"I'll keep your resume on file."

What job-seeker hasn't heard that one before? It's like someone telling you that they hope you can "still be friends" after a breakup. You know what it means. It's a lie that's supposed to soften a rejection and it doesn't. You know what? I'm not friends with any of my ex-boyfriends. In the event of a break up, I wanted to kick their asses, not go out for coffee and a chat. And the resume file? That would be a recycling bin. (And hopefully not a garbage can. At least reject me in an environmentally sensitive way.)

I have heard the "we'll keep your resume on file" bit a handful of times over the last several months as I have been looking (and looking, and looking) for a job. I heard it last summer from somebody who I happened to have a phone conversation with last week about some other issue. She wondered why my name was familiar and I told her that she knows me because she's an idiot and rejected me. Well, not really. I said something that sounded very professional and imminently employable. Then I heard her shuffle some papers and behold! She read me a line from my resume.

She had apparently actually kept it on file.

Now I find myself wondering just what her resume file looks like. When I was in high school and would encounter the "resume on file" bit in my attempts at low-paying jobs, I at first naively thought that people kept file folders with resumes that they paged through occasionally. Can't you see it? A manager of a video store sips coffee on her break and needs something to read. So she goes to the resume file. And of course, she sees mine and wonders why she didn't hire me.

I got over that fantasy quickly. Especially when I realized that the manager of a video store may not be the type to spontaneously read pages that are not mostly pictures. Ooh, I'm such a snob! But it's okay. When they handed me my graduate school diploma, it also came with a Certificate of Entitlement to Snobbery in a lovely pleather case.

But back to the woman who actually has a resume file. Clearly, I will have to get hired by her so I can sneak into her office and try to find the file. Perhaps I should ingratiate myself to her by sending her a gift of some manila folders imprinted with a picture of me. I won't just be in the file. I'll be the file.

In other news: This is my 100th post. It seems significant. Just thought I'd mention it in case you want to send gifts. Don't worry: Registry information will be forthcoming.