Interviewing Faux Pas

I do a lot of hiring and interviewing in my job. The jobs are entry level, but in a professional setting. This is my WTF list.

1. Wearing tennis shoes and sweat pants.

2. Leaving the tags on a new business suit - oops!

3. Telling me that the position I'm hiring for sounds really easy.

4. Before interview actually begins, asking, "How much vacation time do you offer?"

5. Saying, "I've never needed to be organized in my other positions, but I'm sure I would manage."

6. Adding, "Yep. It's true," or, "uh-huh, that really happened," after almost every answer.

7. Asking how you're doing every five minutes.

8. Expressing obvious annoyance in a voicemail message left for me at the fact that I didn't call with an update on our hiring status by the end of the week.

9. Emailing me every two days to ask whether we've made a hiring decision...despite the fact that I've already said that it would be at least a week. I need to stop handing out my business card!

10. Inquiring about how old I am (I look much younger than I am...great for the social life, challenging for the career).

This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll think of others as I try to sleep tonight.

Have You Seen That H&R Block Commercial...

Have you seen that H&R Block commercial that focuses on the fact that if they make any mistakes when completing your taxes, they'll cover any fines that may be assessed as a result?

What the f*ck kind of commercial is that? If I hire someone to do a service that important and they screw it up, I would EXPECT that they would take responsibility for the error. How in the hell does this actually qualify as a "selling point" for the company? Should this really be viewed as a perk?

Talk about grasping at straws for some semblance of a competitive edge.

If you can't tell, that commercial annoys the hell out of me every time I see it.

And did you hear that they actually miscalculated their annual earnings that they had reported earlier in the year? They had to go back, recalculate, and announce a new figure. That's embarrassing...particularly for a company of their industry.

Maybe that's what inspired the idea for the commercial.

Nearly Lost the Company Mobile

I was sent to a conference after being with the company for just a month (that's about three years ago now). It was an exciting opportunity - place I've never been, all expenses paid, time away from office without using vacation, upscale hotel I'd never normally stay in, cocktail hour each evening with all the free alcohol I can handle - what's not to be excited about???

It didn't start on a high note.

Plan: Drive one hour to airport. Get on plane and fly to Chicago. Transfer flights; get on another plane to Indianapolis. Get on shuttle to travel to upscale hotel an hour or so away from airport. Arrive at upscale hotel same day. Take the evening to lounge & enjoy the luxury.

Actual Events: Drive one hour to airport. Flight delayed...wait a few hours and then get on plane and fly to Chicago. Miss transfer flight. Get assigned new flight. New flight cancelled. No more flights to Indianapolis that evening. Airline arranges for bus to take us to Indianapolis. Wait two more hours, then board bus. Arrive in Indianapolis late at night - no more shuttles available to final destination. Stay at Best Western. Next morning, catch 5:40am shuttle to destination. Hastily check in at upscale hotel and rush to Day 1 of conference.

And here's the kicker -

I had agreed to call my direct manager each afternoon to give an update on how the conference was going. After the first day of events, exhausted, I went to get the company cell phone I had been given...it was no where to be found.

Where would I have packed it? Then a memory came back to me...sleeping on the bus...feeling something bump my leg...faint tap on the floor just under me...fading back to sleep.

Shit! That was the cell phone! It must have slipped out of the tote bag on my lap!

Frantically, I started using my own phone card to make calls from the room - checking in with my manager as agreed upon, calling the airline, demanding they contact the bus company, insisting that they tell me when, specifically, I can expect them to follow up, asking for a manager, assigning blame of my loss to the airline since the flights had failed to work out.

That night, I laid in bed coming up with explanations I might offer when I return to the office...something that wouldn't make me seem too irresponsible. Maybe I could get away with claiming that I turned the phone in. When they ask why it wasn't "officially" checked in, I could feign ignorance of the proper procedure...after all, I was still new there. Yeah, that's it...and now someone else must be using it. All I know is that I put it back in it's proper place.

Would it fly?

Business Lunch Anxiety: I'm a Slob!

My greatest weakness as a business woman: dining etiquette.

The problem isn't that I don't know what's expected...it's more my inability to live up to those expectations. I splatter pasta sauce. I dribble when drinking. I drop crumbs when eating cookies. I'm not a complete disaster...but I don't exactly impress either.

So today I had lunch with one of our company's VPs. No warning, no time to plan. He walked over to my desk around 11:30 and asked me if I had time to go over some sales figures from our department.

I said, "Sure. I'm wide open today."

He said, "Great! Let's do it over lunch. Meet me in reception in 10 minutes."

What? Lunch? Just me and Don?

1. I tend to be on the shy side, and I don't know him very well. What in the world are we going to talk about on the way there? And for our pre-business chatter?
2. Where are we going to eat? What's the least sloppy item I could possibly order?
3. How much will I be looked down upon once my lack of grace is exposed?

Fortunately, the small talk portion of the experience went well. Don had recently returned from a business trip, so he had some interesting stories to share. Whew!

I managed to find something neat to order too...so things started out well. But then a mistake was made...

I had ordered a meal that was supposed to come with a side of fries. I know that for a fact, because I was asked whether I would like regular or criss-cross fries (I chose criss-cross). Don wasn't paying attention at the time. So here's the thing - the fries never came.

Initially, when the rest of the meal was brought over, I thought maybe the fries would come separately. I waited...waited...nope. So then I debated...

Do I ask for the fries?

- If I do, Don's going to wonder what the hell took me so long to bring it up. He was nearly done with his meal. I didn't want to hold us up with my need for fries.

- If I don't, and he notices, he'll think that I'm too chicken to speak up (OK, so maybe that's partially true, but that's not the image I want to convey to this guy!). That might lead him to question my abilities as a leader.

- If I don't, and he doesn't notice, he might notice that I didn't end up eating much for lunch. Then he'll assume that I'm on a diet just like all the other women in the office (which I'm not), and that I stay slim by eating like a bird (which isn't true either...I exercise a lot. So I'm toned, not scrawny. That's right.).

In the end, I didn't bring it up. I don't know whether Don noticed anything. Probably not. I probably shouldn't even think about it anymore...but I can't help it...

The Joke Was On Her...

One of the frontline supervisors who works under me recently had a frustrating situation.

He had an employee, Pam, who had been a star performer for a couple of years. She wasn't the most friendly or likeable person in the department...but damn, she was good at what she did.

A few months ago, he started noticing some odd behaviors in her. It started out small...punching in a few minutes late, casually abusing her internet privileges, using company email for personal use, taking long breaks, etc. Then it got more obvious: he caught her reading a magazine on the job, overheard her dissing him, sloppiness in daily work, etc.

Eventually the time came where he had to let her go. Fired.

Apparently, she was overjoyed. As she was being escorted out of the building, she told the personnel rep that she had been trying to get fired all along so she could take some time off of work and still get paid via unemployment.

Unfortunately for her, she must have soon found out that the joke ended up being on her. Unemployment only applies if someone is canned for poor performance, and she was great at her job. If you're fired for insubordination, then there's no unemployment benefit. Oops!