From American Dream to American Nightmare.

The American Dream has slowly evolved into a living nightmare! Not one person is secure in the knowledge that their dreams won't turn into nightmares. One day living in the lap of luxury and comfort, the next in unbridled misery and grinding poverty where hopelessness is the order of the day and slowly the trappings of a life savored are sold off to provide for the most basic needs. Some descend even further from top players to living on the streets, out of a plastic bag. It can happen seemingly in the blink of an eye. The catalyst may be many things - a company downsizing, a family illness, a family death, a divorce, burglary, a downturn in an already shattered economy or just intense competition.

I swore I wouldn't put anything personal in what is or was a photography blog. It seems to have become a bit of everything blog at the moment though with the emphasis on business and a slight hint of photography. Occasionally I'll do a book review too - usually to do with photography or business and always an e-book. Cutting to the chase. Back in January my position was eliminated when the company I worked for closed the premises that I worked in. Since then I have applied for every job I could find that I can reasonably do and completed training meanwhile to be a certified Medical Coding and Billing Specialist. That's in addition to the Bachelor's degree I earned years ago and the TESOL certificate I also earned, years ago.

At the beginning of my hunt for a new position, I opened a new email account, dedicated to job hunting. Since then it has had 1,374 emails posted into it - mostly acknowledgements of receipt of an application. No personal email goes into this box. This means that since January (aside from a month when I had a temporary position) I have applied for over ONE THOUSAND positions. During this time I have had perhaps three job interviews and that is all.

While I was in my previous position in which I was chronically underemployed, I applied for at least 5 positions a week - for the five years that I worked there. That's 250 jobs applied for every year for 5 years or to date approximately 2,750 jobs. If I include the number of applications it took to get my previous position which was 600 then over the last 6 or 7 years that's around 3,000 - 3,500 job applications resulting in one retail position that I was supremely overqualified for. I took that position as it was the only company that said yes.

 Since the biggest hurdle before I took the retail position was my lack of US citizenship, I took on US citizenship. Thus the only position I am unqualified to do is to be President and that is merely due to the geographical location of my birth. It seems to have changed nothing. It doesn't matter how many bits of paper I have nor how intelligent I am. I did pass the LSAT with a good score but couldn't afford to go to law school. Given the difficulty I have finding employment now, it would be foolish to take on debt.

I have jumped through hoops like a performing seal. One company demanded I accompanied my application with national and local background checks plus a driving record check - all of which cost a small fortune and proved that I'd not got as much as a parking ticket and had never had any interactions with the police. That application went in and I heard nothing. I visited to nag them a few times and nothing. That's the last time I do a fool thing like paying for something like that!

Of course, applying for jobs is fraught with ludicrous websites. Honestly, websites are probably the biggest reason why people don't get jobs. This is one I tried to complete today. Apparently South Carolina is not a member state of the union any more. Perhaps the Governor sold South Carolina to China and we're all going to have to learn Mandarin?

Getting political, my dental hygienist is a full blown Republican. She was telling me that everybody on Food Stamps should be prosecuted for fraud and made to repay the money. The same she said for unemployment insurance. I kept my mouth shut rather than take on such a narrow-minded individual. Wake up and smell the roses - it's almost impossible to get a job these days!

By now I bet you're thinking - he must be a really nasty person. How could I have been a nasty person when my previous job involved retail sales and when during that job I was promoted? That argument falls flat on its face. If I was truly objectionable then I would not be working as a volunteer with a hospital either.

The other day, I was offered a scholarship to do a computer networking & security course. The course was free, assistance with transportation fees were offered if my daily journey was over 50 miles round trip. My daily round trip would have been 42 miles so I would have been ineligible. In any case, the course would have been full time meaning I'd have had to abandon my current voluntary patient advocate work at the hospital. Not only would I have had to do that but there was no guarantee of work at the end of that course. Needless to say, the offer was declined. Past experience has shown that there is no work in computing despite what everybody thinks and hears. It's a skill that out-dates so quickly that it's not worth pursuing. Indeed, I regret that I didn't follow one of the others on my computer courses of the 1980s and switch to accountancy. That had a future - computer courses have no future unless work is there as soon as the course is done. 6 months later is way too late - the knowledge gained is so out of date, nobody wants it. Of course, it's great business for colleges - selling washed-up, worthless courses because there are always suckers that fell for them wanting to retrain in something else.  What I need is not yet another qualification but a job.

Since December last year, the number of companies shutting down or shutting down their Columbia South Carolina location has exploded. I have a feeling that South Carolina never really recovered from the Civil War, over a hundred and fifty years ago. The big plantations are mostly gone, replaced by towns in which the population eke out a miserable subsistence lifestyle.

So, what are my plus points? Intelligent (IQ of 133), qualified, easy to get along with, amenable, kind, considerate, compassionate, logical. My resume has been redesigned and redesigned so many times by so many different people that the resume cannot be a problem. The problem has to be something else since nobody ever gets back to me for an interview. I'm beginning to suspect that the "jobs" have already gone before they're advertised and go to people that the recruiting officer already knows. I also suspect that the "jobs" on many of the recruiting sites are just advertised in order to get resumes for agencies. I remember applying for one job with an agency. That ended up with an interview.

During the interview I wondered exactly why I was there since the company was entirely woman run. There were no men anywhere. Needless to say as I knew some of the other people being interviewed, we chatted and amazingly enough, none of the men got hired but all of the women did. Sexism in action. The men were just sent along to give things the air of equality.

And yes - I am absolutely fed up with the situation. I want a job. I like working. I enjoy making a contribution do come out with suggestions as to how to improve productivity etc. I hate this enforced idleness - it's cruel and unusual punishment. I was born to do things with my brain, not just to sit around like a lemon in front of a computer, applying for mythical jobs. Nobody ever got a job applying for it through some piece of electronic junk yet that's what I'm told is the modern way. Where are the Human Resources personnel that are willing to meet and chat with real people? Where is the human element in all this abominable electronic garbage? We have succeeded through computers to turn the American Dream into the Never Ending Nightmare.

Do we have too much faith in the internet?

A long time ago, a friend who was a psychiatrist commented that many patients were chatting away online to "friends" who they didn't know, couldn't possibly know and didn't even know whether they were human or a computer at the other end. Asserting that it was impossible to determine that there was a human at the other end, it transpired that the psychiatrist considered internet users to be somewhat suspect mentally, in believing that there actually was a real individual answering them or that the individual was actually what had been claimed.

It is interesting to note that many women complain that men on dating sites are there just to get sex. All will promise undying love but the reality is that is a ploy just to get sex. Often it is a short-term goal with several women in the plan rather than a monogamous relationship. In olden days, this used to be the preserve of bar flies. Now just about anybody with access to a smartphone can do this. Thus it has become much more prevalent. Various studies have shown that the rate of infection with sexual diseases has skyrocketed with greater ease of access to online dating sites.

In the 1970s, when the author was a youngster, mobile phones had not been invented and the internet was limited to boffins in expensive labs. Computers were for geeks that hand built them and pored over circuit boards for days on end. The rest of the world got on just fine without. This was a time without spam, without junk phonecalls, withought Nigerian scammers - a simpler time and a more productive time.

In the 1970s, navigation was done with a street map, a pencil and paper. When a tradesman was summoned via the telephone or by visiting their store, just one tradesman was summoned. Sometimes it could take days. People took responsibility for knowing where the stop-cocks and off switches were for things. There was no casual browsing of the internet at work nor surreptitiously checking of Facebook on a mobile phone while pretending to work. More and higher quality work was done.

Today, people come to work and work very hard but achieve very little in comparison. The day starts with checking email - a largely pointless task of sifting through 20 emails for Xanex, another 20 for "male enhancer" or "breast enlargement" a few from Crown Prince Unpronounceable from Nigeria whose entire family was horrendously killed in one of the daily plane crashes in that region (remind me never to fly if I ever visit Nigeria) and 20 requests to view some superstar's naked body. Having sifted through all that, the genuine emails that have not accidentally been deleted through this filtering process are reviewed. Most are a complete waste of time yet have to be replied to, wasting even more time.

Jobs are advertised daily on the internet as companies find dissatisfied staff, unhappy with having to fiddle around with computer junk and irked that the company's computers keep crashing and losing their work, leave for other positions. Meanwhile, scammers place fake job advertisements in order to steal the identities of applicants for their nefarious purposes. Many job advertisements are copied by a plethora of agencies that have sprung up, all trying to claim a piece of the prize. Some agencies are less reputable than others. Occasionally, emails from agencies that have produced nothing worthwhile and that have been long forgotten pop up in email. The following example is for an agency that hasn't checked their books in over a decade.

User Access Administrator - London - 12 Months
From: Hina Hussain (Hina.Hussain@mbauk.com)
Sent: Tue 5/27/14 4:46 AM
To: '<removed>' (<removed>)
Dear <removed>
User access administrator urgently required to work for a Leading Trading organisation on an initial 12 month contract.
You will be responsible for the administration of Windows accounts and the clients in house and external applications/systems, including user
permissioning, authentication, and authorisation, identifying and reporting back on security and compliance issues within the Security Operations area to
the Global Logical Access Manager as well as creating and maintaining adequate procedures and controls, to ensure that the Security Operations function
supplies a quality and efficient service to the Business and IT departments. The candidate will be expected to assist in and help drive efforts and initiatives
to simplify and automate logical access administration.
The ideal candidate will have experience in a highly pressured environment and the candidate should feel comfortable working at a fast demanding pace.
Must be enthusiastic with a willingness to learn and pay attention to detail. Ability to strictly adhere to security regulation, procedure, and policy
surrounding logical access and account management at all times. Strong working knowledge of MS environment required - Outlook, Excel, Word, and
accurate typing skills. Detailed experience and exposure to information security requirements, primarily in Logical Access and SOX security
requirements is also key for this role.
If you are interested in this position, please can you contact me, also providing a update profile and a overview of your experience in relation to the role.
MBA do have a policy to fulfil job requests within 24 hours therefore a quick response is important.
MBA does apologise when this job does not match your profile. However, if you have any colleagues who may be interested in this contract opportunity;
please forward this email to them. If they are successfully placed at our client site, we will award you with £150.00 (180 Euros).
Thank you for your time and we hope to hear from you soon,
Kind Regards,
Hina Hussain
Recruitment Resourcer
Tel: 00 44 (0) 207 749 5627
Mobile: 00 44 (0) 7715578017
Email: hina.hussain@mbauk.co.uk
Website: www.mbauk.com
12 Brook House, Chapel Place, Rivington Street, London. EC2A 3SJ
London - Amsterdam - Brussels - Den Haag - Eindhoven - Geneva - Munich - Paris - Rotterdam - Utrecht - Zurich
Disclaimer The views expressed in this mail are entirely those of the sender, and do not necessarily represent the views or position of the MBA Group of
companies. The information contained in this communication is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the
individual or entity to whom it is addressed and others authorised to receive it. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any
disclosure, copying, distribution or taking any action in relation to the contents of this information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Neither the
sender nor the represented institution is liable for the correct and complete transmission of the contents of an e-mail, or for its timely receipt.
Please refer to our website www.mbauk.com for a list of all Group Companies and registration detail

This email did indeed arrive this morning. If it's a genuine email then it's an agency that never purges its books of out-of-date resumes. The very fact that the email states "MBA does apologise when this job does not match your profile" indicates that the company has a vested interest in just spamming out job descriptions that don't match anybody in particular as they never check whose resume matches the job.

Just about everybody suffers spam like this - exemplifying the earlier statement that a lot of time is wasted every morning by staff going through junk emails. Many junk emails actually look genuine, such as the one copied herein. It's unclear whether it's a genuine email or just spam but the fact no UK based agency has had a resume originating from anybody here for over a decade would suggest pure spam.

Just about an hour of daily activity is wasted on e-garbage. Of the remaining time, based on a few minutes here and there, looking for "information" for projects on Google, probably another hour is wasted. Much of the important information sought for projects will be of an immensely trivial nature and definitely not worth reading nor incorporating.

Social Media is discussed widely. Indeed it is hyped. Twitter is mentioned extensively and yet the number of genuine Twitter users is dwarfed by the spamcasters. Indeed, @NikkiHaley (the Governor of South Carolina) ostensibly uses Twitter but judging from the complete lack of interaction with humans responding to messages, has a totally automated account. Being automated, even the Governor's account is not worth following. Unless there is interaction on Social Media, there is no point whatsoever in the public following accounts. Thereby hangs a problem - in order to engage users, somebody or indeed a team of staff need to operate various social media accounts in conjunction with a social media planner.

How much income does Social Media generate? Little to none. As an example, this site is advertised to 15,000 Twitter accounts via several Twitter spamcasters. This activity results in perhaps one hit a month from humans actually being reached by the spamcasters. Another account is handled manually and little to no interaction happens unless discussion of politics or something unrelated to photography occurs. That account yields less website hits than the spamcasters that yield virtually none.

Staff have their mobile phones in their pockets all day. Before smartphones, staff idly texted friends and family when allegedly working. With smartphones, staff now idly play interactive games interspersed with "back in a bit - boss is coming". Staff attention spans have dropped to the lowest levels ever. Productivity has dropped yet people are working harder than ever, trying to catch up with all the garbage.

Has the internet been beneficial? Not really. There is little that cannot be done without it. People have become slaves to the internet. People are not the masters of their technology, rather they are the slaves to technology. Look at wedding photographers as an example. This is a species that has been utterly wiped out by digital imaging and the internet. Photographers now randomly run through weddings taking hundreds if not thousands of random photographs then retire to a sweaty office for days on end working themselves into a frazzle just to produce from those thousands of images, maybe 20 for a wedding album. In olden days, photographers mindful of the cost of film made each photograph count and took up to six rolls of film or 216 images. The ease of technology has meant that photographers capture now and then spend days sifting through the spoils rather than concentrating on taking good pictures and having less time in the office. Technology has made photographers much less productive.

Has the mobile telephone had a positive effect? Not really. Its introduction has heralded a lack of patience and a must-have-it-now attitude which is totally counter-productive. It has also allowed rioters and criminals easy access to a secure communication system that can be used during the conduct of a crime.

Will the human race return to a golden era of staff working productively or will the time-wasting technology era continue?

Humans apply within, robots not required.

This blog is currently hosted on a Google Blogger server. It has been a constant struggle to raise viewer numbers. Last month was an all-time high of over 7,000 but how many of those hits were genuine? That's a question that was puzzling as although hits and page views were increasing, revenue and interaction were very low. In fact, revenue had actually dropped.

Looking at the site on a content level, there were modules included that allegedly listed the blog on blog directories. Now blog directories were something that in regular everyday browsing are never encountered. Out of sheer curiosity, they were removed and the effect was pretty fast. Not only did "visitor" numbers plummet but revenue increased. This sounds paradoxical but does make sense if the reasons behind this are examined.

Adsense - which is the revenue creation medium for this blog - is set up to reject fake hits. If it wasn't then just about every site owner would be sitting clicking adverts all day, every day, creating revenue for themselves which really wouldn't be fair on the advertisers. The problem with automated systems is that very often they don't really work. Thus, genuine advertising clicks are often missed.

Previous articles have discussed various aspects of fake hits but not the damage caused by fake hits. Veritassium makes some excellent points about fake Facebook hits by way of example. For Facebook pages, fake hits actively reduce the number of people viewing the pages. This leads directly to a reduction in visibility. With blogs, it's different. Fake hits bump up the hits figure and give people a sense of positivity that their blogs are making the rounds. They encourage people to produce ever more content which in the case of Blogspot, Google likes. For Google, more content means more chances people will see something with advertising and hence make them more money. Thus, it pays Google to get people hooked on blogging even if it means supplying the means to generate fake hits.

The downside of the fake hits is that while it looks like there are readers, it does count against adsense. It's a little perverse - Google supplying the means to generate fake hits and then deleting genuine hits from adsense revenue because of the fake hits. The evidence is clear - as soon as the "blog listing" component was removed, adsense income rose.

Fake hits are a curse for Adsense. For Facebook users, fake hits are a curse too. Amazingly, people are prepared to pay for fake hits just as they are prepared to pay for fake followers on Twitter, Instagram etc. Fake is fake and a total waste of time and money but worse than that, the fakes actually harm the integrity of what is being achieved. In many ways it's similar to the analogy of a smoker once given by a university friend, Paul Portway who declared that it was like somebody stabbing themselves in the back with a knife while declaring that though they knew it was bad, they enjoyed it.

For businesses with few hits, the idea is that people will think more if the business has more hits or likes. The point of a like is somewhat elusive. For this blog, readers are what is required. It's not possible to force people to read. Fake hits are not required. Interaction is desired but not frequently forthcoming.

What is your experience of fake hits or likes?