Nuts. I just did something that, as much as I loathed doing it, was probably necessary.

Joe M's cousin Michelle has provided my resume to some departments at the University of Pennsylvania, but they all have told her "overqualified" so far.

Bob and Joe suggested that I "dumb down" the resume.

I really hated to do that, considering that I've worked my BUTT off for the past 19 years (yeah, I can't believe it's that long either!) and darn it, I've earned the right to declare every last syllable of what's on that resume.

But they were right. Even with the tweaks I made to the version of the resume that I have set up for Office Support/Administrative Assistant positions, it still read too much like "former techie who's been thrust into this line of work".

I've kept the IT version of my resume intact. That's where all the tons of techie stuff would be considered an asset, not something that would overqualify me for a job.

But for the Office Support version of the resume... well, I just edited it to make it look less like "ex-techie stuck in a new field" and more like "See? I have all the office support skills you need". And now a prospective employer will have an easier time FINDING the office support stuff because, on the first page, that's pretty much all that's left.

Words just can't describe how much I despised hitting that delete key on some of the skills that I worked so hard to acquire. But I've got to get my foot in the door SOMEHOW on some of these potential job openings. What's the point of having all these skills if my resume gets tossed aside, for having too much on it, after one brief glance?

I know it had to be done, and I did it. But I feel like that scene in 1776, where Benjamin Franklin and John Adams are lamenting the large number of changes that the Continental Congress has been proposing to Thomas Jefferson's original version of the Declaration of Independence. Adams complained, "They won't be satisfied until they remove one of the Fs from Jefferson's name!"

I'd like to tell the Declaration Committee that I feel their pain right about now.