Intolerable Micro-Manager

I'm not sure why this straightforward explanation would be held against you in an interview. An alternative phrasing might be, "the department was being politically managed in a way that inhibited efficiency and morale."

I would say it was a conflict of interest. You were conflicted because of the micro-managers interest?

Or you could say something along the lines of you did not believe in the direction the company was going and are now looking for a new company that you can believe in. A company that has morals that are more in line with your own so you can be a fully productive member and work at your best abilities.

Nobody wants to hear someone who's being interviewed bash their last employer.

This suggestion won't exactly be the truth, but sometimes the total truth will lose you that next job.

I would suggest that you focus on the things about this company/job that are different from the last, with those being the things that you are looking for in a job, and weren't quite satisfied with at the last.

I no nothing about either of these companies, but an example would be.

I'd like to be more hands on./ I wasn't hands on enough at the other place, and decided to look for something more in line with my skill set.

With the turnover rate what it is these days, the interviewer probably won't be too focused on your reason for leaving the last job, but what you can do for them. Hopefully you didn't leave the last job on bad terms. That could work against you.

Or, you could tell the truth, and without badmouthing any particular individual, cite particular instances of things that were done, that you had no control over, that hurt the efficiency and bottom line of the previous company, that you didn't want to be a part of. This may be the better approach. If this company operates the same way, you don't want to work for them anyway. At the same time, they will know that you are an individual that is there to look out for the company, and most importantly, the bottom line................and you won't be lying. Good Luck!

I would put it just as you stated it.

You have goals for the company you work for to be efficient and productive and your former employer did not give you a reasonable impression that they had the same goals any longer.

Then go onto explain that from your experience with inexperienced management that was unwilling take advice from more experienced personnel you felt that your willingly leaving to find a job with a company that is more focused on doing the job right opposed to playing office politics and micro managing projects to death was in your best interests.

Anyone who has any working experience has also had the unpleasant experience of having to deal with a bad management for many reasons and will be understanding to your reasons for doing what you did.

Anyone who claims that is not true is likely one of those types of management people that is the very reason that good people to leave so you more than likely won't want to work for that person at a new company.

Keep it positive.

Tell them you learned a lot from the previous position and you felt you needed to move on. It was better for both the company and yourself that you left before you'd found alternate employment.

I agree. Very good points.

GA. I agree. Not a good idea to bad mouth former supervisors under any circumstances. Sometimes being too honest is a bad thing. I just was having trouble finding a way to be neutral.

I do like the phrase you used, though. About her not being there to defend herself. That's very good. I'm going to use that strategy.

Thank you, all.

While mentioning the issue with your former manager might not hurt you, at best I don't see that it would be very helpful but at worst it could keep you from being hired. Why take the chance?

I suggest avoiding the topic, stay positive and present yourself as looking for new opportunities.

Quite simply state you had a fundamental disagreement on XXXXX and you found it impossible to continue working with her.

Could this have had anything to do with your leaving?

"The whole crew was quite fed up with her,"

My advice is to be yourself, and be honest.

Good luck.

No, the her aspect had zero to do with the situation. Management style and lack of experience had everything to do with it. There were two major reasons. One, she was prone to being in a panic with regard to deadlines (more so than was called for). This spread through the dept. And two, she concentrated her focus on irrelevant aspects of the projects. i.e. nit-picky aesthetics, over function and reliability. The instructions we were given would take time away from making the system work properly, or cause bad relations with vendors.

For instance, we had some brackets made for a very well known semiconductor company. My vendor left some insignificant tooling marks on most of the 200 parts. The parts were needed quickly by our customer. I had them done on time but then, she insisted to call meetings with the vendor and demand that they remake them. This led to all kinds of problems, particularly because the vendor had done me a favor in making them quickly, and they made almost nothing on the transaction. In the end, they agreed to remake them, but all bridges were burned. And then our customer got the parts late and was upset.

Final straw was when the customer was finally shown the original rejected parts, they couldn't have cared less about the tooling marks. Yet it was my project, so there could be no excuses. I'd delivered them late, plus caused bad blood with the vendor.

Just a small example of many instances like this.

Anyway, interview is tomorrow. I've heard some good suggestions.

OK, OK. I know the type. Don't blame you.

Know the new company and how you can make it better.

Good luck, be yourself and be an engineer, you'll be fine.

No, I would not do that. As an interviewer and I see someone complaining about their boss or their boss's style and I immediately realize their are two sides to this story. The prospective employee may genuinely feel that his story is right, but I would always be wondering what the other side of the story is.

There are just too many people looking for work and if I had any doubts about someone's ability to be supervised I would pass. The last thing I would want as an employer is someone that is a loose cannon on my team.

I've had my share of these people and I am confident that every other manager or leader has seen their share, too.

Find other reasons to give for leaving that job.

Lastly, if anyone asks you if you ever had a bad supervisor, watch out! That is a trick question. Even if you hated your boss and are asked about how you worked together, find positive things to say about them and don't mention the negative. If you are cornered into providing a bad example of your boss's work, find something innocent and amusing like he always left a coffee ring on my desk, etc.

A bad supervisor is a personal perspective, and as long as they are not painted all bad there should be little problem with suggesting ways they did not be as successful as you will be. We call it 'constructive criticism'.

I would never say a boss I had was useless, but with every one I saw instances of management which could have been better performed in a different way.

The example above should be put in the 'this was the way the company decided to do it, here is how I'd have approached the issue' method, showing much thought on the part of the interviewee.

What I wonder in this case is: if the parts could be shown to the recipient after the event, why were they not taken before the delay, with the suggestion that they perhaps would not be suitable, but were the best possible in the tight timescale?

(Amazing how much better solutions can appear in hindsight)

I totally agree that complaining about your previous boss is a bad idea. But lying about the reason for resigning is not a good idea either.

I think it is okay to tell the reason for resigning honestly, but it is absolutely essential to be dispassionate in your speech about the past. Showing emotion is the problem, and any sign of antagonism is very bad.

It is necessary to speak respectfully but also to be objective and honest.

Don't forget, the new employer is very likely to call on that old company to hear their comments before hiring.

Ouch. Your description makes my stomach churn -- that's a rough postion to be put in.

Good luck on the interview.

I had one boss like that... with a prototype machined product for a customer.. but after the vendor had purchased a large stock of custom material, and had started machining it, my boss told me to call the vendor and notify them that we were only paying 900$ instead of the 1400$ we had agreed to... and guaranteeing that the vendor made no profit at all.. and my boss knew that this machinist was a small company and couldn't afford such things.

I was completely infuriated.. things went down hill in a hurry after that... to have no scruples is one thing... but to force me to enact his unscrupulous behaviours was excruciating and intolerable. I was young enough then to think that a boss had me by the short curlies.

Chris

Allow me to play Devil's advocate to both Chris's and AP1's scenario. There is a possibility that the branches of the business that you were working for were deemed unrewarding and expendable to the company. Your managers may have been doing their jobs of girdling the department to make it easier to terminate those who remained.

This is why I recommended pointing out that there had to be another side to AP1's micro management problem. There is even the possibility that AP1's manager's poor managing skills were precisely why she was picked to manage a branch to be pruned.

That would be pretty Machiavellian. But if you think that's bad, then there's Kafkaesque!

Machiavellian, indeed.

Yes, my idea is very Machiavellian. I agree that it is unlikely to be a true scenario in any size organization, least of all a small business firm. But Machiavelli wrote his book for the powerful De Medici family. Many MBA programs include "The Prince" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" in their curriculum. So I wouldn't say that my idea is impossible, just unlikely.

Then he's better off out of a company with such brainless upper management.

It might be an idea to check how the previous employer is going. If it's doing poorly it obviates the need for anything except 'the writing was on the wall and I couldn't bear to stay and be part of that'.

You Devil you!

Nah, nothing so Cloak & Dagger, nor conspiratorial.

There were no branches to this company. It was four engineers, a couple drafters and a manager, plus the machine shop. No giant corporation here.

I must admit, I'm somewhat bemused by the several of you that continue to suspect there was something far more complex about this than simply a poorly trained and inexperienced middle manager that got in over her head and made bad decisions. Is this truly such an unlikely scenario? I don't believe I've been particularly rabid or vengeful in my description of her. Sour grapes? Not sure I see that in any sense. I'm beginning to think there would have been no way to describe the facts of the matter, without a few of you suspecting Disgruntled Employee Syndrome, regardless of how I put it.

Not sure where this implied reverence of supervisors is coming from. I had people under me. My manager had someone over her. I quit due to someones inability to do a good job. One of the links in the chain was not skilled. Does my personal choice to prefer to work for a better run company really so strongly suggest that there are all these mysterious complications and ulterior motives? That the manager was actually good, but ____. They wanted to get rid of me, so they secretly ____. I had a vendetta, so I _____. Etc.

Boy oh boy, people. C'mon. Chill. Thank you for your suggestions, but really. Is my description really so unlikely to be simply that? Holy smokes.

Will my current defensiveness now, predictably, be seen as more proof to your theories? I'm going to set some mental odds on that.

I'm not deriding you in particular Redfred. Just finally countering the general cynicism, to a simply explained simple circumstance. It's kind of interesting, in a social case-study kind of way.

It is the main recruitment function of HR to weed out those designated as unsuitable, be in age, colour, origin, over qualification, etc. AND find a legal way to ensure the management get what they want, without law suits.

My first job (while still at school) was in a shoe shop. The manager was not keen on 'ethnic minorities', so chose to get a selection of shoes brought to the office for the interview, including one pair made from pig skin. Easy end to interview when the interviewee refused even to touch the goods!

I also went for certain tests in an attempt to work for a bank, in their computer centre. Tests went well, I was called for interview. A full 4hrs, of air conditioned comfort ending with being introduced to the head of department - in his smoke-filled office. End of line: never could be comfortable in a smoky room.

When I had a bad manager - or at least one who was about to make a very bad decision - I made enough of a fuss for them to escalate the event to the next level, then the final word came from above, and both sides knew what the company felt was right.

OK. Don't get me wrong here, as I've been there done that....
But your example smacks of deliberately engineered conflict. After the event you showed the customer the 'reject' parts...D'uh? Why? Why didn't you show them in the first place, or suggest it to the manager, or simply ignore them or take it over their head.
Note an important point here, I do not mention the manager's gender.
I had an idiot manager once and my technical director effectively said 'give them enough rope and they will hang themselves' that was bad advice, I ended up getting stitched up and leaving anyway.
Maybe you were fed up with trying to support the mangaer and gave up in the end...but the example you give could be interpreted as reflecting badly on you.
You said it was 'your project' well you should have done what you knew was right...if the excrement hit the fan, senior management should have backed you, if they didn't, then is the time to leave.
Hmmm sorry if this sounds preachy, that's why I've posted anonymously.
Anyhow, this illustrates why you need to be V careful at interview.
I P Freely

Post #28 claims that the customer spotted the original parts, which led to the admission that these were the reject parts.

There are always two sides to a story. It's hard to dig out the real story when only one side is presented.

The reason I originally stated that it would be best to not bring up the story about the "bad" manager is because it raises suspicions when only one side of a story is presented.

Additionally, the first post had a taste of sour grapes to it, which further raises red flags to me.

One simple interview trick is to goat the prospect on about possible sore issues in previous jobs. Human nature tends to rule the day when this happens and some ugly things can surface in the discourse. The keen interviewer will let the person keep rolling (or even encourage them) and before long the prospect starts to detect the strong taste of shoe leather in their mouth, but it is much too late.

In some cases some individuals never notice the taste of shoe leather and suffer long periods of unemployment.

I'm going to guess this wasn't the case, as spending three hours with an interviewee whom you even suspect of such dastardliness, doesn't usually make a lot of good business sense.

I may not get the job. They may speak to someone even more qualified than I. But I don't suspect there was any such psychological gamesmanship going on during the interview.

I think my explanation was accepted at face value. Perhaps my honesty and integrity came through for me!

Just sayin'

I wish you luck with the interview. Please keep us updated with any news.

By the way, it is a good idea to ask for feedback in the event that you do not get it. It is a good way to find out if there is something you said or did that made the difference or if you have a bad reference out there.

It is also a way to put in one last shot at the job. If you know what attribute or criteria that they found objectionable you might be able to make a case for reconsidering you. Tenacity is a trait that employers like!

I wouldn't worry about the HR contingent around here - absolutely 100% correct. A GA is on its way to you.

LOL. Simply ignore my manager, and do it anyway? I know that you are saying this due to personal experience, and you're only trying to help, but that has got to be the worst advice I've ever heard.

That would not have been good for my career, and is rarely the smart thing to do. Even if I had, I would have needed to do it on a constant basis. This wasn't one single instance. Bad decisions and bad orders were the norm.

As far as the customer seeing the original parts, I clearly stated that they happened to notice them on a shelf. I didn't "show" them the parts. There was no deliberately engineered conflict. More conflicts were the last thing I desired. But going all covert and needing to "hide" the parts was simply not anticipated as having been necessary. It was pure chance, that the subject came up again after the project was done.

And I'm not sure why deliberately hiding the manager's gender would be an issue. This was hardly something based on gender. To be purposely ambiguous about gender would have been sexist. Like there was something wrong with this manager being female, and it needed to be concealed. Her being female was entirely irrelevant to the situation. A pronoun needed to be used in my question. And in this case, grammatically, the correct pronoun was "she".

Anything you say that implies a negative experience with your former boss is going to raise red flags!

Diplomacy wins the day here. You are in a tricky situation because any prospective employer is going to be wondering what exactly happened here when you say you are no longer working.

Saying that you quit because you were unhappy with the management style raises the question "Are you even manageable?"

The flip side is "why are you not working now? What's wrong with you?"

If possible, frame your position as; I was not being challenged in my last position, my commute was too long, there was no room for advancement, the company was not growing, you wanted to work for a better company, or you were underpaid for your position. Find reasons like these that are at least somewhat true and use them.

Consider that every reason given has a possible adverse side effect. For instance, you can't claim the commute was too long if the new position you are interviewing for is of equal distance or further. Be careful with your responses so that you do not paint yourself in a corner.

Never talk badly about a previous employer or supervisor. It leaves a bad taste in the interviewer's mouth. Be gracious for the opportunities you had and be sure to emphasize the positive things you have learned. Make a list of those things!

Talk to your former boss. Ask him what he will say if called by a prospective new employer. If he has sour grapes the best time to learn that is now and not after he has given a poor accounting of his feelings about you to a your interviewing team.

My best advice would be to buy the book "Knock 'Em Dead" by Martin Yate. This book is worth its weight in gold. Read it and make notes!

I agree with pretty much everything you said. The jury seems about 50/50 split here, on that issue. To be respectful and vague, or to tell it like it is.

But, I WILL take exception with your suggestion that an interviewer would think "why are you not working now? What's wrong with you?", and use that as a basis to hire or not hire. I think that line of thinking is horrendously irresponsible. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't even want to work for someone who thinks like that, and would even question their character. The hiring manager that has that kind of attitude is doing his company no favors. And on top of that, that company would probably have a huge turn-over rate, because this guy is such a pretentious @hole.

Granted, if a capable engineer is slumming it on welfare for a year and a half, that's one thing. But for the typical situation of an unemployed joe, no, I don't agree with that at all.

Bravo. Remember this is a mutual interview. You are trying to present yourself as a potential asset to this possible employer. The employer should also be presenting themselves as a respectable firm both worthy of your services and looking long term to use you.

If they had the attitude that anyone without work was not worthy of working, they would not even call that candidate to interview - unless they were trying to find out how the competitor was doing, or some other research.

I used to live in a poor part of town, and went to the Job Centre in the city, as there was always more choice there. I went for interview with one company, the sole reason for them calling me in was to find out if the employment agency was restricting the sites where that job was advertised! (and he specifically told me that!!)

I will never be surprised, but will always be saddened by the lack of ethics that can be found in the workplace. But, that is just humanity, isn't it.

You wrote, "I think that line of thinking is horrendously irresponsible."

Welcome to the real world. Nobody said it is going to be fair. There are plenty of qualified engineers looking for work (more now then ever). You get 6 seconds to make a favorable first impression and the rest of the interview is mostly about determining if you can solve their problems.

It is immaterial if the process they use to screen you appears to be fair or not. You have to convince them that you are the best candidate for the job. There will be a large stack of resumes on their desk and you will have to learn how to get yours on the top of the stack. How do you see yourself doing that?

You wrote, "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't even want to work for someone who thinks like that..."

Believe me, you will get more opportunities to not work than to work. I would not be worried that you might get hired with that attitude.

You next employer has these things in mind:

1. Are you manageable? No boss wants someone that is running open loop behind their back or second guessing them. Managers have enough to do and no time to baby sit. Can you be shown the goal post and get there on time and on budget or do you need to be hand held the whole way?

2. Are you a team player? No one wants someone that will not work with the team. If you prefer working alone, start a sole proprietorship. Employers want the new employee to fit into their culture and contribute, not divide the team or make the team miserable.

3. Are you motivated? Do you have a spirit to win or are you just looking for a paycheck? Employers want employees that love a challenge and see the end goal as a game to be won. They want someone that is hungry to take on the project, but tempered by points 1 and 2.

4. Are you a problem solver? Everyone applies for the same job; tinker, soldier, spy. Everyone is a problem solver. Employers want someone that can solve a set of complex problems, which means that they want someone that is a bit of a visionary when they see a set of problems and starts automatically considering solutions.

5. Technical skills. Important, but the other four points usually take priority in the hiring decision. More important is are you teachable? Most interviewers take your skill set pretty much for granted. They figure that you got this far in life and your resume should contain a laundry list of requirements. You can't accomplish that without being technically useful, so the next question is, can you adapt and lean new things?

Lastly, I am not being critical of you in this post. However, you must be critical of you. Read this post and look at yourself in the proverbial mirror and see yourself as someone who might potentially hire you.

But, I WILL take exception with your suggestion that an interviewer would think "why are you not working now? What's wrong with you?", and use that as a basis to hire or not hire.

While I agree that this is unfortunate, it is recognized as the way things are. Age discrimination is also widely practiced, albeit unethical and illegal. Many HR departments are far worse than you may imagine. People who are not seen as "high potential" are "managed out," meaning that they are deliberately given low review ratings, warned that they must "improve", and then given low ratings again... regardless of their level of improvement. Companies are a better acquisition candidate if they are "lean", so there is pressure to get rid of employees, even if it is for no particularly good reason. Documenting "low performance" on reviews reduces the likelihood of lawsuits.

Almost every company believes that they get rid of their low performers and keep their high performers. They believe that this happens at other companies, too. So when they see an unemployed worker, they see "low performer". In most companies, with an influx of hundreds of resumes for each position, unemployed people don't make it to a human screening -- they are tossed automatically.

Our OP evidently has a lot to offer, because they are interviewing him despite being unemployed.

I agree that it should not be this way, but it is indeed the way it is.

I hereby defend and reinforce my earlier opinion. I think that any interviewer who would shrink from this potential employee, on the basis of the original account, is horrifyingly incompetent. (Out of frying pan, into fire.)

On the contrary, anybody trying to sugar-coat such a situation would look to me like an abject asskisser and excuse-maker, and would cause me to think twice.

Dilbert lives! And because of cowardly attitudes like some in this thread, dopey pointy-haired bosses still rule. For a while, maybe.

But how come whole crew fail to dislocate Her from position if they all feel she is always wrong, Don't you think it is a big failure for crew?

HAHA! I mean absolutely no disrespect, rakesh, but that is a truly humorous and curious comment. If you are serious, and I assume you are, I have to wonder if this is a perfect example of a major cultural workplace difference between the USA and India.

Is that really the way it would work in your country? I couldn't imagine a situation, except under some truly bizarre circumstances, where a department could mutiny and dislocate a manager from his or her position. Companies are autocracies, not democracies. That would be justice served, but rarely is there justice in an autocracy. The more likely result would be people quitting, like I did. That may eventually result in the manager being fired, but less drastic measures normally won't be enough to convince a company president to fire a manager simply because the employees say so. A president is not privy to all the details that go on at department level. And they usually don't want to know. Results are their main concern.

How would that happen in India? And how would it be seen as a failure of the department personnel if they weren't able to get rid of a bad manager?

Human behaviour across the nations is more or less same so lets not go in that debate, Absolutely there is no intentions of getting any humor from the problem that you are looking to solve,Your pain is my pain so My best wishes for your future interview,Your answer suggest that you and your team have nothing to do or cant do anything with the fact that you got an incompetent boss, But does it sounds good to health of company your were working for?Question I posed was bit sharper as I wanted to have a look on the other side of coin.And its bit difficult to turn the coin without use of nail as it was laying on opaque glass surface.

Once again my good wishes for future And wish you an excellent boss this time, But before joining any new position I advcice you dont forget to think like a devils advocate, How about if your new boss a like of previous or your ex boss join the same company that you are going to join in near future.

Good luck,

I agree that, unless one is independently wealthy or married to a spouse who brings in enough income to support the household, he or she should always find a new position before leaving the last one. If the stress level becomes intolerable; however, sometimes one must choose to leave in spite of the risk of being unemployed for an extended period of time. Life is full of risks, but if you are sharp enough to have been a Sr. Mechanical Engineer, I feel confident that you will be just fine. I would attempt to avoid negativity by answering that you want to grow in your profession and it was time for a change. Here is a quote from Michelangelo that you could use: "I am still learning." You might even sign up for a course in the evenings to prove your point. The last impression you want to leave is that you were a disgruntled, stubborn employee who couldn't be a team player. Also, it sounds like you've got a great relationship with your customers - one of them (who already know you and your talents) might want to hire you! Wouldn't that be poetic justice if your old, inexperienced boss had to kiss up to you in your new job, lol? You sound like a terrific guy - I am extremely impressed with your reply to Lyn's remark about "her" - Please correct me if I'm wrong, Lyn, but that sure looked like a sexist remark - not cool at all or even close to smart in 2011 (or ever). Anyway, best of luck to you and I'll say a little prayer for your success and happiness in your new job :)!

Keep it positive and remember that the old boss may be called for references and to check your story. Be honest and up front in how you expect a work relationship with your boss to work. (been there done that)

you outgrow your last job, and you did need a bigger environment to grow.

Good luck.

On another note, I read a really short book some time ago about management, it was called "The One Minute Manager". Even if you are not the boss, it might be good book to read. It teaches some empowering strategies for subordinates, but is good for subordinates to read too (so they get the message clearly).

Sounds like it went very well. I hope you get an offer.

I'm glad to hear that it went well and that we were helpful in giving you a sound approach. I wish you the best of luck.

Make sure you send a thank you note to each of your interviewers. They've blocked off their own {expensive} time for you. I don't know anyone who likes conducting an interview.

"Everyone knows that guy is a massive A**hole... I gave him 2 years of the best of my life... until it came down to a 'him or me' situation.. then I left, deeming that to be the only fair way back to sanity, work satisfaction, and staying out of jail for homicide... (wink)"

"Respect is more important to me than money!" If the respect goes, then so do I.

"I'm a golden rule kind of guy... and I definitely put up with a lot from that person before I quit... Any sane man would could do no better. I have no regrets."

best wishes

Chris

ps.. it is always a good idea to have some stats... for example.. the last place I quit had a 75% turnover in 2 years, all because of the boss.. who was that kind of a**.

:)

Hold on a second. You're from Canada, Chris. Do NOT tell me there are @holes in Canada! EVERYONE is so NICE there! Eh? That's aboot he last thing I expected to hear

there are a lot fewer licenses for concealed weapons than some other countries, so we feel safer talking about it...

Let's see. Convected felon versus concealed carry holder. Both have their fingerprints on record. Both have had extensive background checks. Both may be packing.

Which one would you rather have your daughter out with?

The Canadian?

Canadian felon or CCWL Canadian?

Well now there you go again - obfuscation to an introduced second tier variable.

Ok, gooses and gander: the one that respects her enough not to expose her to the dangers implicit in him needing to be armed.

_{Cops get shot at too}

Strong, Ky.

We don't need to have the OK Corral scenario repeated in every neighborhood when someone's dog craps on the neighbor's lawn. But, how did this turn into a debate about the question of whether we should all become Wyatt Earp, and run around packing heat? I thought we were talking about a tactful way to explain that I left a job because an ex-boss was incompetant.

I know! It's THE CANADIAN'S FAULT!!

Well, you get that around here. Once something has closed, sort of, one gets back to what one wants to talk about, other than work. That's just the life cycle of a thread. Nothing personal.

Perhaps we should start a new thread entitled: SHOULD AMERICA GO BACK TO SETTLING AND/OR DEFERRING DISPUTES BY HAVING EVERY SINGLE PERSON CARRY FIREARMS AT ALL TIMES?

_{(It is in The U.S. Constitution, you know. Founding Fathers, and all that)}

But then again, that has nothing to do with Engineering.

Actually it does.

Many markets would grow.

Lot's of innovations in bullet resistant technology - so bullets to defeat it.

Then there is the upgrades to police and military to stay ahead, in order to protect from roving gangs - or crush civil disobedience.

And lots more elections - so improved voting systems and voter protection devices and technology to be developed.

Just off the top of my head - feel free to add.

Not to mention quick draw holster technology (silicone lined?), value added color matched fashionized pistol grips (interchangable to match your outfit), economical yet tasteful coffins (family plans for cost savings in bulk purchases).

Oh, and a big boon in sales of those stainless steel surgery pans that you're required to drop the bullet into each time it's extracted from a shoulder, in impromptu surgeries. They could perhaps be monogrammed. Could design kids sizes too. With like Barney the dinosaur on them.

Also medical device engineering would get a big shot in the arm (pun intended!)

This could be the answer to our economic woes! Get people back to work!

And you're right. Much more frequent elections. Good point! Voting technologies would grow.

Vehicle use and design changes - oh what about the change in oil use?

Would you go; bullet resistant 'drive through shopping', or internet ordering and armored delivery? Whole new retail infrastructure required ay!

I'm leaning toward drive-thru shopping. More opportunity for conflict!

Well it can't be just like MacDonalds - wind down the window - get a face full of lead - so how do you invision it?

Mad MaxRoad Warrior style comes to mind. Custom attachments on your big block Chevy. And a lot of leather clothes. Hey, I'm startin to like this Everyone Carries a Weapon thing!

_{(The Constitution says we can. It's best we do.)}

There are something like 8,000 home invasions per day in the USA, according to the Justice Department studies.

Speaking of unsupported statistics, unless you are referring to locksmith propaganda

According to BJS Violent crime is down

My bad. The number of home burglaries is actually 10,000 per day, not 8,000 according to the BJS.

28% of those occurred when when the house was occupied and 7% were violent.

Yes, the crime rate has been falling, thankfully. However, we still can't leave our front doors unlocked like we did when I was a child. Here in Florida we are seeing some relief as well according to FDLE.

Personally being a victim of both violent and nonviolent crimes I now have a different view of the world than I did. I can better understand why other people do not wish to become a victim.

I will now protect my family with extreme prejudice to the full extent of the law if I have to and I am well versed on that law.

Anyway, I am way off topic and more interested in hearing the results of our job seeker's efforts than my unfavorable memories.

I wonder how long it will take for "Anonymous Hero" to be swamped by "Anonymous Poster #1", 2, 3, 4,... and goodness knows how many more. Maybe the Admins should assign really goofy avatars to all of these shrinking violets....

Some will go retro :D

I've brought my bulletproof avatar