Tag: contact

Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse

Random Thoughts

Atlanta Zombie ApocalypseIn recent years I’ve been reluctant to go to haunted houses because, frankly, most of them suck. The majority of them have “no contact” policies, and they constantly remind you that you will not be touched. So you wander through a bunch of scenes inspired by horror films and every once in a while someone will jump out and try to scare you, predictably at certain corners. I’ve enjoyed the Netherworld Haunted House before for its design and artistry, but since it is so popular the trip through is usually like driving in rush hour traffic. Lots of stop and go movement, and sadly you get lots of people pulling out cell phones to text or use as a flashlight.

This year, however, I went to the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse.  It was great.

The first thing I liked about this place is that they broke the line up into groups of around eight to twelve people.  We waited in lanes for our group’s turn to go.  Once it was your group’s turn, you got pulled ahead and the situation was explained.  The military has been fighting the undead for days and are losing.  Survivors are being rounded up and escorted to a safe zone.  Your group will have two escorts, one in front and one bringing up the rear.  They don’t have enough guns to give you any, but they promise to protect you.  You get a quick run down of safety procedures and then you are off.

The path takes you through a couple buildings and an outdoor expanse (where you have to jog/run to keep up as it is dangerous out there) and back through a couple more buildings.  The design of this haunted house, with the military escorts, actually solves one my major issues with haunted houses: no contact.  Yes, the zombies still don’t touch you, but here it is plausibly explained by your military escorts and other random people shooting the zombies.  They still jump out at you, and they can still get a rise out of you, but then they are put down before they can actually get you.

In my opinion, the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse is worth the price of admission ($20).  Well, the haunted house part anyway… the zombie shoot where you get to shoot paint balls at zombies was kinda lame.  $10 for 20 paint balls to shoot at guys wearing protective head gear, eh… lame.  But go for the haunted house.  Since this in their first year, if they return, I can only see it getting better.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Random Thoughts

I believe in the past I have made it pretty clear that I do not really like most recruiters. And my opinions really have not changed.

Recently, though, one organization could not be bothered to employ the simplest of tools. See, within the course of three weeks I received fourteen phone calls from eight different recruiters out of the same company. Each and every call began the same, “Hi Jason, I’m [insert name here] with [company name] and I found your resume on Monster.com and I think I have a job that you might be a perfect fit for…”

My problems with that are many.

I have been working with this company for over eight months. They have my resume on file, or at least they claimed it would be kept on file. My name has not changed, nor have my phone number or email address. They should have a record of me in their contact database, which should be searchable, and the conversation should have started, “Hi Jason, this is [insert name here] with [company name] and I have this opportunity come available and when I searched our resume database I came up with your and wanted to see if you are still in the market…” Even if it isn’t true, even if they actually did find my resume on Monster because they don’t keep resumes on file, they should maintain consistency.

If the “Most recent contact” is within the last few days, they should say, “I know you recently talked to [insert coworker here] but I came across another opportunity that might be a good match for you…” If they themselves have talked to me before, they should say something like, “Hey, how have you been? Its been [insert time span here] since we last talked…” Maybe even say, “I’m sorry that last interview we sent you on at [insert client here] did not work out, but I think I’ve got something you’d be great for…”

All of this could be solved by using one of the many products available for contact management, like ACT! or Goldmine, Lotus Organizer. I think even Outlook overs Business contact management that will sync with other Outlook clients… or just put it all on an Exchange Server in a shared contact list. Given the job, I could probably even write them a simple contact manager in less than a week.

Either they don’t have a contact managing software, or they have too many recruiters who don’t use it. Which ever it is, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. Eight months and one interview. The results weren’t worth putting up with the annoyance.