I have no explanation for this and maybe there isn’t any.

Today I started applying for outside sales positions via email. I contacted a placement agency and the lady wrote back to, among other things, ask me to send my resumé to her in Microsoft .doc format — not Adobe .pdf and plain webpage (HTML) as I conveniently have it on my site.

Now, yes, .pdf is the business document sharing standard because anyone can download the free Adobe Reader and Microsoft .doc isn’t because it requires software worth hundreds of dollars per machine.

And that’s assuming everyone loves Microsoft, which (scandalously) they don’t.

Anyway, I’ve got to meet the needs of my client so I helpfully use my free, beloved, and awesome OpenOffice.org software (did I mention it’s FREE?!) to create a copy in Microsoft .doc. Yet I know from experience it won’t necessarily format perfectly on her machine so I attach a .pdf explaining this one will print correctly.

So then I go for a walk. A longish walk by Beacon Hill Park along the ocean on the rocks and it’s a beautiful day. I head away from the ocean into the forest.

I decide to follow some of the paths because there’s no way I can get lost.

Yet I did.

Going back and forth along little paths that seem to lead nowhere I can’t find my way out. At first, it’s fun and no big deal, my main concern being mosquitoes. Then it’s surprising I can’t find my way out, then a bit more… and there it is.

A copy of Microsoft Office 97. In the woods.

What the heck?

It had a price sticker of $99.95 on the the case so someone must have bought it used. I assume it belonged to someone, but I have no way of knowing who. Anyone missing a copy of Office? Lemme know. I got it.

I didn’t make much of it at first except to consider it strange.

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I wondered, “Gee. Am I meant to get a profitable sales position from someone who uses Microsoft Word and here’s the tool to create it?”

I have no idea, but I reformatted my resumé and fired this email off to the placement agency:

Subject: Sales Pro Resume, New Version

Hi ________,

I was just out for a walk by the ocean and then through the forest where I found a copy of Microsoft Office.

That has got to be a sign.

Especially since earlier today you said:
“…please,forward your resume to us using Word doc. Format.”

And I said:
“It was created using OpenOffice.org so may not format exactly.”

So I redid my resume from scratch in Word (sans cover letter) and everything should format nicely. I’m qualified for a sales or similar position, particularly one that involves self-motivation, organization, and consultatively finding solutions to business problems.

Let me know if there’s some way I can help.

Best regards,

Christoph

- – -
http://ChristophDollis.com – the place to come for more appointments, more people in the door, and more sales!(sm)

Two days ago I was at my mom’s talking about how some of the deep and impactful experiences she had in her life were NOT psychic phenomena and there’s a rational explanation for everything. I explained my idea that the brain remembers times when we are right about a hunch and forgets or minimizes times we’re wrong.

But gee. I owe her an apology or maybe someone can explain to me the coincidence of being lost in the woods where I find Arthur’s sword Microsoft Office on the one day in the last three and a half years where someone insisted on getting a Microsoft Word Document.

[Cross posted at LovingJacqui.net]

By Christoph Dollis at 6:52 PM on Tuesday August 14th, 2007, and filed under Strange.

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