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Subject:Re: Interviews and Ethics From:Lynn Gold <figmo -at- RAHUL -dot- NET> Date:Wed, 18 Jun 1997 15:46:10 -0700
Candace Bamber wrote:
>
>The situation:
>I worked in a really bad place, and I knew it was a really bad place, but
>for a variety of reasons, it wasn't a good time for me to leave. I was
>looking for another job, of course, but that takes time, and I was holding
>out for something that really met my needs - the last thing I wanted was to
>end up some place as bad, or even worse.
>...
>We had tons of work and not enough staff, so we were trying to hire
>someone. At the interviews, I would be sitting there with the
>responsibility of finding someone good to be part of our team. They would
>ask me questions about the company, and I would be at a loss about what to
>say....
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt to prove it.
Just because an environment was "living hell" for me does not mean it would
be "living hell" for someone else. I've been on both sides of this one (at
the same previous employer, oddly enough).
When I interviewed, I was desparate for a job in a bad economy. I had been
mostly unemployed since the middle of previous February, it was August, and
I was ready to go on food stamps. I was also one semester away from my BA
degree. I'd been working full-time and going to school full-time, but had
been layed off from my previous job the day AFTER the last day to add
classes, or else I'd have stacked up a courseload and graduated the
previous May.
The person interviewing me was miserable and dying to get out of that job,
but had just had an emergency appendectomy and couldn't exactly just "skip
out" until she'd healed. She'd received several applications for the job
and had conducted I-don't-know-how-many interviews over the phone, but
because of my unique situation of needing time out during the day to finish
college and the otherwise-unreasonable employer's policy of letting someone
flex a schedule to complete a degree program, she said I was the only
person she felt ethical about hiring into that hellhole. (Phwew -- that
was a long sentence!)
Anyhow, six months later I had my degree and started realizing I was in a
hellhole. The person who hired me got out, and we needed a new writer. I
preferred a "hard sell," wanting to bring in someone who knew exactly what
they were getting into. My employer vehemently disagreed with me and
eventually wanted to have me watched over, but the person we wound up
hiring DID come in with her eyes open.
For what it's worth, I'm still friends with both of these writers even
though we've all been out of there for years.
--Lynn Gold "net.fogey" figmo -at- rahul -dot- net,
Senior Technical Writer, TCSI (weekdays) or lgold -at- tcsi -dot- com
News Anchor, KLIV & KARA News (weekends)
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