A Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk

I’ve started this post 4 times but am just too incensed to make it cohesive.

I had a conversation that I enjoyed with a recruiter a couple days ago. It doesn’t happen often. We went back and forth about my resume (including a couple conversations and a round of constructive edits.) We spoke about a couple of different opportunities, what I’m looking for, etc. Nice, 20,000 foot, thorough.

So today I was supposed to go in to Manhattan and talk with him for a bit. This is one of those steps that lots of headhunters are too busy to pay attention to, but it really distinguishes individuals from the throngs of people whose only qualification to be a recruiter is their failure of the American Used Car Sales Association’s ethics exam. So far I like this guy. He wasn’t blowing sunshine up my ass and he had a reasonable work ethic.

I shined my shoes (not a metaphor, they needed it.) Dug out a decent pair of not jeans. I’d prepped myself on my resume (tough to remember details of the cool project you worked on 16 years ago without a little refresher.) And I took the 4 train in.

For an 11:00 meeting, I arrived at the front desk at 10:59. It’s later than I like, but whatever.

After the receptionist calls a couple times, I hear the guy paged twice in the little over 10 minutes I’m sitting there.

Now, if I have a meeting with you and I have enough time, please trust that I’ve put some tools to work figuring out who you are. I’ve seen you picture, your amazon wish list, your blog(s, yes, even the OTHER blog.) I’ve probably read your masters thesis (or the abstract from your PhD.) I know where you live, where you work, what you used to do for a living and a lot of other things you don’t realize are all just low hanging fruit for anyone who cares to look.

That’s why I knew that the short 38 year old grayer than me but in better shape not that it’d matter if it came down to it since I was twice his body mass dude who approached me and stuck his hand out was NOT the guy I was here to see.

“Hi, Mike ProtectingTheGuilty.”
I looked at him quizzically and thought “no, Mike Wilson. You’re shaking the wrong guy’s hand.”
“You’re Mike Wilson?” Ah, getting somewhere.
“Yep. Hi, how are ya?”
“Ok, come with me.” My first flash was ‘assistant’.
The receptionists giggled as “congratulations, who the fuck are you and why should I care” was written all over my face throughout the whole exchange, leaving my host in a disarmed stuttering mass of presidential teleprompter failure.

As we walked in to “The Back” I heard one of them say “that was TOO funny.” Must’ve missed it.

Rounding the corner we hit this huge room of desks with motivational banners hanging from the ceiling every few feet over the crowd of computers. They were half a step away from the “Is this good… for the Company” banner from Office Space. There were all kinds of “Always Expand The Relationship!” type quotes. Really. They were about 3 or 4 feet tall and 15 feet across. Going back over it in my head there were at least 7/8 of them spaced every couple rows. It was fucking hideous.

We passed a row of empty conference rooms with colorful mountain range names. The kind of cutesy bullshit you get from management consultants. Employees must drink very heavily when they get out of there at night. It’s not a tough conclusion. In fact the condition of (a small minority of) the employees suggested they might not wait ’til they leave for the evening.

The little voice in my head that is always right (but speaks up once every couple years, and only about trivial nonsense) whispered “stalling. They have no idea where this guy is” and I nodded in assent.

He asked what job I was coming in to talk about and I said “oh, there were a few. We were just getting together to see who each other are and all.” Which is true. We talked about a bunch of stuff.

I was ushered into a room where Mike Guilty pointed to a seat at the conference table that had it’s back to the glass wall… sorry sparky. I sat at one end of the table so I could watch the scene. (Plus, I have a thing about The Gunfighter’s Seat.)

“So did you bring a resume?”
“Well no. He and I had been back and forth a couple times over it, working on some edits so I know he has the most current one possible.”

He dropped his business card in the middle of the desk and said “let me go give him a call” as he walked out.

My choice in seating was rewarded with a direct view of Mikey Guilty’s workstation from the back. So I could see him and The Kid (forthcoming) at their computers and could hear them. “I dunno, just find it… Yeah I’ll try his cell again…”

I smiled through the pressure of my increasing frustration at a few minutes of the clown show of frantic searching for my resume in their database, then printing it off, the other guy making a couple more calls while rubbing back his hair, exasperated.

“You go” he said to The Kid, “I’ll find out where he is.”

In walks The Kid. His name escaped my mind before it entered my ear. He was wearing a button down (not to be confused with “dress”) shirt, unbuttoned and untucked with a white tee underneath. He was unkempt and nervous as hell.

“So, he’s MIA?” I asked, having pretty much had enough. I was already getting directions from my internal gps for the way out.

“No, no no. We know he’s… on the way back from … a client.”

*sigh*

“So how are things at Credit Suisse?” He asked looking at a resume from 2004.
“Huh?”
“Wait… you are Mike Wilson right?”
“Yep. But I haven’t worked at Credit Suisse in almost four years. Are you sure you’re not missing the front page? Or is the resume you have really that old?”
“What would you say your great streng…”
“Ok, listen. You know what? Why don’t you have him call me.” I stood up and grabbed my jacket and started walking out the door. As I left I turned to The Kid “Look, I appreciate that you guys don’t have any idea where he is and are trying to cover for him. But this is not ok. You don’t just not show up. Pleasure meeting you.”

I stomped mightily down the hall, language befitting my mood turning heads the whole way. Not sure what I said exactly, but I seem to remember the words “Fucking unprofessional hacks wasting my goddamn time” and “can’t be bothered to show up for his own meeting” curling hair in a 10 foot blast radius.

The receptionist who had been nice was a little alarmed but quickly put on a passive face as I stopped in front of her and said “Hey, I know this has nothing to do with you but when someone makes an appointment they really ought to keep it. The only thing there are more of in this city than financial programmers looking for work is recruiters looking to place them.”

I was incoherent.

The poor woman nodded blankly, not knowing quite what to say as I stormed off to the elevator.

Now, I know I won’t be hearing from this guy. I also know that these people were all trying to do the right thing and hastily cover for a situation they had no control over. So nobody’s name is in here but mine.

The guy I was supposed to meet could have done ANYthing but what he did.

- Leave a message with me, letting me know he was going to be late or requesting a reschedule. Anything. An email or voicemail 3 minutes before (or even after) the appointment time saying you’re held up and won’t be able to make it. It’s frustrating, but shit happens.
- Leave a message with the front desk or his co-workers, telling them where to find my resume and giving them a brief overview so they could carry the torch forward.

But I can’t rake the coworkers over the coals too bad (aside from entertaining tale fodder.) They adapted pretty poorly to the situation at hand, but it’s a sin of training, not intent. So if I saw them at a bar I’d try and have a good laugh about it and probably buy a round and apologize for totally losing my shit AT THEM instead of on something inanimate that was awaiting demolition anyway.

ANY OTHER THING would have been ok. I’m infinitely flexible and understanding when someone is forthcoming and honest. In fact, I demand I am dealt with thusly. My bullshit tolerance coefficient is, as I’ve said before, statistically equivalent to zero. No more.

But this kind of bullshit is rude, INTOLERABLE and unacceptable on every level.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.