Microstory 2183: Held My Fate in Their Hands

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I’ve been spending all day conducting phone interviews with the first wave of applicants. It wasn’t just me, though. Jasmine took part of the list, as did my colleague who has been helping me prepare for the in-person interviews that will come later. As I was about to make the first call today, I realized that I should have also taken some time to practice these, not only because they come before the face-to-face meetings, but because I don’t tend to be too great on the phone. I have trouble picking up on social cues, but at least when I’m in the same room with someone, I can do my best. It’s so much harder on the phone. They could be muting themselves, and giggling at how I stumble over my words, or gesturing their boredom with the blah, blah, blah hand gesture. These possibilities start swirling around in my brain, and I start to lose my train of thought, which only makes things worse. I sometimes hang up the phone having kind of blacked out, and being unsure whether anything I said made any sense whatsoever. That all being said, my colleague’s training helped with these too. I did okay, and I think the candidates were receiving me pretty well. I asked the right questions at the right time, and remembered that one major reason for phone interviews is to give candidates time to ask questions of me. Hiring managers might forget that it’s not just about us choosing them, but them choosing us too. This is meant to be a new business partnership, or in the case of internal candidates, a change in that relationship. Just because someone needs a job, doesn’t mean that they’re desperate for it, or that they ought to be desperate, or that they should be thankful that we’re even bothering to consider them, or that we have the right to exploit them for all we need.

It’s important to me that I never forget what it’s like for people in their situations. I don’t know everything that they’re all going through, and I shouldn’t be expected to, but I should try to empathize anyway. It wasn’t too long ago that I was in jail, and before that, I was on the run, and before that, I was unhoused. I didn’t get to where I am by being brilliant and hardworking. I relied on a lot of other people giving me a chance, and putting their trust in me, and not being judgmental. Long ago, in my home universe, I was in between jobs, but it hadn’t been too long yet. An interviewer asked me how long I had been on the search. I was afraid that she wouldn’t consider me if I told her the truth, because someone who had been searching for longer was in more need, all things being equal. What my mother told me later was that it was the opposite; that if you’ve been looking for too long, they’ll assume that something’s wrong with you. That’s bullshit, and I won’t tolerate it. So I’m not going to ask people how long they’ve been out of work, or why. It’s none of my goddamn business. I more than anyone know how hopeless it feels to be treated like everything bad that has ever happened to you is your own fault. People deserve better. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. Now, I’m mostly hiring highly experienced and specialized workers for my team, as we have no entry level positions available on the team, but I’m still going into it with this attitude, because I don’t want to become everything I’ve hated in people who held my fate in their hands. I want to take my personal experiences, and make them better for others. So if you applied, and you feel like you’re being mistreated, or if you have stories to tell about your issues with other employers, send me a message. I’m always looking to improve, even if I’m not the only one who should hear what you have to say.

Microstory 1868: Walking Out

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It’s funny, all these stories coming out recently about employees walking out of their places of employment, not on strike, but genuinely quitting their jobs. In my day, I only know of that happening once. Most of the time, we’re talking about people who were brave enough to fight for their rights, but once they won, they expected to have their jobs waiting for them. That was the bluff, and sometimes it worked, while other times, not so much. Here, these kids are realizing that these jobs aren’t worth the heartache. They don’t pay enough, and there is plenty of competition. I actually witnessed one of them long ago. But since it was before camera phones and social media, most people didn’t hear about it unless they subscribed to the local paper, and found this particular story interesting enough to read. Let me set the scene. It was 14:00, which was when a certain unnamed popular restaurant opened. It was packed immediately, because it was the weekend, and the dinner rush was pretty much all day, especially since they didn’t do breakfast or lunch. So every table was filled, but no one had been served yet. It was the only time of day this was the case, but it happened at this place twice a week, every week. I say all this, because you have to understand that it didn’t really matter if you thought you ought to be served first. The waiters got to you when they got to you, and if you chose to arrive right when the doors opened, you had better been prepared to make a day of it. So I was sitting there with my friend at a table for four when the manager came up and asked if we would be willing to share with a couple. Sure, of course, we had no problem with that. But he was acting weird, and even when we agreed, his demeanor didn’t change. Something else was wrong, and this interaction had little to do with it.

So we continued to wait. Twenty minutes passed, we were getting to know our new friends, when one of them noted that no one had been helped at all. She hadn’t seen a single waiter come out, even to take a drink order. We had only seen the manager. Again, this was how it worked. At 14:00, you walked in, and found a table on your own. They didn’t start tracking who sat where until later. Another five minutes, and others were seemingly noticing the same thing. No one was upset, because only a few tables would have been first anyway, but it was still weird, and we were all getting worried. Five more minutes, that manager returned. He asked my friend if he could borrow his chair for a minute. Being the agreeable guy that he was, he hopped up, and stood by the table to wait, which he soon realized was a mistake. Because the manager didn’t take the chair away. He pulled it out a little more, and stood on top of it to give his speech, which kind of made it look like my friend was his lieutenant, or something. It would have been weirder if he had tried to step away. Anyway, the manager revealed himself to actually be the owner. “I’m sorry, folks, but we won’t be serving you today. Every single one of my employees has walked out on me.” He kept going, but didn’t get much further before a waitress ran out, and started arguing with him. They weren’t walking out on him, they were protesting unfair wages, and poor working conditions. I was close enough to hear her whisper that they were planning to sneak out the back, but now, because of his words, they would march out through the dining area. Silence reigned as they began, but I felt for them, so I began to clap, and soon...the whole room was doing the same.