Guess it was time to get a job.

So, as I've said before I was tired of working my butt off each and every single day. I was fortunate enough to land a series of good paying jobs, and being the minimalistic miser that I am I had stashed enough money to pay off most of the debt my ex-wife placed on me leading up to the divorce. Lesson learned boys and girls always keep bank accounts separate and never cosign loans in the name of love. To then be able to place a significant sum of money into savings. At which point I said eff it all, and took a hiatus from the grind.

I picked up an easy gig working as a groundskeeper at a nearby apartment community. Which is a thing now I guess. Just to give myself something to do, because I'm a working man g.d-it, and it was an easy way to make some money while just rolling around in a golf cart while practicing my old man speeches about picking up after your dog, and not throwing trash on the ground.

It was fun, but alas it did not last. The property manager was a neurotic little lady who suffers a 24/7 woe-is-me pity party. So, everyone quit and I'll be darned if I was left alone with that woman so I quit as well.

I spent about a month or so living by the philosophical cabin by the lake, going out to kick the can, and think about going to college, and if I were what would I major in. Probably biology. Or, if I wasn't going to go to school what would I use my GI Bills for, because most of the things I want to take courses on I could just go back into the career I was in before taking a break and just pay for it out of pocket. So, it's either just waste my GI Bills on something I could easily afford or just never hse the darned things.

Well, around the time I turned thirty at the beginning of this month I decided I needed to just work. I wanted a no BS job where I can work in a setting I enjoy, and with the tools I love, and interact with customers on a daily basis. So, I went and got a job in a neighboring affluent city at The Home Depot.

That's right. I love visiting Home Depot. Even if it's just to window shop. I pull up and park, and I'm greeted with a nice line of lawn mowers, and as I walk past the men loading lumber and gardening supplies, through the automated doors I'm greeted by the fresh myriad of smells produced by all the lumber, flooring, metal, and gardening supplies just waiting to be picked up, screwed, nailed, and glued.Giggity

So, I saw they had up big "WE'RE HIRING" signs, so I walked back to the managers office and told the guy sitting behind his desk I would love to work at Home Depot. He said "Well alright!" He asked me if I knew anything about tools, and I said all of them. I've used ALL of them. He asked me if I had any customer experience or sales experience. I told him nope, none at all, but that I could sell any man on an idea.

Well, that must have sold him on the idea of hiring me, because he told me to go online and apply for a sales position, and just a couple of days later I got an e-mail saying I got the job.

So, you're looking at reading the words of your new resident Tim The Toolman Home Depot Tool salesman.

Why couldn't he just give you an application? Isn't going online to apply for a job when you're standing right there in the place you want to work kind of an extra step that adds unnecessary complexity to a rather simple thing?

Interesting you identified as Tim The Toolman not the ever reliable and unquestionable Al Boorland .
Enjoy those old ladies needing a box of 7’O nuts and bolt thingies, to fix their hooks and, you know the ones.
😬🍻

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Beats me. Most places of business only do online applications now. Where you must submit a resume, then enter in all the information that is on your resume into an online application, and an increasing amount take it one step further where they require you to take a BS personality and/or IQ test. Then, their automated system sifts through keywords in the resume before you evemnget a chance to get a phone call from someone or more likely an impersonal automated e-mail.

Trust me, I miss the days of being abke to walk into a place that has a help wanted sign and being able to walk out with a job the same day, but now even the places that do take applications in person and interview same day will leave you waiting for a week because even though you may meet all their requirements they want to wait to see who else walks in through the door.

I think the main issue is HR. Most places now a days have to run every potential new hire through them.

Heck, I wanted to work at a Discount Tire just for the hell of it. So, I walked in and asked if they were hiring, and they said they were. I said great, can I get an application?

Nope.

I had to go to their website find the tiny career tab, and submit an application with a resume. For a Discount Tire! lmao.

So, I did so, I got a call from Arizona a few hours later which I promptly ignored as I live in Tennessee. Within seconds of the last ring I got a corporate e-mail from Discount Tire that they had tried to contact me, and to call back. So, I called the number provided, and no one answered. So, I left a message.

They called me again at eight in the morn and I didn't get to my phone in time. Another email, another return call, and another message, and I called the Discount Tire that I wanted to work at.

I asked to speak to the manager about the hiring process, and asked if we could set a date and time for an interview, and he informed me that he couldn't do that as corporate has to be the one to set that up.

I decided I didn't want to work for such a company.

a reply to: AutomateThis1

I have a friend who is a manager at Home Depot. $15 an hour. Not a great wage in California.
I hope you get commission as a sales rep.

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

It's definitely not the greatest pay. It's like $12.50 starting out here. I'll probably eventually go back to being an automation technician or at least an electrician. I coukd easily make around $30 if I wanted to. I'm just used to doing contract work that always had me moving all the time, and I got tired of it. So, I got a job in Mikwaukee, Wisconsin that didn't involve travel. It was great at first, but being around the same people making the same stupid mistakes and neing around electricians who had been electricians longer than I've been alive not knowing what they were doing eventually led to me wanting to smash my face into a wall, because thay's what I felt like I was doing every day just by going into work.

I'm considering going back into it. There's a place in Nashville that contacted me asking if I'm still interested, and I told them I was. I took a tour of the facility amd it's fantastic, and the pay and benefits are solid. So, if that opportunity does come to fruition I'm willing tontake another chance at it.

a reply to: AutomateThis1

Congratulations to your new job

Hey about the online application... The company I work at does it to filter out those that can not write e-mail or use a computer, because it is important part of the job.

Things like that could also be reasons. I just walked in like you did and was lucky enough to run into the boss on my way to the reception. It is a small company so no corporate level interference like with Discount Tire.

Dang.... l thought this story was moving to you living in a van down by the river.

Congrats though....I love me some Tool Time and Home Depot.

Congrats on your job automate this one!


I didn't want a new job and quit my old but the rain has about wiped us of the face of the earth since November and its still coming.

Dump trucks don't run in the rain at all unless your one of the hauling companies with a monopoly on it.
In fact if it rains mon, tue and wednesday like its calling for I won't run one single day next week again.
If its skips rain monday I still likely wont' run all week.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Most jobs do applications online-only. There are various reasons why. Sometimes the application process has a questionnaire test. Or the application has to be sent to two people.

Anyway, i hope i don't run into OP snd he sells me into buying a tool i don't need

originally posted by: blueman12
a reply to: BrianFlanders

Most jobs do applications online-only. There are various reasons why.

And most of them smell like BS to me.

And people wonder why the government is always feeling the need to regulate business.

Oh, I definitely relate more to Tim the Toolman. I know my stuff, but I like to have fun. And I make a lot of old man noises.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Dang.... l thought this story was moving to you living in a van down by the river.

Congrats though....I love me some Tool Time and Home Depot.

You know I've seriously considered doing that a few times lol. Just get all my mail forwarded to a PO box, and shower at the gym, and cook over a little camping set. It's not that bad of a life for a single man.

originally posted by: Trucker1
Congrats on your job automate this one!


I didn't want a new job and quit my old but the rain has about wiped us of the face of the earth since November and its still coming.

Dump trucks don't run in the rain at all unless your one of the hauling companies with a monopoly on it.
In fact if it rains mon, tue and wednesday like its calling for I won't run one single day next week again.
If its skips rain monday I still likely wont' run all week.

I feel your pain. The first job I landed after the Navy was installing natural gas lines and operating heavy machinery. Rain and snow killed it for me. It was fun and hard work, and the people were entertaining, but I had to tell the boss that I can't have my paychecks being affected by something like the weather.

You can be fairly certain that the person doing the hiring in a company will see an application that was filled out at the office. You also have a chance to make a first impression on real people that way. They will also remember you when you do a follow up.

The online process does have some advantages like, no driving to different businesses to submit apps, you can cut and paste most information in the online forms, and you can submit more job apps in a few hours online then a day of filling them out in person.

Some disadvantages are, no personal human contact to make an impression, no physical papers - it's just another screen page on a computer, and if you don't flood the online application forms with well chosen keywords, it gets rejected for consideration and never makes the hiring desk. That can be a lot of time and effort to have it get deleted by a computer before it can be considered by HR.

I find that some online processes can be very time consuming as some want very specific information going way back that will have you digging to find it. Also, the cover letter becomes more important if your application isn't filtered out by the online employment program. That letter is the first impression you could have made in person, but now is merely a letter that represents you.

IMO, a walk in application will get read, an online one will likely get deleted. Your online application will often go through a third party filtering process or through a corporate website that may ask for a lot of detailed information and have you jump through a number of hoops, or both. In either process the goal is to get the interview and then the hire. If you get the interview, that's a whole other situation you need to master and if you blow it, no one is going to tell you why so you can avoid those mistakes in the future.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Why couldn't he just give you an application? Isn't going online to apply for a job when you're standing right there in the place you want to work kind of an extra step that adds unnecessary complexity to a rather simple thing?

No. keeping all those dead tree apps together would be much harder.
and, you're applying to the company, not a single store