https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZFEqbFqzo
Mike says, “James and I are going to try something a little different today. We’re going to challenge our brains here”
I’ve never been more pumped for a James & Mike Mondays. Let’s see what you got, Rainman.
Oh. Mike is going to say a game and then James has to talk about that game for 30 seconds. Then they switch. Pretty stupid but James is horrible at talking off the cuff. So maybe it will be good. Doubtful, though.
4:15 – James suggests that they should do a video on Primal Rage. His reason: “There’s a fatality where they piss on you.”
By the way, the actual “game” that they’re doing is really stupid and boring.
15:30 – “So that’s the game. It’s stupid.”
Indeed.
I mean…what the fuck? What a giant disappointment this was. Now I just have to talk about random bullshit to pad this out.
I had a job interview many years ago to “teach” English in Japan. They did a lot of pseudo-psychological bullshit. For example, they would give a word and you had to say the first thing that came to mind. And there was a lot of “group” interview shit where one of the tasks was literally to cluck like a chicken.
There really needs to be some protection against this sort of behaviour. I mean, what the fuck does any of this have to do with “teaching” English? You can post a job advertisement, set up some interviews, and then make the person do whatever humiliating shit you want? That can’t be right.
If you had a job and your boss told you to cluck like a chicken, you’d tell him to fuck off. They couldn’t do that in a job. It’s clearly abuse. But in a job interview, it’s okay?
Here’s another mildly-interesting job interview anecdote. When I first moved to the UK from the US, it was extremely difficult to find work because all of the employers wanted written references. That’s not now things are done in the US, is it? Maybe things have changed. But at the time, references in the US were checked just by calling the former employer on the phone.
So I begged this former employer repeatedly to just do the written reference, even though I know that’s not how things are done in the US. And they’d always say, “Oh yeah, no problem. We can do that” but they never fucking did it. There wasn’t really somebody who I worked for on a regular basis, I got sent to different places, so that was part of the problem. There was nobody who would take responsibility and nobody who really oversaw my work.
I mean, references in the US just want the employer to confirm the dates that the person worked there. At least in my experience. But these written references in the UK wanted pretty specific information, were they on time, would you employ them again, what are their six best characteristics, shit like this. And there was nobody who could really answer these questions.
So I’d explain this to the UK employers. “This isn’t how things are done in the US. References are just checked by phone and they only confirm the dates of employment.” And the response was always the same, “It’s only a short form.”
There was one time, I was at some employment agency (these useless fucks dominate the job market in the UK) and I was speaking to the Eastern European recruitment “professional” about this reference business. “They won’t fill out any form but if you just call them, they’ll be able to confirm that I worked there, and the dates, and that there weren’t any problems.” So she says, “It’s just a short form”. So I explain again, “No. I’m telling you, they won’t do it. They don’t do this in the US. But if you just call, you’ll be able to confirm everything.” So she says, “I’m going to call them and ask if you worked there? That would be stupid.” So I got up and walked out. And she’s yelling for me to come back, “No, no. If we just get the reference, we’ll be able to give you work.” Fuck off.
They were completely unwilling to accept that other countries do things differently. US employers won’t do these fucking detailed references because they’re afraid of getting sued.
So I tried inventing references. That didn’t work. Fucking a year and a half goes by and I can’t work because of this fucking reference shit. So I started doing volunteer work just to get a reference and things were fine after that. Well…I was able to find work, anyway. Shitty work.
But at least it paid more than $30/month. I was thinking about that Retro Ali situation again. How she’s making $30/month. You used to hear that half the population lives on less than $1/day. And I’d always think, “What? How is it possible?”
But here we have Retro Ali making $1/day. People are doing it.
I was getting £79/week on “welfare”. My rent was £55/week. You’re supposed to get money to cover your rent too but because these cheap places are shady and don’t have actual leases, I couldn’t get any money for rent. So I lived on £19/week. Utilities were something like £5/week and the only other expense, really, was food. So £14/week for food. You can do it but it’s not easy. Peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But $1/day? That’s rough. But there are jobs out there. It’s not like it’s Youtube or nothing. Actually, for some reason I think that Ali does work. Maybe she mentioned this on Twitter or something. So good for her, if that’s true.