The IDES


For those of you fortunate enough to have no clue what the IDES is, it stands for the Illinois Department of Employement Security, and that's where you go when the company you used to work for tells you to take a hike (which will be the subject of a future tirade I'm sure). The IDES is a government agency, so the usual tirades about waiting and waiting do apply, although having the staff schedule 35 or more people to come in at the same time on the same date doesn't exactly help the situation. My problem comes with the obsessiveness they have about a person applying for new work each week. One would think the fact that you only get 6 months of benefits would be enough to encourage a person to keep looking, but nooo. The problem I have is this: In order to satisfy the state, I apply to jobs that I'm only remotely qualified for -- not that I expect to get them, but it's worth a shot right? Except that one week I sent a resume to a company looking for a PC Programmer -- something I did before, but don't remember well -- only to have the same company advertise for a PC Technician (the job I'm looking for) the very next week. So, do I send another letter telling them I don't really want the programming job, but I do want the technician job? Do I skip it entirely? Do I hope I find a new job before this happens again? Let's hope...