ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Months and months ago this spring, when I began my job search I was working with three different recruiting firms here in town.  The thing about recruiters is, they like to meet with you and get some kind of visual and personal confirmation that you at least aren’t a major freak on the surface.  So I met with two of the people on a Friday afternoon and it was no big deal.  The third insisted that we had to do a lunch meeting and everything.  Probably because he knew that if we went to lunch his company would pay for his.

So the plan was that he and this other chick would come down to the Plaza and meet with me at California Pizza Kitchen.  I only had an hour for lunch, so I was pretty anxious that it all work out.  They wound up being almost a half hour late to the restaurant, because it turned out they had radically underestimated the time it took to drive from their office on the south side of the Metro.  They were rather breezy about the whole thing.  So much so, in fact, that they were in no hurry to actually get down to business and discuss my qualifications, job interests, or anything else remotely related to finding me a new job.  Instead, they started a long conversation about Lent and how they had to find something without meat on the menu and how the philosophy of Lent is that if you forget and eat meat it’s not a sin, but if you remember and do it anyway it is.  “I need to be back to work pretty soon,” I told them when we got the food.

“Oh!” they said.  They were genuinely surprised that I thought it would seem odd if I left for lunch and didn’t return for like two hours.   So they cheerfully asked me a couple of half-assed questions about what type of position I was looking for until I told them I needed to go, boxed up my food, and left.

“Thanks for lunch,” I told them.

“Thanks for giving us an excuse to have a free lunch!” they joked.  Yes.  Since that’s clearly all it really was to them.

Anyway, after that lunch I literally never heard from them again.  Until today.  I was keying a stack of journal entries my boss left with me and my phone rang midway through the morning.  I didn’t recognize the number, but I went ahead  and answered anyhow.

“Hi, [me]!  How are you?  This is [recruiter guy] at [recruiting firm]!  I was just calling with a couple of audit positions you might be interested in!”

“Thanks,” I said.  “But I already have a new job.”

“You do?” he asked.  He sounded puzzled.  Like, if I wasn’t talking to him, how on earth did I manage that?

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s been a while since we talked so I was hoping you’d be interested in one of these positions.”  There was a short silence, since I had no response for such a stupid assumption.  Then he said, “Well, how is your new job?”

“It’s great,” I said.  “This is a good position.”

“That’s awesome!” he said enthusiastically.  “Listen, let me just give you my information so you’ll have it in case you need to start looking again.”  Yeah, since this asshole is going to be the first person I call if that happens.  Rather than the person who placed me here.  What a douchebag.

“I really doubt that,” I said.  “But if you insist.”

“Sure!” he said cheerfully.   “You still have the same Yahoo e-mail?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said flatly.

“Great, well I’ll get that to you so you’ll have it, and I’m glad you’re doing so well!  Congrats!” he said.

There are a handful of good recruiters in this town.  And I have worked with some really good ones.  So I’m not talking about those people when I say, seriously, recruiters are such stupid assholes.