The Columbia Publishing Course’s website and promotional material proudly waves its flag about its incredibly high rates of job placement. Well, I’ve spoken to a fair portion of my former classmates, and I can report that the graduating class of 2001 has not enjoyed the “Extensive career placement support (over 90% placement rate)” that lured us.

In fact, I’m starting to realize that RPC/CPC’s boasted 90% job placement is a load of crap: if that’s the rate for the last 10 years or so, then NO SHIT job placement was 90%: job placement WITHOUT CPC was at 90% thanks to the booming economy. A monkey could get a job in the ’90s–and if the monkey could type, well, the job likely involved stock options and a launch party with free brand-coordinated champagne. The time for CPC to really show its job placement grit would be this year, when the economy is hard, and guess what? CPC hasn’t done shit. Well, maybe a few little raisinette turds here and there (I think roughly 25% have jobs), but on the whole, I’m not impressed by CPC’s feces production.

That said, I still have no regrets about taking the course. How else would I have met Ashley, Amanda, Terra, Nikki, Shiuan, Kevin, Amy, and all the others? How else would I have had funny encounters with playful offended authors and blushing editors? No regrets.

Only snide criticisms.

Snide criticisms that, knowing my luck, somebody who shouldn’t will find via a search engine.

And, for those who are wondering about MY job search, here’s the latest. Amazon has not returned calls or emails for the last week regarding the position I inquired about, which leads me to assume they’re not interested. Nor have I heard from my primary editor there lately. I’m hoping everything is ok…I have to wonder if they found out about my and Jeff Bezos‘ affair. He promised not to tell!

I also have my resume in at four different agencies, including The Write Stuff, Sakson and Taylor, Linda Werner, and Volt–and that’s in addition to my usual agency, Creative Assets. I’ve made follow-up phone calls, but life seems to be tough all over.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel! Dear Tony Dowler, a fellow blogger who I ran into at The Globe, suggested that there could be work at the company he works for. And there’s even the possibility of telecommuting. This is the best news I’ve heard in weeks. We’ll see, but for now, a lesson: blogs are not just for getting you in trouble! Sometimes they can actually help you find opportunities. But a lot of times they just get you in trouble. (smirk)