Awkward

December 12, 2019 – Late last week I received a call from a recruiter, named Brenda. She had seen my resume on a job board and wanted to know if I was still looking for a job. “Why yes, I am!” She didn’t say she had any specific jobs in mind but I thought it would be great exposure. So we arranged to meet today.

The office was a few blocks from where I used to work. I parked in the lot across from my old building. I sat there for 5 minutes and just looked at it. That was where I used to work. Granted the office has moved to a new building, but on the day I was let go, that was the building I walked out of. I gathered my bag, got out of the car and started walking towards my future.

I took a shortcut through the grocery store parking lot and a homeless man asked me if I had any spare change. I looked at him and said that I was sorry but I didn’t have a job. He smiled and said “I hope you find one!” I felt so bad. At least I might have some options where he did not. I kept walking. I saw a few more homeless people as I made my way to the building. Stark reminders of how quickly my life could be like that.

I arrived at the building and I was about 30 minutes early. Normally there is a coffee shop or somewhere to sit. There wasn’t anything in this building. So I made my way up to the 7th floor.

I announced myself and told the Receptionist that I was very early. She said “No worries. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She motioned towards the couch and told me to have a seat. About 10 minutes later, a woman approached me, and asked “Did I get the time wrong or are you early? I can meet with you in about 10 minutes. I just have to wrap up something.” I responded, “I’m really early. So, whenever you’re ready.”

Brenda came back to reception about 10 minutes later and said she was ready to meet with me. She escorted me into a small meeting room and then said she’d be back in a minute – she had to grab my resume off of the printer.

She returned with a resume. She looked at me and said “Before we get started, I just want to say that you can take your experience working at the bank off of your resume.” I looked at her and said that she must have grabbed the wrong resume because I never worked at a bank. I handed her my resume and said “Well, I hope you were wanting to meet me and not the person on that other resume!” Humour…..

She proceeded to log into her computer so she could take notes. She looked at my resume and then asked me to refresh her memory on why I was there. Oh, okay. So I explained the circumstances. She was nodding and then looking at her computer. I said that I didn’t recall ever applying on their website for a job so I wasn’t sure how she ended up with my resume. She looked at her computer and said “Oh. You applied for a job in October. It was a confidential one that we did via a third party job board. It was for company X.” It was my last job! I stared at her and said “Oh. So you were recruiting to replace me and I applied! That is too funny!” Then she said “Well this is awkward. I hope you don’t hold it against us.” My brain was spinning. My response was to take the high road, “Well. My boss made a business decision. I can’t argue with that. And, truth be told, I knew it wasn’t working for a while. That’s why I was looking for another job. He just replaced me before I could replace him.”

She shared a personal story of how she and her husband worked for the same company and he got fired. She had to work with the people who fired him. She said it was a lesson in working with people and having to temper her emotions. I told her she was being professional. How else can you behave in the workplace?

We proceed with the interview. I answered her questions and she took notes. Some questions were a bit awkward – what didn’t you like about your last boss? Most of it was fine. She ended the interview by saying that it was a slow market right now and that things probably wouldn’t pick up until February.

I walked out of the meeting, thinking that I had wasted my time and $10 in parking. Part of me thought that she was really on a bit of a fact-finding mission on behalf of the person she placed in my old job. After all, you never really get the full picture of a person during an interview. And the timing would be right. She would have been in the role for about a month and starting to get a picture of the office dynamics. However, I’ll never get to know. I’m fine with that.