The reason I care, other than pure aesthetics, is I'm going to be job hunting pretty soon. I've had two phone interviews for jobs. One was with a small agency and one was with AAA. AAA offered me a job here, but I turned them down for the job at Horizon which I'm so reluctantly leaving. So it seemed worth checking into when they phoned on Monday. However, I'm not pleased about the way the interview went. The head of personnel was going over my resume and stopped when she got to this year.

"You worked until 12/96 and then not again until 7/97. What were you doing during that period?" she asked.

"I took time off," I replied.

"But what were you doing?" she persisted.

"I...took...time...off," I said clearly and slowly, feeling a bit miffed.

"You weren't working?" she said. I heard a tone of accusation.

"No. I wasn't working. On purpose. I took time off from work." By now I was pissed off. She backed off the question but not before advising me I ought to revise my resume to account for that period of time.

I got off the phone and fumed. My sarcasm level was at alarming levels. I was really glad I hadn't been doing a face to face interview. Honestly, what kind of sad little life do you have if you need to know what someone with a solid work background and excellent references was doing for the seven months they voluntarily didn't work? I'm not going to work for a company that's that anal. They'll expect me to account for every minute I spend in potentially unproductive activities, like chatting with the clients or going to the restroom. Forget it. The high salary is not worth it and you'll never be able to prove to anyone in authority that life isn't a timesheet.