Easy there, Tiger.

So guess what, Candidate?

It is 2007 and there is this thing called telecommuting.

What this means is that although I might sound super duper professional over the phone, the fact is I might be in yoga pants at my kitchen table trying to shut up the dry-heaving cat and to ignore the hot married guy across the way who is surprisingly and somewhat disturbingly visible through the frosted glass window in his shower that is directly, distractingly in my line of sight when I look up from my laptop.

This also means that I am receiving calls on an ordinary home phone line.

The kind of phone line which, unlike many office phones, has caller ID and call waiting as opposed to multi-lines. And it might be the annoying kind of call waiting which instead of being just a little click is an annoying interrupting momentary drop out in the current call (back in the day, wasn't it just a little click? What happened? Why did the technology get WORSE with time?).

So let's set that fact aside for one moment, shall we?

Okay, so then, also, Candidate? Remember how I called YOU and left a message on your voicemail that I would like to set up a time to phone screen you for a certain position? In that message, there were two important clues: one, I was making a phone call and two, I conduct phone screens.

Now certainly, you being old enough to have this professional job, it HAS occurred to you that it's not really plausible I might be a recruiter who has been designated not just to recruit for this particular position but also just to speak with you personally, correct? That I would just be sitting there, staring off into middle distance waiting for you to call back.

So it IS plausible that - if I was contacting YOU for a phone screen via the phone - I might also be talking to other people on that same phone to conduct the very same phone screen I mentioned to you in my message.

Are you still with me? So let's put it all together, shall we?

When you get my message, and you call me back to set up this phone screen, I appreciate it. And I also certainly appreciate enthusiasm.

But when you call me back FOUR PLUS TIMES IN A ROW in twenty minutes, leaving a voicemail each time, and each time creating a momentary fall out of my current call, which means I have to keep asking the person I am trying to talk to to repeat what they were just saying OR reassure them that even though my voice suddenly went silent mid-sentence, the call was not dropped and I am still there.

This doesn't make me feel all too kindly towards you. And I know it's you, because you were on my caller ID every time.

So please. Call once. Leave a voicemail. Give me some time to call you back, because there are, in fact, other candidates, other jobs, bathroom breaks, lunch, teleconferences, lying down on the couch for five minutes trying to figure out how long it is going to get me out of this dayjob...you know, stuff. Things that are not you. They do exist.

Unfortunate Names: Special Eyebrow-Waxing Edition

This is actually not recruiting-related. (*Body sagging like a toddler in the grocery store*) I don't wanna write about recruiting this week. Seriously, sometimes the only way to get through doing your job is to sort of pretend for a week that you're actually NOT doing your job and to instead read all your journals from ten years ago and think: a) yeah, that one auburn-haired kid at college who read "Scientific American" WAS really unexpectedly hot and maybe I should google him and see what he's up to and b) I might be crazy but AT LEAST I'm no longer circa-1996-crazy.

So this episode of Unfortunate Names has nothing to do with recruiting UNLESS you are in charge of hiring at my local salon. In which case: I don't want anybody whose name is Patti - crucially - with an "i" waxing my eyebrows.

I don't want to have to explain it, I think some of you out there might know or at least sense what I am talking about...all I know is I got them waxed, I was displeased, then she handed me her card and AS SOON as I saw "Patti" with an i, I was like, "Damn, I wish I had known that before."

I am sure there are a couple Patti-with-an-i eyebrow-waxers who are like the Michael Jordan of waxing and maybe I'll be flamed for my extremely controversial post here, but I know what I know. And I know I will be finding another waxist.

And no, I'm not surprised to see you, I'm just going to look like this for another three weeks.

To close out the week...

...there are just a few things I have to get out of my system. Then I will take a scalding, blasting, "Silkwood"-esque shower and spend two days playing with fluffy kittens and chasing butterflies and mentally undressing Chris Noth and otherwise regaining some sense of actually being a flesh and blood human being after five straight days of being nearly bludgeoned to death with things like this:

"Viewed as a resource throughout the organization and across various sectors; serves as a consultative partner to client groups, integrates technical expertise/experience, business objectives and industry factors..."

Also, Fancy-Pants Business Folk, security actually will NOT escort you from the building if you successfully resist the urge to bulk up your resumes and/or job descriptions with the Dreaded Groups of Threes, i.e., phrases containing multiple versions of what is effectively the exact same concept:

"...improve productivity, increase efficiency and streamline efforts..."

"...as determined by program, project or assignment..."

"...applies knowledge, expertise and understanding..."

Are these people Charles Dickens? Is someone paying them by the word? Are they actually beat poets, adding all this extra language because in their head, there's a bongo rhthym that they are trying to match?

This week TRULY put the "ill" in ill-suited.

All right, people, that is IT, I am out of here for the weekend and if the circus comes through town, I might not make it back here Monday.