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[robot_god]

So recently I have been complaining that none of these online applications ever result in any contact at all.  Every pharmacy I applied to last year never gave me a response in any form.  Well I have been applying again this month and ironically, I received three responses this morning.

So now I don't know which ones to respond to.  The first one might not have been technically received today;  I checked my voicemail for the first time in over a week and there was a response from Walgreens.  Walgreens is offering this summer internship that is basically exactly what I'm looking for:  specifically for people with no prior experience in the field, lasts only for 12 (or 15?) weeks in the summer, and they offer experience in all areas of the field, not just retail community work.  I don't know how long I have been sitting on this voicemail, it might be as long as two weeks, so I don't know if the boat has sailed.

Via e-mail sent last night I received another response from this same Walgreens internship program, from a different director, but it sounds like his division only deals with cites in the city (Manhattan).  That probably would mean taking the Subway every day and their stores are probably twice as busy as anywhere else.

The one I am leaning to the strongest right now is at a hospital in Brooklyn, a teaching hospital regarded as the best medical center in BK.  This one doesn't offer the width of experience that the Walgreens program claims to offer, but the pay is more than five bucks more an hour than anything I imagine that program is willing to give.  However, I'm not really strapped for cash, so it's not a big deal.  Not sure right now what the job entails but there is the risk of dealing with hella elderly patients in hospital beds.  I could man up and tolerate it, but hella elderlies give me the willies.  I don't know how they will feel about the summer-long duration.

Anyway, I don't know what is standard procedure in this situation.  Should I set up interviews with them all, or be surgical with the ones that I'm most interested in?  Should I target the job that offers the best work experience in the field that I will probably be working after I graduate, or should I go with the one that I'm more interested in with better pay?

Ya know, no pressure on yas all, I'll come to a conclusion myself on which to choose, I'm just airing out an interesting dilemma.

Hmmm, the medical center would probably look better on a resume, too.

[wombat]

YES set up interviews with all of them.

I think you should never turn down a job interview even for a job you don't think you are interested in.  You will learn something - about the job possibilities in your field, about interviewing and being interviewed - and you could be making contacts that will be valuable later.  Also, there is nothing less stressful than an interview for a job you're not sure you want.  So you have nothing whatsover to lose.

[littlefallsmets]

Definitely do interviews with them all.

You'll find out more things about all the jobs and that'll help you decide... plus interview practice never hurts.

However. With the facts you gave me?

Here is something to always remember when picking from a collection of positive choices: in eighty years, no matter what you do, your corpse will be rotting in a box somewhere and... even if we all hit the cosmic lottery long-shot and there's some sort of afterlife situation, which summer job you picked one year will not apply to that Next Experience.

By that standard... the thing you would enjoy more will also give you more money?

Do that one. Your long-term options may or may not end up being influenced by this choice, it is kind of a crap shoot. Do things where you are having more fun and buy some more awesome DVDs than you previously would've let yourself buy.

Also, the subway is Terrible. The subway shouldn't be allowed as a form of extracting confessions, let alone part of a normal life.

[wombat]

I agree with everything LFM says except - the subway!  The subway is fantastic!  the NYC subway is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization! 

Dammit, it's my turn - I want to derail this thread into a flame war about the subway! You stinking Californian, you! You are not worthy to spit on the turnstiles of the The Subway!

[robot_god]

Yes, I like the Subway, but taking it four times a week would be annoying, since I don't like to leave for places early.

Also, as far as rotting in a box, I'm not so sure.  What about quantum immortality?  And if that doesn't work out then I want to be cremated.  I would direct you to the wikipedia entry but I gotta run and you know the drill.

[littlefallsmets]

I bespeak my hatred of The Subway not as a four year resident of Los Angeles but as a twenty-two year resident of small towns in the Northeast. This seems like an important clarification. I learned to hate the subway not as a jaded traffic-love-hating Angelino but as a scared hick with a hayseed in my mouth and a flannel shirt on my back. This is vital to understanding my arguments, which are the following:

The subway is covered in germs. The subway is full of complex memorizations of routes which do not fit in my head because I am busy remembering song titles and television shows from my youth. The subway is covered in germs. The subway is full of people begging for money and causing me to be Eight Hundred Hells of Guilty for not having the money to give them all money. The subway is covered in germs. The subway is being driven by someone I do not know at all. The subway is covered in germs. The subway is on a schedule that does not always cover my needs and is prone to large unexpected delays.

Also, the subway is covered in germs.

[Arachno-capitalist]

I dont know what these people are talking about. I hate the subway. I don't take the subway unless it is like a matter of life and death. My friend even walks from city hall to penn station rather than take the subway. Its crowded, it smells, its covered in germs, people beg you for money, at $2 a ride it adds up.

[littlefallsmets]

This is a point we agree on, arachnocapitalist.

Let us remember, when we are disagreeing on economic policy, that we agree on the subway being a crap concept.

The crowding is not so much a problem for me, as I am a Large Dude and used to being crowded, but for smaller people or people with space issues, it is probably hellish. The smell is not so much of an issue for me the times I have had to use a New York City subway because...

All the outdoors of Manhattan and Brooklyn and much of Queens smell overwhelmingly of urine and burnt hot-dogs to me.

I smell nothing but urine and burnt hog-dogs except in places where you are near one of those carts of vomitously-sweet flavoured nut vendors... a smell which is even worse than urine and burnt hot-dogs.

The cost factor probably varies from case to case, depending on how far you have to go, how many different places you have to go often, what kind of car you would otherwise have and how much you would have to pay to park it. If you have one or two long routes, the subway may be a cheaper-but-much-more-awful choice.

If you take many erratic short trips on the subway, it becomes insane on top of distasteful.

But the germs and the psychic overload of the begging... oh, man. Bad times. Bad bad times.

[wombat]

Germs are good for you! Germs build up your immune system! The subway is a thousand times more convenient than driving and trying to find a place to park in New York! And better for the environment! And what is wrong with the smell of hot dogs! And how could the hot dogs be burnt when they are sitting in boiling water! What is the matter with you people! Hicks and wimps, all of you!

Also, I am a small person and I LOVE the subway.


So, did you set up those interviews yet, rg?

[jaydub]

Having experienced Boston's (T?) and the SFO Bay Area's hoity-toity (in relative terms) BART, let me extoll the virtues of BART.  Its something like a subway, with fewer youth flinging themselves over the turnstiles and causing Madness, considerably less shrieking and squealing about through underground corridors with alarming flashes of high voltage, and the not-impossible odds of randomly encountering a carriage that was commissioned within the current century and may have a majority of its seats unslashed and windows spared from opacity by poorly removed graffitti and key scratches.  It is a fine method for avoiding parking lot extortion in SFO or downtown Oakland.  You can be reasonably sure that when a stain is observed on the seat upholstery, that it is due to spilled coffee rather than bodily fluids.  Panhandlers usually stayed buried under their piles of newspaper rather than roaming the aisles plying their trade.

As a person of modest stature, I still avoid it at rush hour, because I am averse to armpits.

[Teatime]

I propose that BART's having not cleaned their seats since the Truman administration is legitimate cause for disliking it.

[robot_god]

Just set up the one with the hospital.  Man, there goes my one weekday to sleep late.  Guess, I'll worry about the other one tomorrow, it took them over a month to contact me, and it's specifically for the summer, so I doubt they're in any rush.  I don't want to think about that shit right now, been a long week and I just want Friday to start already.




Germs on the subway?  Pffff.  Ever eat food?  There were germs all over it.  Touching the bars in the subway are no much worse than touching a dollar bill.  And complex routes aren't a big deal, there are maps all over the place, and using maps is awesome.  Plus it's so mysterious with all the tunnels, hella intriguing.  But my favorite part are the musicians.  So many interesting instruments and performances.  Dude playing french horn in a quarter-mile tunnel lined with tile?  Mad enchanting.  And how do those dudes get those drum kits in there?  Crazy.

I guess the panhandlers are a little annoying, but whatever, just shrug and they peace out.

I think we had a thread awhile ago about the subway, I said it rules because if you take the subway alone, you can never be sure if anything was real or a hallucination.  What happens underground stays underground.

[pmcd9]

Re:  Interviews
Go to all of the interviews

Re: Subways
My only experience with subways is in London and they are fantastic.  I've heard New York is dirty and the people are shit, but in London the underground is fairly clean and mostly the people are pleasant and polite.  I never saw anyone that I would consider sketchy in any way.  I'm sure I was the sketchy one becasue I didn't avoid eye contact and I talked to people.  I rode the tube at all times of day and night.  I went everywhere.  I got kissed by a girl on the train, it was almost the highlight of the trip.

[wombat]

  I've heard New York is dirty and the people are shit,

You heard wrong, mister!

[Ruta Bagas]

The London Underground's really very nice until the police shoot you in the head seven times.