Job application hell

Blaah.

Ok, so I'm writing this partly to vent my frustration, and partly to ask for advice/input.

A few weeks ago I went in person to deliver applications to various managers in my area. One of the managers, Khane, took my application and suggested that I go to a hiring fair at a nearby store that Thursday.

So that Thursday I go to the store and one of the managers there, Jaylese, grabs my application from the stack and calls my name and I go over. She looks at my app, pauses, and asks if I had turned in an application already at another store, I say yes, and she mentions that she had a copy of my applicaiton in her office and that she was gonna call me the next day for an interview. Apparently she got it from Melissa, a manager at one of the stores I dropped applications of at.

Anyway, she takes me over to a seat in the back and sits me down with a manager for an interview -- and I happen to end up with Khane! Anyway, she interviews me out of the flipbook, it goes well, etc., and then she says the usual "You'll probably hear within a week from someone, blah blah blah"

A week goes by, I hear nothing, so I call Khane, and she tells me that SHE'S not hiring, but that another manager took my app and she'd try to find out who. I call a couple days later, and she gives me the number of a couple nearby stores.

I call one, and the manager happens to be Jaylese. She says she didnt get my app from the hiring fair, but that she was waiting for a call from someone and she'd get back to me.

The next Monday, I get a call from Mike (the manager of the store at which they had the hiring fair). He says he talked to Jaylese and Melissa and that "due to some situatons at Melissa's store," he'd do the "second interview" for me. So he asks me to come in on Tuesday at noon, and hten Monday night he calls me to reschedule for Thursday at noon.

I show up at his store on Thurs., and he arrives 15 minutes late. He does the interview, asks a bunch of the same questions Khane asked (although he had her notes from my interview with her), and the interview ends with a very promising "give me a few days, hopefully we can work something out, etc"

So a couple weeks go by with me going back and forth wtih Mike about him touching base with other managers in the district. The whole time he keeps going on about how he's sure they can place me, it's just a question of where, etc.

Finally he calls me (on another Monday night) and says Jaylese should be giving me a call taht night or the next night. I don't hear from her at all, so on Tuesday I call her store directly and her assistant manager picks up and says Jaylese was on jury duty.

So I call Mike, and he's on the phone with Jaylese's store about the same issue, and then he calls me back to say "Oh, I guess Jaylese forgot she had jury duty when she said she'd call, so I left her a message and she should get back to you soon and hopefully we can arrange a time for you to go in and meet her this weekend" and to give him a call if I don't hear anything by Thursday.

Thursday I haven't heard anything, so I call Mike and he tells me they just had a hiring fair at his store, and Jaylese was there, and he completley forgot to talk to her about it, so he said he'd call her and try to catch her and we hung up.

Immediately after that, I called Melissa's store, mentioned that Mike said he was in talks with her about my app, she acted like she didn't know what i was taking about, but she scheduled an interview iwth me on Sunday anyway.

So yesterday I interviewed with Melissa -- it went well, she asked me questions, asked if I had questions, and did the "Ok, so let me tell you about the position you're applying for... as a barista you'll be blah blah blah, " and then she asked if she could contact my references, I said yes, and she said to give her a week and that if I don't hear from her by Sunday, to call her and she'll tell me the status of my application.

Then today I got a voicemail from Jaylese. I called her back and she basically asked about my availability, saying her morning people never leave before 10:15 and her closers don't come in after 4:15 (and on my app, my availability is from open - 9:30, and 5:00 - close). It basically ended on "oh, I guess it won't work out then, good luck!"

So... I'm really frustrated. They've been yanking my chain for about a month and I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm back at square one. Should I call Mike and ask him to get in touch with Melissa since the thing with Jaylese's store fell through? What should I make of the fact that Melissa didn't seem to recognize my name/application/explanation of the situation with Mike, etc.?

Is it usual for a manager to give an interview on such short notice and to do the whole "as a barista, you will be doing this and this and this and the dress code is this and this" schpiel?

Any advice? Thoughts? (Pity?)