You can't get there from here

My most recent rooting through the job listings turned out not one but two possible positions at Comcast - perfect matches for my qualifications and experience. One was an open position for a content creator, the other for an online editor; both jobs I maintained, simultaneously, for ten years.

As you can imagine, I was thrilled to forage through their four-page application, and I hit the SUBMIT button with supreme confidence. Within minutes, I received an email confirmation.

"Thank you for applying for the position of Staff Accountant (2)..."

No. That's not right...

An exhaustive search of the site offered no options for contacting the company's Human Resources department - or any department at all, for that matter. Vexed, I simply assumed that there was some tremor in the Interwebs, and applied again - with precisely the same result.

Obviously, the human touch was needed.

I moseyed down to my local Comcast office, and sought out a pulse. Not surprisingly, the locals don't handle Human Resource tasks - surprisingly, however, they don't handle technology or communications issues, either. "That's the Internet - you'd have to get in touch with them."

How? They knew not; like Zardoz, the Internet - and Comcast's presence on it - was some mystical sentient machine that hovered someplace fifty feet in the air above a wind blasted prairie.

Feeling especially flexible, I decided to beard the monster in his lair. I chatted with the Internet.

The Internet, after understanding that my service was not endangered, I had rebooted my application and the problem lie in a database glitch, assured me that the problem was not the Internet: it was a Human Resources mistake. Contacting Human Resources, however, was beyond its ken. It suggested the local office, the website FAQ, and finally settled on the idea that my best course of action was to apply a third time through the Internet. Is there anything else it could help me with? I thanked it, and told it I didn't think so.

I took two courses in accountancy during my Marketing degree - perhaps the exercise was not completely in vain. But y'know... what Comcast really needs is a good, experienced online editor.