M.F. McAuliffe, 9/7/2009

Current Occupation: fighting malnutrition

Former Occupations: finding the creamy goodness in every passing day

Contact Information: M.F. McAuliffe is co-founder and contributing editor as the award-winning, multilingual magazine Gobshite Quarterly. She made her US debut in Damon Knight’s Clarion Awards, and in the following 25 years published fiction and verse in many venues in the US and Australia. Her collections include Fighting Monsters and a series of mini-chapbooks. The following piece is an excerpt from her novel Swimming With Heraclitus.

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The Private Sektor

(November 1989–August 1993)

Your resume is you!

It is a dynamic, supercharged portrait of your potential!

In less than 20 seconds it must show why you, the kickass candidate, have to be interviewed and hired today!!

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START WITH THE LATEST!

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Name the three greatest accomplishments of your last position.

Use a separate page for each accomplishment. Use the same format for each accomplishment. Empower each accomplishment with the title it deserves!

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ACCOMPLISHMENT #1

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Problem: Being passed over for Year-2 training despite my competence and seniority/being forced to wait another six months for desperately-needed pay-raise.

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Response: At a confidential discussion I told my supervisor that I knew X had begun Year-2 training out of order of seniority. My supervisor replied that this had been planned for about 8 months. I replied that she had described seniority as the training order, during my annual review, only three months before this discussion.

• i) My supervisor apologized for not having told me that this was going to happen.

• ii) I stood up, not knowing whether I was going to leave the room or the job. I said I supposed I would forgive her some day.

• iii) She told me she would make it up to me. She arranged for me to begin training the following week.

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Results: I received the $2,600/yr payraise 6-8 months earlier than otherwise. Gain of $1,300-$1,700.

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• i) For the next 12 months my supervisor treated me as though I should sit down, shut up & disappear.

• ii) I was put last on all schedules for new training.

• iii) I was kept off assignments that were later treated as prerequisites for further promotion.

Qualities: Desperation, bloodymindedness, despisal of treachery and lies.

Title for this accomplishment: Discovering the landscape.

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ACCOMPLISHMENT #2

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Problem: Being put in a cubicle/being made to work in solitary confinement.

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Responses: Visual:

i) Began fantasizing high-contrast b&w images on bland, obliterating grey walls.

ii) Sandwiched & collaged old negatives, new images for photo-work, Cubist treatment of dark, dark place. Installed on north wall of cubicle.

iii) Arranged coloured sequences of pet cat chasing birds, squirrels in rented garden. Installed on outer edge of south wall of cubicle for easy identification of own seat when returning from bathroom.

iv) Adapted collage/installation mindset to single-image editing. At night, restructured & edited 2 photosequences, sold 1.

v) Completed and edited several other sequences to form collection now being marketed.

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Responses: Audio:

Learned to listen to radio while performing to Company standards.

i) Improved my knowledge of classical music.

ii) Caught up on 20 years of punk & alt. rock music

iii) Heard speeches, interviews, with left-wing political & social writers & observers.

Responses: Whole-body: Maintained intermittent eye-contact with, arranged walks on breaks with, discreet, depressed colleagues. Ate sandwiches in mutual despair.

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Qualities: Desperation, bloodymindedness, a tokenish supportiveness.

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Title for this accomplishment: Survival.

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ACCOMPLISHMENT #3

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Problem: Special assignment schedule/greater than average share of horrible task.

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Response: Sent memo to the manager who prepared the schedule. Requested reason for illogical and demonstrably unfair work-allocation.

Results:

i) Manager replied, offering ease of administration as reason, switched me to different team as solution.

ii) Two days later manager delivered revised work-schedule featuring equal work-assignments for all editing teams.

iii) Manager subsequently greeted me with unvarying coldness, avoided all eye-contact.

iv) Manager refused me a position in new Dept. which is replacing Dept. I currently work in.

v) Negative notation about my communication-style appeared in my annual review.

Qualities: Desperation, bloodymindedness, inability to face being buried in a hole forever, again.

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Title for this accomplishment: Outplacement.

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She decided.

She wanted a job to do with photography.

Mouth of earth.

Fire/death/shattering —

She couldn’t be freelance.

There were stock photo agencies in Seattle. She could go there.

She took her severance, cashed her pension, and moved. She finally got a job in an agency.

She took the few prints she had of Tom’s and had them floated on acid-free board, and framed.