Resume Lies for the Greater Good

I have had a job or two in my day. Recently the fields have gotten tougher to plow and the jobs that are available leave much to be desired. Still we've all got to make ends meet and it just so happened that earlier this winter, I was staying with a friend of mine in Fairfield County Connecticut and I had to fudge my resume to even be considered for the gig.

I have worked the night audit (overnight) shift in hotels in Manhattan and Los Angeles; I have been trusted with hundreds of people and tens of thousands of dollars for a straight eight hours of being totally alone. I have always done a good job and until recently I had always been paid well for it.

However desperate times call for desperate measures and in the winter of 2010-2011, I found myself having to downplay my previous employment in order to be considered for this job at a far lower volume Connecticut property.

I went in for the interview all ready to blow my manager away with my voluminous experience and glory-stories. He sort of looked at me, looked at my resume, and all but told me; "You need to fall in line to take this job."

Suddenly my commandeering of a midtown Manhattan Howard Johnson's, taking over and revamping their whole overnight rooster on paper became my "pitching in for a quiet and dedicated team of hotel professionals."

My opening and helping my two managers run a newly opened Chinatown boutique hotel where I had to fight off the wandering homeless who found their way to our second floor landing at 3 in the morning became something far more pedestrian.

My having to deal with a night auditor trainer who went to sleep in Los Angeles after she was done, never happened this way because, as I'd find out, the full time auditor who trained me took all manner of liberties with his shift work.

This is the job market I was faced with and I had to downplay or eliminate all my fantastic glory-stories. I could see it instantly when I began recounting my travails and he sharply recoiled. I quickly adjusted and they all became much more ho-hum. I landed the gig.

Unsurprisingly the Wilton side of South Norwalk on Rte 7 in Connecticut bored me beyond belief and I never made it to my 90 day review. I also was a little disgusted by the way my trainer (who just showed up whenever he wanted to once my training was complete; despite having a full time daytime job and a child) and his antics became too much for me to handle.

But being spry in the interview and changing the reality of my resume with my words was the only thing that got me that job.

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Deconstruction of a Neighborhood

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