sound pivotal and relevant for 500-1000 words? Yeah, Americorps wants one of those.

Ever do any volunteer work? Americorps wants the address, phone number, hours and dates, please.

Americorps also won't let you submit your application unless you include at least two references. Have some that you've recently talked to and gotten their permission to use? Doesn't count unless they also respond to an Americorps email, specifically agreeing to being an Americorps reference.

The employment history section was of particular win. Americorps wants, for every job you put in your work history, both a phone number AND an email address for your boss. YOU MUST HAVE BOTH OR YOU CAN'T COMPLETE THE SECTION. Apparently, Americorps doesn't believe it is possible to have had a boss in the past ten years who does not have an email address.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you (well, I am, but not really)--I appreciate the fact that Americorps vets their applicants in so much detail. And on some level I feel strangely vindicated. I've filled out a lot of job applications in the past couple of months, and the lack of consistency between them has been a source of frustration. Just when I thought I'd assembled all the information any application could possibly want, there'd be one asking for something even more pickayune, like the address of my first-grade teacher, or the date and time of my last dental filling (not really, but you get the idea). That's why I always bring the forms home to fill out, where I can conduct all the necessary research.

Americorps has officially topped my expectations of what a truly thorough, Vogon-worthy job application would look like. The most disturbing part of it is that, for as much as it frustrated me to complete it, if I were designing a job application for my own business, this is exactly the level of detail I'd demand, too. Eek.