Meanie Mondays are back baby!!

Okay, so I tried to keep away from the Meanie Weenie crap over the holiday break...given that we're supposed to be *joyous* and *happy* and all that shit.

But in the meantime, I've had a few Meanie Weenie doozies come my way that I've been stockpiling like a squirrel hoarding it's nuts for the winter.

Today's installation of Meanie Mondays comes to us from a LOVELY LADY I'll just call "Jean".

I found Jean on a large and popular job board. She had posted herself up for the entire employer-related universe to see, I'm assuming hoping that some phone calls would roll in.

FYI:Jean's background was dominantly in 2 things:

  graphic design and sales.

Now this is going to sound lame, but quite frankly, I get excited when I see a combination of a sales background and the graphic design and/or printing world because that's what I did for 20 years of my life...

I grew up a print shop brat.

 I grew up with printer's ink in my blood...probably because of all the paper cuts I used to get.

 I KNOW how to talk to these people.

 I can instantly have a good connection with them on the phone because I start throwing the lingo around and talk about how tragic it is that the industry has died off as much as it has with the bad economy, and that's why I'm in insurance now etc etc.  

Of course I feel the need to point out to all my fabulous and faithful blog readers here that I currently have no use for the graphic design portion of her work history, but I'm always on the hunt for strong sales people...which she had indicated she was on the earlier portion of her resume. 

My logic was this: she's got to be struggling with the graphic design portion of her life and probably doesn't have enough work to sustain her anymore, thus the reason she put herself on a job board in the first place, right? Maybe she'd entertain the idea of getting back into sales so she could pay her bills.

 What harm could it do to have a conversation with her and see where she's at with things and possibly offer her an interview? 

What the hell, I'll give her a jingle.

I called- it went straight to a message that said "The person you are trying to reach isn't accepting phone calls at this moment" or some such nonsense like that, and then it just hung up on me. It didn't give me the option of leaving her a message.

So I emailed her instead.

I said all the things I normally do in an email to a job seeker... like who I was, what company I worked for, that I found her on XYZ job board and was interested in speaking with her about a possible position etc.

Two days later she blasted me back with this crap:

"I canNOT believe that you sent an email like this to someone with a 24 year SKILLED CAREER that has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with insurance. How DARE you. I will be sure to never use your company's insurance services as a result of this ridiculous email. Take me off your contact list immediately, BITCH."

Ummmm, excuse me?

I sat there stunned. 

And as a personal observation about myself, I don't know WHY I still get shocked when I read stuff like this as I'm coming up on 4 years of being exposed to it. You'd think I'd just be used to it by now. And in an attempt to be all "PollyAnnaPositive" about this junk, I should be grateful that at least it's coming to me via email and they aren't yelling at me over the phone about it like some of our disgruntled and insane customers do to my poor unflappable, imperturbable, persistently calm co-worker Tammy. Tammy's got nerves of steel; it takes a LOT to get her all worked up.

I guess I'm more "excitable" as these emails?

They still get to me.

The clip art version of us would go like this:

This is Tammy:

And this is me:

So after being land blasted by Jean's email, I took a moment to pull up the job board I found her on, as well as my company's DNC (Do Not Contact) list. As I was reading her resume over one more time to make sure there weren't any more surprise email addresses hiding somewhere that I should be adding to the DNC list, I noticed something at the very bottom that I must have overlooked before I called her.

She's the President, Founder and Director of a volunteer, non-profit pet rescue organization in Southern California. 

This made me sad. 

To think that somebody I would have normally immensely admired for doing such heroic work would treat ME, a human being like that? Perhaps she's not a people person and only a pet person? I've met those, it's highly possible. But still...

So as I was adding her to my lists online ensuring she won't be contacted like EVER again by ANYBODY from my company, I really started thinking how incredibly stupid that was of her to lash out at me like that. If she hadn't typed those 4 measly sentences to me, I could have been a vehicle to help her out in more than one way for sure.

So because I've created this space in the universe in which I'm allowed to voice my opinion (aka my blog) here's what I WANTED to email back, but didn't of course as I'd like to keep my job:

"Ummmm- look here BITCH.

There is no need to jump to conclusions and treat a friendly stranger whom is merely trying to help you become gainfully employed in such a ferociously unprofessional manner. In case it didn't occur to you (which it obviously didn't because your incredible hate is dominating your mind) I was contacting you because you mentioned you had a "strong sales ability" on your lovely resume, NOT because you have an incredible background in insurance. Should you have had the presence of mind to actually HAVE a decent and kind conversation with me, not only could you have politely told me you no longer have an interest in going back into sales, but guess what else could have been discussed? The fact that I could have put you in touch with some viable printing and graphic design houses all over Southern California. 

How would an insurance recruiter be able to do that you ask? Because I used to co-own a print shop down here, that's how. 

So not only do I know who's still alive and kicking, you would have totally had an inside track and a personal referral that would have helped you continue with the "24 year SKILLED CAREER that has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with insurance."

And just for the record, I ALSO could have used my semi-popular blog to drive some very interested pet lovers to your door step, thus rescuing the pets you say you save from neglect and abandonment. 

But NO, you had to lash out at me and type those 4 venom-filled sentences instead.

So all I have to say to you is this:

YOU'RE FUCKING STUPID.

Good luck to you BITCH."

Whew.

I feel much better now that I just wrote all that out.

Thanks for listening my faithful friends.