(This article was originally published in October 2001)

I love technology. I love computers, email, fax machines, automatic car washes, ATMs. I love that when I call the electric company I never hear a live human voice. However, it is screwing me. As one advisor said, "He does not have a stellar academic record." Lump into that a lack of an impressive resume also. My interpersonal communication skills are good, or in other words, I give a kick-ass interview. With technology, though, I have a small chance of ever demonstrating my abilities through such interaction. This places me in the precarious position of having no chance to get into grad school or—at the moment—acquiring employment. So I fax 30 resumes a week to jobs that routinely say, "Please, no walk-ins."

If I do have the opportunity to belly up face-to-face with a potential employer it is usually to the personnel receptionist who kindly accepts my resume with a smile and by the end of our six-minute conversation wants to help me take over the planet and have my children in the process. Three days later I have received no call for an interview. So I continue my resume sending and job searching, while camping out at the local college. In this instance it is University of Chicago, where I would enjoy being branded a genius by simple admission. This will never happen, but since my next-door neighbor landlord is under the impression that I already work in the library at the University of Chicago I have till 5 p.m. to burn. I spend this post-Kinkos time smoking in front of the philosophy building and slumbering on the Fermi Nuclear Reaction Memorial. My hope is that at some point a crisis will happen. The philosophy department secretary will come running out and the following exchange will occur:

"Oh my God, where is Dr. Smith?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know anything about Kant's categorical imperative?"

"Sure."

"Get in here right now; we have a crisis situation."

At which point I will save the day using my knowledge of philosophy, be introduced to the department professors, and quickly and neatly be admitted to the philosophy program the following semester.

Let me make it clear that I am competent and intelligent, or at least in the eyes of Chicago's Human Resources receptionists I am. The point is: I am not trying to con myself into a job or school where I will not be able to perform. An opportunity to discuss my qualifications and expertise in a live face-to-face forum is all I request. It is simply that technology is creating a barrier between these possibilities and me. If it was 1912, I would walk into the World's Fair, speak with the manager, get him to trust me, and then show him I can operate the merry-go-round. Today I don't even see the horses unless I have five years' experience and a 4.0 in park amusement engineering. I tried submitting a small novella for a florist delivery job, explaining my multi-tasking dimensions in reading a map and driving a van at the same time. They emailed me that the position was filled.

It is impossible to interview everybody in the world for every job so shortcuts must be installed. Technology, however, has taken this to a refined art of absolute isolationism. We should be trying to keep the personal element in the job application or the student admission request whenever possible. Ability should be a Gestalt theory based on hard scores but also on refined social nuances such as dependability, drive, and creativity. This is an old debate, but one that technology is making more obsolete and disturbing each day. I am a human being and despite my poorly faxed resume, my email submission in the wrong format, or my genetic code not looking very promising, it is possible, just maybe, that I am the greatest cabinetmaker the world has ever seen.

Copyright © 2001 Charles Hageman Frey. All Rights Reserved.

Charles Hageman Frey is an unemployed vagrant napping at the University of Chicago; he lives nearby in Chicago, Illinois.