Humiliation: Thy Name is Rachel Zupek

Happy hump day! My days are all mixed up due to my recent 4-day weekend and work from home day yesterday. Now that I'm actually in the office again, I am reminded exactly how strongly I believe that working is for the birds.

Speaking of work, you probably don't know that I started my career as a communications specialist at CareerBuilder.com, where I wrote job search advice articles for MSN, CNN and AOL. Needless to say, it was a great way to start my career and boost my resume. (A Google search for "rachel zupek careerbuilder" will bring you to any number of said articles.)

This job also came with a lot of criticism. I got lots of hate mail, telling me that I was stupid and didn't know what I was talking about. Fair enough, considering I was 23, in my first job, and advising people on their careers when I had just begun my own. But they didn't know that.

My favorite of said pieces of mail came in the form of a blog post titled, "CareerBuilder Can Blow Me," by someone named Prattle On, Boyo, and with the following graphic:

He was writing in response to an article I wrote called Is To Whom It May Concern the Kiss of Death? In this article, I advised people to always try to find a real person to address your cover letter to. This is not malarky—this is real advice that I still give to people, and follow myself, today.

He starts by asking "what kind of weed [I] was smoking because clearly, it wasn’t quality stuff or else [I] would know what any stoner, or, for that matter, what anyone who has ever had to look for a job already does."

The best part:

Hey Rachel? Listen babe,  maybe you  previously worked in an HR Department (this would explain your cluelessness); or maybe you are simply a freshly minted college grad, and, Uncle Richie knew the hiring manager at the company and, that’s how you got your first job EVAH. But I have to tell you that dispensing the kind of idiotic guidance you did today with your bitchin’, 1980 Way Back Advice Generator Device to job seekers facing double digit national unemployment numbers was like showing up to an Obama rally dressed in your best Klan linen. You were lucky all you received was a civilized lambasting. What you deserved was to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

You can't make this stuff up. He then tells me to "pull my head out of my ass" and later, calls me a "silly twat."

But it gets better! He wrote this first post sometime in February 2010, which is also when I started at my current company. In SEPTEMBER 2010, he wrote yet another blog post about me, entitled: Humiliation, Thy Name is Rachel Zupek.

In this rant, he points out that after he "lambasted" me, I removed my name from the blog and replaced it with "CareerBuilder Blogger." Then he says:

"I like to think that she was so friggen humiliated for writing such a fucktarded advice column that she was reeling from embarrassment to the extent where she felt compelled to redact her credentials....Let’s hope that Ms. Zupek has decided to permanently refrain from writing worthless job seeking tips and found a more productive way to utilize her writing skills."

These posts still make me laugh for many reasons, but mainly because this guy cares so much about me and my writing career to take the time to write about me, not once, but twice. And also that he thinks he had any power whatsoever over me, and what I write. AS IF I would remove my name from an article because this nobody didn't agree with what I wrote. In reality, my name was removed from the blog because I no longer worked there. Not because I was fired or humiliated, but because I took my own CRAZY advice and found the name hiring manager of my current company, and sent her my application. It's so weird, I got a response—AND the job. Take that, Prattle.

Just wanted to entertain with you this piece of gold. And Prattle, if you're reading, thank you for your concern. I think you'll be happy to know that I am still writing, pretty successfully I might add, and I am trying my best not to do it in a "fucktarded" manner.

If you're stopping by from The Daily Tay, welcome! Sit and stay awhile!

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