Tommy

(This is story #7 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

How do you really know someone? Time and familiarity turn acquaintances into friends, but interviews are brief and - frankly - adversarial. Resumes may or may not be honest. I have seen fabrications of schools attended, degrees earned, and jobs held. These days, most former employers will not give references beyond the verification of dates of employment, and an employer who raves about someone may simply be hoping you'll hire their former employee so that they will no longer have to pay his/her Unemployment or Disability costs. So, how do you really judge someone in the space of a brief interview?

Our business had grown, necessitating the hiring of additional staff, and, as it happened, two of them were young, attractive women. They enjoyed the work and enjoyed dealing with the variety of applicants and hires who came through the office. They especially liked Tommy.

Tommy was a college student who had come in to apply for work for the company who provided food services at his school. He was blonde, very charming and cute (picture Brad Pitt in his Thelma and Louise role), and he was an A student. One of the girls placed him, and they all looked forward to him coming in on a Friday to pick up his paycheck or popping in to pester them about when he might get "hired on" at the college. At such times, all work would stop and there would be good natured chatter between them.

And then it happened: Tommy told us that his supervisor had offered him a "permanent" job. He would go on the customer's payroll and thereby have work through the summer and beyond until he graduated. The girls congratulated him and wished him well, remarking after he left how they were going to miss seeing him.

A day later I received a phone call from one of the college Vice Presidents: "I want Tommy out of here. I don't know how this happened, but he is not supposed to be anywhere on this campus except his classrooms. He has no business in the cafeteria or anywhere else."

Stunned, I asked what had happened and learned that Tommy had been attending the college on a prison release program. He had served three years in a State prison for the violent assault and rape of a co-ed. He had broken into a dormitory of a college he was not attending and brutally attacked a Resident Assistant, someone he apparently didn't even know.

The caller then told me about his former colleague at the college, a man who worked in the personnel office for several years and then moved to a "better" job at a business downstate. As all H.R. people must, that man occasionally had to lay off or terminate employees, and one of those terminations at this new "better" job returned to the work site with a gun and killed him. "So please do not tell Tommy that I called you."

I assured the caller that I would terminate Tommy - would simply tell him there was some reorganization and "the college" realized they could not hire anyone new at the moment - and I would certainly get to the bottom of how Tommy managed to be hired by us.

For several minutes, I sat at my desk absorbing what had just transpired, then called staff together and told them about the phone call. Faces went ashen, then the interviewer who had hired Tommy said she had checked references and they were fine. She couldn't believe what I was saying.

I decided to check the references myself, calling on the pretense that I had just interviewed Tommy and was considering him for a job: "He seems like a good kid. What can you tell me about him?" I asked. As the interviewer had said, Tommy's references were good - although knowing what I knew, I could see that one of them was undoubtedly covering for that three-year stretch of time when he was in prison. The "reference" was supposedly a self-employed contractor, but I suspect he was simply Tommy's friend or relative. "He was a good worker. He worked on and off when I needed him for big jobs. He's a good guy." Another reference was more recent and raved about Tommy. Tommy had "kept the books" for her at the tiny corner grocery, a grocery that I'd always suspected of dealing in more than food...

I called Tommy and broke the news that not only would he not be hired on by my customer, but that because the semester had ended, his assignment with us was also finished. He took the news cheerfully, thanked me for the job, and was in every way a complete gentleman. He never asked why, and so I did not offer reasons - although I was prepared to. I told him I would mail him his final paycheck so he wouldn't need to stop in the office for it.

What he had been convicted of is awful, and I certainly can't excuse his deceitful dealings with my business, but it also rankled me a bit that the college was willing to take his tuition money without allowing him any of the usual "privileges" that come with that purchase. It seemed to me that either he was dangerous or he wasn't. Why would it be okay to let him into a classroom but not a cafeteria?

Three years later I hired an acquaintance to patch some brick-work on the front of my building. The fellow was a member of A.A. ("Hello. My name is Jim and I'm an alcoholic.") He said he'd bet I meet all kinds of people in my work, to which I responded with a couple of stories, one of them the veiled story of Tommy, of course leaving out the names and specifics. Suddenly the brick-layer stopped me: "Wait a minute. I know who you're talking about. That's Tommy. I know him and I know that story. I know it because we used to be drinking buddies and I was with him that night. Tommy was so drunk that there's no way he physically could have done it. He passed out. The cops picked him up near the college. He was framed."
.

Who's the Bigger...?

(This is story #6 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

We had a deal. They didn't waste my time; I did what I could to place their people: Probation and Parole respected that arrangement because their populations didn't have many good options, and I'd worked in the so-called "justice system" myself once upon a time, my heart a bit soft for people trying to climb out of holes.

Jack was the first parolee I placed, so he had to be a good gamble. Stick a customer with a guy with a criminal record and no desire to straighten out, and you'd never get the chance to do any future sticking. Jack's parole officer truly believed that what his "client" really needed was a chance to prove he was worth something, and so I hired him. There was only one customer willing to ride that horse with me, but all it took was one, and so Jack began gainful employment.

Three days later I was manning the front desk at the office. Myra was in an adjoining office interviewing a guy whose claim to fame was being a carnie; Jane was out of harm's way back in the accounting area. Suddenly there was the sound of the downstairs door banging and someone coming rapidly up the steps, stomping down the hall, and then our door burst open, presenting an obviously furious man of about 25.

"I want a job!" he yelled. "You gave my brother a job, and I need a job! You gave my brother a job, and he's a bigger crook than me!"

The guy was irate. He cussed me up and down, the gist of it being that I was an idiot for hiring his brother. If I understood his logic, I should have hired him, the lesser crook, instead - even though this was my first knowledge of his existence.

Meanwhile, the carnie in the next room rose to his feet and asked Myra if she wanted him to "take care of that guy out there." Somehow she managed to convince him to stay put, possibly helped by the fact that I jumped to my feet, drew up all of my 5'2" of red-haired height and started around the desk toward Mr. Wonderful, loudly proclaiming that when he had a parole officer who would vouch for his hirability, I would consider him, but until then, he had better get the hell out of my office.

Lucky for me he retreated, shouting obscenities all the way down the stairs, and the office settled back to relative peace and quiet.

Jack, by the way, was successful in the job and as far as I know has never been in any further trouble.
.

Older Professions

(This is story #5 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

The toughest day of the week was Friday. Others might chant “TGIF!” but I just tried to keep my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel, plodding through the interviews so that they would be finished in time to get to the week’s lay-offs and firings before throwing together a late dinner. Saturdays and Sundays I’d be phoning potential hires, trying to make the placements that would begin working at 7 AM on Monday.

The State Job Service provided space for me to interview applicants. In the early days they also administered the tests required of electronics assemblers. I’d show up as they were concluding, look quickly at the test results, and begin interviewing. Eight was always the number scheduled, but there were usually as many walk-in referrals whom I would screen and then perhaps schedule for the next week’s test.

On one morning when I’d arrived well ahead of schedule, one such walk-in approached me. I invited her to the applicants’ chair before getting close enough to get a whiff of her. Bad body odor wasn't often the reason for not hiring someone, but it occasionally caused me to do a bit of pre-hire counselling, and occasionally there was a stinky worker – someone already hired who just didn’t bathe often enough or maybe couldn’t afford deoderant or perhaps simply didn’t have running water at home – and I’d have to have a talk with him or her about the problem. Those were never easy chats, but they could save an otherwise good prospect from being passed over, or keep an otherwise good worker from losing a job.

On this Friday, though, it was her breath that I could smell, and the smell was reminiscent of the old drunken roommate on the morning after: stale smoke and alcohol in a combination that was just downright nasty. And it was nine o’clock in the morning. She handed me a completed application, I gave a cursory interview then told her I would be in touch if it seemed she was the best qualified applicant for a job matching her skills. Dutiful, honest, legal, and at worst I had wasted ten minutes.

She rose and left, and I then turned to Sheila, the youngish Job Service clerk, and said, “Phew! A bit of alcohol on that one.” to which Sheila replied, “Oh yeah, she spends her mornings down at Campy’s Bar giving blow jobs to the old guys.” “EEEEeeewwwww!” I replied, “You mean that wasn’t alcohol on her breath?!?!”

Heaven help me, I thought, if I ever have a job opening for which she is the most qualified applicant. And if I did, what Worker’s Comp code would it be? What industry?? How would I determine the prevailing wage???

It was the beginning of a very long Friday.
.

Alice in ...Wonderland?

(This is story #4 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

I offered her the job. To be honest, I was new at this hiring business, and she fit my naïve mental picture of a “light assembly” worker. Alice was middle-aged and had “been around” a variety of blue-collar jobs. Rough around the edges, she was tough-talking but friendly, knew how to schmooze, and it was obvious that her mama didn’t raise no fool. I wouldn’t have to worry about her, she assured me. She’d be there early. She knew how to work. Not like the goddam kids today. Why, she could teach them a thing or two.

“Can you start on Monday morning at seven?”

“I could start right now,” she replied with a wry smile.

On Monday, the call came in mid-morning. All four of the new hires were on the job, but one – Alice - had been late.

I called her that evening to see what had happened and to reiterate the importance of being at work on time.

“I had a flat tire,” she bellowed into the phone. “How can you get a goddam tire fixed at six in the morning? I showed my supervisor, but she didn’t care!” (And in fact, she had literally dragged her supervisor out of the plant to the lot where her pick-up was parked and pointed to a “flat” tire in its bed).

These things can happen, and so I sympathized with her misfortune and again reminded her how necessary it was to be on time from now on.

“Well I can’t help a goddam tire!” she repeated. “What the hell was I supposed to do? You can’t get a tire fixed at six in the morning.”

“Okay, Alice, no, you couldn’t help that. I hope tomorrow goes better.”

It didn’t. Tomorrow she didn’t show up at all, and when I called her home to see where she was, she yelled into the phone, “A goddam tree fell on my trailer! What was I supposed to do? Go to work?? I mean a goddam tree fell on my trailer, for chrissake.”

On day three she wasn’t on the job either. “I had to take my disabled daughter to the doctor in Syracuse, for chrissake. What was I supposed to do? I mean I’m her mother and she got sick and I had to take her to the goddam doctor.”

“Alice,” I said, “It sounds like you have too many problems in your life right now, so how about if you call me when things settle down and you are able to go to work.”

An indignant tirade followed in which she repeated all the excuses of the previous days, punctuated with the same chrissakes and goddams in exactly the same places. I got the sense these excuses had seen a lot of use over the years.

I never heard from Alice again, but months later I read about her in the newspaper. Using several aliases, she had defrauded the county welfare department, and using some gasoline, she had staged an “accidental” fire that destroyed her trailer. No doubt it was the same trailer the goddam tree fell on. Apparently the disabled daughter was out of harm’s way, probably sitting in the pickup truck with the goddam flat tire in its bed, for chrissake. Alice went to goddam jail.
.

Who Would Show Up?

(This is story #3 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

It was the end of the day, but sure, I would interview one more - Claire. Chris, the Job Service counsellor, said she had some electronics assembly experience and maybe I could use her. His weary expression might have suggested to me that he didn't really think so, but I always took his referrals.

I greeted her and offered the chair, my eyes quickly skimming over her application papers as I sat down, but before I had a chance to even engage in some warm-up small talk, Claire began spilling the information she could not contain.

He had beaten her so bad, so bad she threw up, and then, while she was wretching into the toilet, he pissed on her. And then he beat her again. And again. Within thirty seconds of our meeting, Claire told me - a complete stranger, a possible employer - the intimate details of criminal abuse and pathetic submission. Everything about her was beaten down, like the worn once grassy short-cut people take across a lawn to save going to the corner. There was no life, no resillience left. Despite her statements that all of these things were behind her now, her eyes were dull and unable to meet mine, her mousy brown hair as limp as her spirit. I placed the application quietly on my desk and just listened.

"But that's all behind me now," she said at last, "and I'm ready to go to work." Of course that wasn't true, for if it had been, she wouldn't have spilled her guts to me as she had done. I thanked her for talking with me and gave the usual line about keeping her application in case I had an opening for which she was the best match.

For weeks thoughts of Claire would come back to me at unexpected times, her vivid descriptions haunt me. I'd seen the scars of abuse before, but this woman had described the wounds so clearly, in such detail, and she had poured out her heart to me as though I was a trusted friend.

Months passed. I hired Jane, a part-time assistant to do payroll and help man the office. One Thursday afternoon Jane handed me the list of people she had scheduled for Job Service testing and interviews for the next day, and I saw Claire's name.

"Oh dear," I said, "Of course you couldn't have known, but I've already 'interviewed' her, and she's not someone I can hire. No matter, I'll interview her again. Who knows, maybe her life has changed."

The next day, I arrived at the Job Service and took a peek into the testing room, but I didn't see Claire. As expected, there were eight people, and several of them were women, but none was the person I remembered so clearly.

I conducted three interviews, and then an enthusiastic, curly-haired blonde handed me her application and took the applicant's chair. The name on her papers was Claire. I took a double-take. This couldn't be the same mousy woman I had met previously. Her body language was confident, even jaunty; she was positively pretty.

The interview began to have a "Twilight Zone" feel to it as I realized that she had worked at Black and Decker and at Campbell, two of the same places the other Claire said she had worked. Finally I couldn't continue without addressing the situation.

"Claire," I said, "This is so strange. Months ago I interviewed someone who had the exact same name as you - but didn't look like you. This other Claire was not someone I was able to hire because she had some serious troubles in her life at the time. I would like to offer you a job, but this is just so strange... You not only have the same name as this other person, but you have worked in two of the same places!"

Claire lowered her eyes and said, "Well, there was a girl who lived with me for awhile, and she used my I.D."

"Oh my God. You mean she pretended to be you?" Claire continued to look at the floor and gave a slight sort of "strange things happen" smile. "Well, no wonder I was confused!" I said. And I asked her if she could begin work the next week.

When Claire left, I asked the Job Service clerk to pull all the information they had on both of the Claires. "Oh, there's only one," she replied. Incredulous, I said, no, there had to be two. "No, she completely changes every so often, but there's only one."

I believe I had interviewed a schizophrenic. Two of her. Unfortunately, I had to call her later that evening and rescind the job offer. There was no way of knowing which Claire would come to work.
.

Fairy Tales May Come True, It Can Happen to You...

(This is story #2 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here. Other stories are below this post.)

She hadn’t ever really had a paying job, but it seemed to me that she had worked. By the time she turned seventeen, marriage and babies ended whatever educational aspirations she might have had, and now at 27 she said (in so many words) she wanted to contribute to her family’s ability to live better. Her name was Cinderella. Cinderella Hotchkiss.

On first impression there was something about her that I liked. Maybe going through life poor and living in the back woods with that name had given her a sense of humor, the ability to cope with adversity. Maybe it was that look of determination in her eyes.

No coach nor fancy footmen had this Cinderella. In fact, she didn’t even have a driver’s license. No matter, she assured me confidently. Her husband would drive her to wherever the job was, and if he couldn’t, her mother would. (How many times before had I heard promises like these, believed them, and got screwed by day two of the job? Porcine flight has greater probability.)

Worst of all, she had not done well on the manual dexterity testing. That was hard to overlook, but I knew that my customer sometimes had a need for packers, and that job called for energy and a good attitude in greater measure than fine motor skills. Maybe she could fit in somewhere.

Her gown was denim, and that was in fashion at this electronics manufacturer’s ball. I stole a peek under the desk… good…her slippers were canvas - practical, no glass in sight.

Across from where I sat, Cinderella’s eyes looked at me with a sincerity and eagerness that was refreshing, and despite all the reasons I could see for not hiring her, I wanted to.

“I’ll be there and I’ll do a good job if you hire me. I want to work. I won’t let you down.” (Please stop saying that, I thought. Please stop reminding me how dumb it would be to offer you a job.)

And so I told her that I didn’t know if my customer would be willing to give someone a try without at least a “medium” score on the testing, but I would ask, and I would let her know. She left and I continued interviewing the remaining candidates, thankful that a few of them had high scores and some history of employment.

But how could I not take a chance on someone whose very name conjured up images of fairytale castles and living happily ever after? Okay, so that didn’t fit with the “hire with your head, not with your heart” philosophy, but I was also desperate for enough qualified workers to fill the job orders lying on the desk in front of me, and at the end of the day I called the customer who had always been the most reasonable to work for.

“Wayne,” I said, “I’ve got someone I want you to try. She scored low on the testing, she doesn’t drive but swears she’ll get to work on time and always, and her name is Cinderella.” There was a beat of silence and then Wayne laughed and replied, “Sure, why not? We’ve already got Grumpy, Dopey and Sleepy here, so she’ll probably fit right in.”

And she did. After working on my payroll for eight weeks, she was hired by my customer and worked there for over a year. Eventually I lost track of her, but I’ll never forget Cinderella and my gratitude for her and for workers like her, workers who made my own business shine.

Tell Me What You Like to Do

(This is story #1 of my employment stories. For an introduction to these stories, click here.)

He was a man of few words and sullen stares. The size of his hands told me he wasn’t likely to be good at working with tiny electronic components, but hand size wasn’t something you could pre-screen for when somebody called and said they were looking for a job. Ditto the stares.

I guess you could say that terseness defined him, for his written answers in the application’s blanks were few and far between and tended toward one-word summations. He had apparently finished high school (but didn’t say where) and had been in the army (again, no details). There was no indication of any work history in the fifteen years since. Even the “position desired” question was unanswered.

I worked my way through the application, verifying his address and asking for his telephone number, learning that he had done “odd jobs” and that he didn’t care what kind of work he got.

“You haven’t put anything here on this line where it asks what your interests and hobbies are,” I said with an encouraging smile.

Another stare, and then he replied, “Whattya mean?”

“Well, some people like sports or listening to music or working on cars or whatever. You know, what do you like to do when you aren’t working?”

Silence. And then his eyes met mine and he said slowly and deliberately, “Killing people is my specialty, and I’m very good at it.”

I chuckled (trying to act nonchalant and as though he had been joking) and replied, “Well, I guess everybody’s good at something!. … So… John… do you have transportation?” and I gradually concluded the interview so as not to appear intimidated.

I rose and extended my hand to shake his but was un-met. As he walked away, I made the coded notation for “Do Not Hire,” and I thought that he was probably an honest man. His specialty was killing people, and he was probably good at it because you had to be if you survived Vietnam, and it would haunt the rest of his days.
.
.

Workin’ On a Chain Gang

It’s called “Human Resources,” and it’s a sort of slave trade that I was involved in for many years.

Per Webster’s Ninth:

.......Human: 1: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of man
.......2: consisting of men 3: having human form or attributes.
.......(Hmmmm….. WOMEN are not mentioned by Webster…)

.......Resources: 1: a source of supply or support; an available means
.......2: a natural source of supply or revenue 3: an ability to meet
.......and handle a situation (I left out some obviously irrelevant
.......meanings)

Loosely translated, then, my job was to find creatures having human form, who had some ability to meet and handle a particular job situation. Most of the jobs paid low on the wage scale and did not require any formal education beyond high school. My tasks were to advertise and recruit, phone screen, test for physical ability to do the work (eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills), interview and then offer employment (or a plausible excuse for not hiring), and make appropriate job placements.

I flew by the seat of my pants, not having any actual training or experience in H.R., frustrated (or, conversely, buoyed up) by the fact that the ideal candidate hardly ever existed. The goal was to hire the best available, and when you met the range of possibilities, "best available" sometimes became clear by elimination of whom you would NOT want to hire. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little, but sometimes it resembled the physician’s creed: First do no harm - don't hire the alcoholic, the violent, the irresponsible, the crook.

During those years I met some noble, hard-working, good people. I also met some of the scum of the earth. I met the working poor – people who will struggle all their lives at pay rates below a living wage. I met people down on their luck (often perennially). In total, these folks were the Americans vying with their unfortunate Chinese or Mexican counterparts to produce the lowest cost electronic toys we all love and want.

My work was not without joys and satisfactions. A job of any kind can be the leg up a person needs, it can be the first step to exiting a bad marriage, the extra money to see a family through a rough patch. It can help define a career, a path in life. A job – even a low-wage, entry-level job - can bring self-confidence and a sense of pride for some people. I offered an opportunity to men and women who had few such; not a great opportunity, but a first (or sometimes last) chance to get on the ladder and start moving up.

This is the context of my next few posts. They are going to be stories from the interviewer's side of the desk, stories I could never invent. The first one begins above this post.

Lies and Eyes

Trust is a precious thing that - if destroyed - is gone forever.

Have you ever been betrayed? Cheated on, lied to, stolen from by someone you cared about? I guess most of us have had a two-faced friend or lover at some time in our lives. The hurt of their betrayal takes a long time to forget.

My kids lied to me at times, sometimes to spare themselves and sometimes to spare me, but I like to think that’s intelligence, not betrayal. For awhile I had a husband who liked to fuck other women and deny it; one of them was a friend of mine. It wasn’t a big surprise or even a big hurt because our marriage had drifted out of the realm of precious things, and the "friend" wasn’t someone I was ever very fond of.

My particular Big-Hurt betrayal involved a trusted employee and many thousands of dollars. So fond was I of this particular person, that as proof of her wrong-doing was uncovered, I would go to bed at night saying, “She did it. It was Her.” And then I’d awake in the morning thinking, “No, there must be another explanation. She just couldn’t – wouldn’t – have done it.” Months passed as I learned forensic accounting, retrieved data from out-dated computer files and recreated missing bank statements. The evidence became irrefutable, and finally I went to the police. They confronted her, but for a number of complex reasons, no charges were ever filed.

I learned a few things from the experience, but one that sticks in my mind is something a police sergeant told me – and it has nothing to do with assuaging the pain of betrayal, because I think only time and forgetfulness can do that. He said, “When you ask a person a question, if their eyes look to the right (your right) as they answer, they are telling the truth; if they look left, they are lying.” Okay, it's not an exact science, but as a generalization, it’s accurate.

Several years have passed since the whole painful episode, but I’m often reminded of it by a circumstance or the action of a friend or acquaintance. Now and then I cross paths with the former employee; we nod but don’t speak. Even though “Why?” burns in my heart, I do not want to get close enough to watch her eyes when I ask the question.