Business vs. Bizness

Let me tell you the frustrating thing about job-hunting in 2012.  I don't even understand what half of these companies sell!

It's not at all like looking for a job in 2001, which is the last time I was out there searching.  There doesn't seem to be that many businesses out there that sell tangible products anymore.  There's no, "This is a shirt. See, it has sleeves?  We're gonna sell it to someone with arms." or, "This is a car. You drive it from place to place so you can get there much faster than you could walking.  What our company does is sell these to people with long ways to go." or, "See that sick person?  He's our customer. See that other person going home? We made him better.  This is what we do."

Business has become "bizness".  Not only are today's products not tangible, but they're not even comprehensible.  When I'm on the job search sites and click on a company's wesbsite to better understand what it is that they do (another thing no one did during my last stint with unemployment), I usually wind up even more confused.  I find that these companies are marketing invisible things like information, media, data, talent, technologies and ideas.  There are accompanying pictures of young energetic people with very white teeth in very uncomfortable-looking suits.  What they do with these products you can't touch is beyond me, but they seem to make money doing it.  I guess a perk to selling an invisible inventory is no heavy lifting.  So, their employees might possess much healthier backs and knees than I, but still.  I don't know how I can administratively assist a company whose product I can't physically see.  It's very, very... SO VERY confusing to me.

I have a recurring daymare (that's a nightmare you have while you're awake, daydreaming) that I'm in a job interview, in the "bizness" industry, and I ask them what kind of business it is that they do.  I don't understand their technically overt lingo and am naive enough to tell them that maybe they need to explain it more plainly on their website because the layman can't understand what type of company they are.  Their mission statement is just a jumble of buzz words pieced together, trying to sound important, smarty pants and high tech.  They mistake my naive honesty for brazenness and appoint me CEO.  Months later, I sit behind a mahogany desk and realize that it still hasn't been explained to me what my company sells.  I'm beginning to suspect that nobody else knows either and that I've been hired as a scapegoat until the bottom falls out.  So, I promptly resign and get a job at Pet Supplies Plus selling dog food.  Because I know of dogs and exactly what food is.

I'm looking for a job that when people asks what industry I work in, I can say, "______" and they know what that is.  Even grandmothers.  Let's not confuse my grandmother!  Companies need products that can be put into boxes.  Loaded onto trucks, boats, planes and trains.  Touched and felt.  That have on buttons and off switches.  That can be put together with other products to build something. That can be seen or read or smelled or eaten.

Maybe that means I'll have to settle for less money working for one of these old-fashioned corporations, but at least I won't go home confused at the end of the day.  If somebody tells me they'd like me to work for their office specializing in communications,  data management, intelligence or "peace of mind", I'll be sure to ask them if that comes gift wrapped.

I'd rather work for the one who sells the bees than the one who sells the buzz.