Word of the Day: CONDENSE  (kuhn-dens'), VERB: To shorten or abridge.

Driving to Starbucks today, I spotted a man on the side of the road, dressed in army fatigues, holding a sign that read "Iraq veteran- will work for money to feed my family." At first this made me sad, but then it occurred to me that perhaps this man has hit upon a brilliant new job search method. Whereas bulk resume services will charge a hundred dollars to mail out a few hundred resumes, my war veteran friend is getting out his message to thousands of passing drivers, absolutely free. He does not have to cope with the slew of rejection letters that litter the mail of most job hunters. Moreover, if a potential employer is interested, he can get an immediate interview, right there on the side of the road. The interested driver just needs to pull over, roll down the window, and start asking questions: "Excuse me sir, how do you feel your military experience will make you management material? What would you say is your greatest weakness?" In fact, it would not surprise me if this brilliant idea catches on. Perhaps tomorrow the side of the road will be cluttered with men in suits, holding giant signs with their resumes printed on them.

I decided to test whether the strategy works for other searches, such as my search for love. It was difficult to condense my profile into a reasonably sized sign, but I finally went with "SWM seeks LTR; likes long walks on beach , blogging, and hiking." (OK, the only hiking I do is between the couch and refrigerator, but I thought it would make me sound more manly). So I spent the afternoon on the side of the road, holding my sign, and waiting for the beautiful ladies to start pulling over. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as I had hoped. A few drivers shouted obscenities (but these were mostly men). A few others threw loose change at me, and one even tried to run me down. The war veteran guy got quite a chuckle from that incident. Perhaps I will just stick with eharmoney.