Were I ever to go to a singles bar (not that I do… or want to… or could, being age challenged as I am) there are just certain jobs I would not want to have, or admit to having.
For example picture this, you see a person you find attractive or who looks interesting to you, standing across the room at a local singles night spot. The person looks over and their gaze locks with yours. You feel slightly embarrassed for staring, and think eye to eye contact a bit premature. (You weren’t quite ready to go to this level yet.) But then you see a, “well the next move is up to you” expression on their face, so after some internal debate, you decide to go over and introduce yourself. You stride across the room in their direction as one pant leg slowly starts to ride up (darn, you meant to buy those dryer sheets, but just plain forgot); thankfully you regain control of your wardrobe just as you reach the person.
The two of you hit it off right away with small talk, personal antidotes, and the discovery that you are both Auto Club Members; you each are drinking white wine, although you prefer the fruitier Rhine to the dry California Chablis; anyway, there is definitely a chemistry going on here.
Then, sooner rather than later the question comes, “…and what do you do for a living?” Thus far you have been successful in strategically steering the conversation in a wide path around employment related questions, but here it is and here you are having run out of verbal tactics. Your all too prompt reply is, “Why I am a Communicable Disease Specialist.” To your horror the Rolling Stones tribute band is on a break, the background conversation noise and the clink of glasses suddenly stops dead, and you hear yourself in slow motion pronouncing every letter, accenting every syllable, Com·mu·ni·ca·ble Dis-ease Spe·cial·ist. Now, there just isn’t any part of that answer which is good (think about it), and it has got to be a deal breaker in most bars (and among many North American regional cultures, and political persuasions)!
It is not that your’s isn’t a very worthwhile and humanitarian profession; it is just that people just don’t quite know how to react to it if it is sprung on them all at once. It might be better to say that you work in the public health field for Riverside County government. That you have a related bachelor’s degree (or you are a registered nurse) which led you into this field. That you are an investigator and an educator and you often work directly with members of the public to discover how public health threats occur and are transmitted in the larger County population. And yes, you did both hear and read about the guy on the airplane that eluded authorities and flew back to the United States.
Now see, wasn’t that easy? If your polyester suit, bad hairstyke, and cheap cologne does not put the person off, you are in like Flint.
If you clicked on the link above, your internet browser went to the County’s job description for Communicable Disease Specialist. You can look at any of the County’s jobs to see what defines that type of work, typical tasks, and the most direct ways people gain the knowledge and/or experience to perform those duties; there is also a tab to look at the benefits which go with that particular classification. You can start from County HR’s Home page, www.rc-hr.com, in the left side screen menu click on Employment, under that will be a sub-menu, and the 8th item down is “Job Descriptions”.
Once you arrive at Job Descriptions you have a choice to look for a job title alphabetically, or to use the search window. If you know the County job title, just type that in and click “go”. If you do not know what the County’s title is, but generally want to take a look at (for example) engineering job classes, maybe to decide which ones you might be interested in pursuing, just type in engineer and you will get 3 pages of job titles and you may then choose which ones you want to look at in detail.
CONGRADULATIONS! You have just acquired another job hunting skill, return to Riverside County’s Human Resources web site as often as you like, and don’t forget the Desert Jobs page for the latest on employment opportunities in the Coachella Valley and the Eastern County to Blythe.