It was a bit of a letdown.
To begin with I feel I must reiterate that the fellow had called me at nearly 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday while I was at work. He even apologized for calling so late. I replied that I was on the forklift and yes it would be better if I could call him the next day if that was all right. He agreed.
So far, so good.
I awoke around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday and checked my various computer accounts and generally tried to wake up a bit so I could perform my duhr (afternoon) prayer and be coherent enough to speak with him. I waited until about 1:00 p.m. in order to be sure I did not disturb him at lunch.
It went straight to a voice mailbox which had not been set up yet.
Okayyyyy...
I decided to wait until 1:30 p.m. and tried it again. This time it rang about four times and then went straight to the same inactive mailbox.
As I sat and wondered whether to try again or to simply go to bed and try again in the afternoon, my phone rang and his number appeared on the screen.
Now remember, He called me.
I pressed talk and:
His end: (talking to someone who was evidently in the office with him) "...yeah, you know, that one lady who kept coming into the office and crying all the time and stuff?"(someone mumbling in assent) "Yeah well we were just talking about her and..."
Me: (???) "uh, hello?"
Him: (stops talking to other person and sounding suddenly surprised) "Hello?!"
Me: (I am thinking 'Why are you surprised? You called me [again]??') "Yes, this is Mark. We spoke last night. About my resume?"
Him: "Oh yeah. Well, we're in the selection stage now so if we need you we'll let you know." He seemed rather jocular about it.
Me: (confused and somewhat annoyed) "Oh...uhm, well...okay. Well...thanks!(?)"
Him: "Yeah okay, goodbye."
Setting down the phone I sat there for several moments. I really was having a bit of trouble comprehending what had just happened.
As mentioned in my previous post, he had seemed very interested when I mentioned my 20 years of forklift driving experience, even though he was calling about my business resume my school had sent out. He had even gone so far as to mention that there might be some forklift positions available for me.
And then I was quite unmistakably blown off.
I had only told two people at work I knew I could trust, since in the past (exactly because of occurrences like what I have just described) I have found one can look quite foolish if one trumpets news like this all over work and then it falls through. I had also told as many people outside of work, not counting my facebook status update. I wasn't asked about it when I went into work, but I figured I had better just let them know about it so it wouldn't appear as though I was being too proud to do so (not that I was; I more or less just thought 'oh well, that's that.')
I mostly received sympathetic responses tempered with a bit of shock at the ridiculousness of being asked to call back just to be given the old "Don't call us, we'll call you" routine. I only received one response from outside of my work admonishing me that I should "let this be a lesson to me" about telling a prospective employer that I would have to call him back tomorrow. I pointed out that I had already mentioned that I was at work operating a forklift weighing thousands of pounds swinging around crated metal material weighing hundreds of pounds in a confined area around multiple human beings dispersed in all directions of the compass who very seldom are observant of their surroundings or the events taking place within them. I was also under the observation of my Boss at the time.
If this prospective employer found it unreasonable for me to agree that this was a bad time to talk and to call him back the next day under these conditions then this is not someone I would want to work for in any capacity.
Of course unless you are at my job it is difficult to imagine the circumstances in which I work with any degree of accuracy, so I did not take the admonishment with any offense. In fact, I very much agree; under normal circumstances one should never tell a prospective employer you will call them back!
On the plus side, in anticipation of being offered a forklift job I finally typed up my Forklift Resume on M.S. Word which I had been putting off and putting off so now I can start to actually send that one out as well as my business resume and double my chances of getting a phone call. Hey, maybe I'll get a call every six months now!
And so, my attitude is generally that of the German Professor(who looked suspiciously like Einstien) on that old Woody Woodpecker cartoon after Woody takes off in the guy's rocket and strands him on the moon:
"W'vell, dat's da vay da cookie crumbles!"
Oh, and I STILL never got the name of the company!
"I don't know...I may have; my name is Mark DaSacco,who is this?"
