Bosses are idiots -- this one anyway

I had my share of good bosses and some bad bosses. There was an accounting manager in my early days that wrote me up in my review for being five minutes late in the morning. But there are by far more positive examples to offset them. There was Kathleen hired me at Octel (the voicemail equipment company bought by Lucent), showed me her appreciation in my passion in international work; and there was Rose that hired me at BEA, after my three-year hiatus from the work force, at the bottom of the economy, gave me the chance to get back on track; and then there was my mentor at BEA, guided me to a promotion which jump started my assorted adventures since last year. My ex-manager at BEA takes the cake. When you are unemployed, double unemployed, people don't call you back (or don't call you at all) for the jobs you are interested in, running out of medical benefits, you tend to start "network", diligently. So logically I go back to the companies and the managers I worked for before, that I respect and expect them to lend me a helping hand. First, I called this manager, he was not aware of any openings but asked me to send him my resume any way and he'll look around. Second, couple of days later I found on Monster.com an opening in HIS own area. I wrote him a very sincere email, please, pretty please, consider me. Third, he replied, confirmed he was the hiring manager; but (the BUT) I don't have experience using the particular software application. Excuse, big fat lie. And he very kindly referred me to HR. Fourth, I talked to his staff, confirmed the application is not hard to learn, then wrote him again, pleading my case. And by the way in case I failed to qualify for any opening at BEA, would you please be my reference? Fifth and final, he came back today and politely said, my competitions are "super users" of the software, and they have the "desired skill-set". How people are afraid of making mistakes. They want to take the safe route, hire the people that can do the work in front of their noses, and that will more than likely the end of the ability as well. Somewhere someone believes that a good analyst is not a super user, a machine operator.