Expanding the Resume

Friday, January 20, 2017

Time to redo the resume. I’m discovering a Mitch Allen with a far wider range of skills than I ever imagined. This started when one of my FB companions, a woman of my age in Oakland, found the page of someone who shared her name, a cute young stud in Germany. I decided to track down the other Mitchell (and Mitch) Allens of the world. What would my namesake family look like?

The simple answer is, we’re a big clan.

I’m glad I never tried to capture the web domain mitchallen.com, because it’s been in the hands of a Mitch Allen, web pioneer, for over 20 years. That Mitch has also written books, ones with such appealing titles as Palm webOS: The Insider's Guide to Developing Applications in JavaScript using the Palm Mojo™ Framework (Animal Guide). He obviously got all the tech DNA in this family.  I don’t know what the Palm Mojo Framework is, and I’m afraid to ask which animals. After tiring of computer packages, he moved to computer games. I now play Tic Tac Toe against Mitch Allen on my phone. He’s obviously a decent code writer—I haven’t gotten better than a stalemate with Mitch. That Mitch, unlike this one, doesn’t make mistakes.

I was hoping for better luck with mitchellallen.com The results were more akin to my own professional career. The Mitchell Allen Group calls itself a marketing consulting company based on the North Coast and East Coast. Since I’m on the Left Coast and have my own consulting business, we complement each other.  Their website is much flashier and covers things like brand position consultation and social strategy integration.  Puzzling to me is that the “Mitchell Allen” of mitchellallen.com is invisible. The only human mentioned on the website is Judy and she’s not an Allen. Is he the invisible partner? The picture of Dorian Gray?

I tried to append the new dot suffixes to mitchallen or mitchellallen. It produced nothing but “DNS address could not be found.” We Mitches have not expanded into the .net, .us, or .biz worlds. Nor have we started an Allen University-- there’s no mitchellallen.edu. Allen.com produced another computer pioneer, but he was a Cliff and passed away in 2012. Still, he had two books published by John Wiley, not something I can claim.

I’m rapidly dropping in ranking as the most successful progeny of my namesake family.

I tried Allenmitchell.com next. Tthey are hyphenated Allen-Mitchell and a “fully equipped, 16,000 square foot general service machine shop, specializing in repair and service to commerical (sic) and industrial mechanical equipment.”  They live on the wrong side of the tracks in northeast Washington DC. Still, they are strategically positioned in the triangle between Catholic, Gallaudet, and Howard Universities, not a bad location for Scholarly Roadside Service if we ever needed a Right Coast office. I wasn’t wild about the corrugated tin roof, but there is a charter school across the street to provide us with interns and a couple of real roadside service businesses down the street.  

I can now add to my resume some expertise in culinary arts. This is a step up for someone who does best with grilled cheese sandwiches and barbequed burgers.  My namesake in Orange County CA is a “Private Chef, Certified Sommelier, and Estate Manager for High Profile Families.” Basically he lives with rich people and cooks dinner for their kids and guests. The other Mitch the Chef runs Chef Allen’s Dinner Experience, which is close to the DC machine shop and could probably feed the Scholarly Roadside staff once we get set up there.  

Athletic skills? Mitch Allen played football for University of Louisville, or was it Adams State. Probably the latter because that Mitch had a 3.6 grade average. He throws an 89 mph fastball in a Phoenix high school, scored a goal against Tufts for the Middlebury hockey team, and is the U18 goalkeeper for Stoke City. Probably the closest Mitch the Athlete is the welterweight boxer who is recorded to have had 24 bouts and was knocked out 15 times. My kind of guy. There is now a Mitchell Allen Boxing Club on Haverford Ave in Philadelphia, which I assume was his next move after he regained consciousness.  And so the resume grows.

I’m glad that so many Mitchell Allens just use Mitch, as I do. Somehow, it’s not a name to be formal with.

Maybe the most famous Mitch spells his name wrong, as Allan. But he is a record producer, songwriter, and musician with his own Wikipedia page.  He was frontman for the early 2000s group SR-71 (also a US Air Force reconnaissance plane) and has worked with people like Kelly Clarkson, Faith Hill, Backstreet Boys, and Miley Cyrus. I confess I don’t have any of his music, so I went looking for some. He cowrote Fastlane, which includes some prophetic words for its singer Lindsey Lohan:

So don’t wish upon a star

Cuz star can only get you so far.

Mitchell Allen is a TV actor who appeared in the memorable production of Guess Who’s Coming for Christmas? and the series Alien Nation. Another Mitchell Allen is production assistant in a couple of equally forgettable movies.  Hollywood isn’t a big thing in the Mitch family; I left LA 30 years ago and haven’t looked back. The real Movie Star Mitch may be “themitchallen” (his Instagram handle), a 30-something who has over 1000 followers and has posted endless photos of golf, California beaches, parties with his bros and attractive young women, and of his floppy dog Mo. I need to learn from “themitchallen” how to be a cool California dude.

There are several Mitch Allens in real estate, a gastroenterologist in South Carolina, a Texas cattle buyer, an architectural photographer, a sci fi writer, and a farmer in Saskatchewan.  The law firm of Allen, Mitchell, & Allen was a bit confusing until I found out that that represented Eric, Kareema, and Scott respectively. They do call center compliance.

I was a bit worried about the user experience (UX) professional who used to work in San Francisco. Don’t those time travel movies warn you not to run into yourself while you’re bouncing between centuries? Something bad happens to the universe or history or the future when Mitch Allen comes across Mitch Allen in Union Square. I just don’t remember what. We’re safer now with him working in Las Vegas, though with all those Mitch Allens running around North America, I probably should read up on the consequences of bumping into one at Target.

Like any family, we have a few black sheep. If you ignore “themitchallen,” we still have Mitchell Allen Garris, a registered sex offender in Florida. I’d pawn him off on the Garris family.  Mitchell Allen Auto Sales in Henderson NV is infamous to have a claim of fraud posted for some shifty dealings on auto loans. One Mitch lists his job as Industrial Operations Manager at a piping company in Nashville, but claims himself as “purveyor of awesomeness.” Not sure I want to claim kinship there. But otherwise we’re a nice bunch. And we have enough Mitchell Allen Esq. lawyers to protect us when we aren’t.

We’re liked. For example, Donna Schwartz reports, “Bought my 2010 Lexus from Mitchell Allen (the car dealer in Montgomery AL). Through the process, I couldn't have asked for anyone to be more helpful.”  Or the real estate agent in Boise “Known as a top producer in sales, Mitch has been able to bring his successful techniques to his management career, inspiring new licensees and experienced agents as well.”

I had planned to redo the resume with some or all of these added to it, except maybe the registered sex offender. What an impressive document it would be! Even if I stay with only academic credentials, I could beef things up a lot. Research Gate periodically asks me about publications by M Allen (thank you APA style guide), and wonders if they belong to me. I could add things like “A meta-analysis of common factor and specific treatment effects across the outcome domains of the phase model of psychotherapy” and “Advancing the use of minirhizotrons in wetlands.” I’ve long been in favor of the use of minirhizotrons, especially in psychotherapy. I did once consider adding a few pieces in the disciplinary journals from fellow archaeologist Mark Allen, another M Allen. His publication record is far more prolific than mine.

More likely, I’ll just leave the CV as is. Well, maybe I’ll add one or two tidbits, like Developer of Unbeatable Tic Tac Toe App for iPhones. Instead, I’m going to contact a few of my dopplegangers and ask them to contribute to this blog. After all, if the column is by Mitch Allen, who will be the wiser, even if it’s about minirhizotronic psychotherapy.

Next post: A "Name That Mitch" contest. Stay tuned....

Back to Scholarly Roadkill Blog