The Art of Demotivation ...

Found a great new Website today: Despair.com. Although the site is blatantly commercial, a little work digging around the site reveals that some of its products and content are priceless. In a satircal style that rivals "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report," "founder" E.L. Kersten exhaustively details why a demotivated employee is the best employee.


Check out the site's video podcasts ... they're hysterical! To view one of the better ones, click here.


Although the site is completely commercialized, some of its products are actually very funny. So funny that, despite having just been told I would lose my job, I bought several mugs and desktop prints, which are take-offs of those annoying inspirational posters advertised in airline magazines:

Also take a look at their management manual that's so satirical you have to read it closely to "get" the jokes: The Art of Motivation; A Visionary's Guide for Transforming Your Company's Least Valuable Asset: Your Employees. My old boss lived and breathed it!

The interview could not be going better, I thought to myself ...

I was sitting in the office of Lisa Halliday, Communications Director for Harpo Productions (yes, that Harpo, fiefdom of the omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect media darling, Oprah Winfrey).


Halliday was raving about my background, about how refreshing it was to talk to someone who “got it” and about what a great addition I would be to her team. Urging me not to accept another job without first alerting her, she commented that she wanted “to wrap this up by the end of the month” and promised to call the next week to further discuss the position. Excited about the opportunity, I enlisted the help of three former co-workers – including the CEO of my previous employer, Playboy Enterprises – to provide recommendations on my behalf to senior executives they knew at Harpo.


I never again heard from the Harpo executive. Seven months and seven attempts to contact her later, I received my only follow-up from the company, a generic rejection letter from the human resources director.


Does my story sound like deja vu, echoing some of the interview experiences you've also encountered? It happened to me several years ago, during my first corporate downsizing.


Although it's probably not the smartest way to jump-start my job search, I'm creating this blog to share stories from the brutal, humiliating trenches of looking-for-a-new-job-after-being-laid-off.

I plan to post only the choicest anecdotes and war stories from my quest. I'll also share relevant coverage from the media. And, of course, I'd like to hear your horror stories as well ...