Tag Archives: company

Networking with my old friend Bret

My friend Bret from high school sent me an email out of nowhere. I hadn’t seen him in years. It’s not like we cut the chord or anything, but it went down like most high school friendships went down. We went away to different colleges, sure, I think we might have hung out a few times over the course of the next year, the first Thanksgiving back, stuff like that. But after that, that was it. Facebook wouldn’t be around for another two years or so, and by the time it became massively popular, it wasn’t like I was sitting around thinking, you know what I should do? I should send Bret a friend request.

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But that’s how it happened a few months back, all of the sudden I got this friend request, it was from Bret. I said yes. And then the next day he sent me a message. “Hey Rob,” he started off with some introductory remarks, stuff like, “It’s been such a long time. How are things with you?” which, I never really got the whole asking a question via long Internet message. Yes, it’s a mostly nice thing to do, and if we were standing face to face, say we’d just bumped into each other randomly, all right, I can see it happening, “How’s it going?” “Great, you?”

Anyway, after he got all of that mandatory chit-chat out of the way, he got to the crux of the problem. He needed a job, badly, and he was wondering if my company was hiring. And I always kind of clench up at request like this, which is crazy, because how else are you supposed to get a job? It’s not like sending your resume out to the Internet is ever going to work. You have to like know people.

And even though I wouldn’t really say that I knew Bret, certainly not anymore, even though I hadn’t actually clicked all the way through his Facebook page, I was more than certain that, had I given some time into finding out what he’d been up to, I would have totally been surprised as to how different he looked after all these years.

Still, I thought back to all of those times that I needed a job, how I would’ve loved some random acquaintance from way back when to have pulled some position out of nowhere for me. So I said, “Sure, I’ll definitely pass it along.” And I hoped that would have been the end of it, I could have walked in to HR, dropped off a resume, done.

But it wasn’t done. I forwarded Bret’s email to the HR lady, and she wound up shooting me a response right away. “Rob, did you even check this guy’s resume?” And I didn’t, of course I didn’t. I’m not a resume guy. Whatever got me to where I’m at right now, it certainly wasn’t because of my resume. If anything, I’m currently gainfully employed in spite of my resume, that trivial obstacle that I always wind up tripping over as I make it a goal to figure out how to get work.

The back and forth emails were constant, like every two minutes or so, to the point where I clicked print and took the elevator up to HR, maybe see if we couldn’t iron everything out face to face. “Hey,” I told Sarah, I think her name was Sarah, she interviewed me when I was applying, but I don’t know, I hadn’t really been up to this floor in a while. And I could never really gauge how to approach HR, like what was the relationship? Back when I was still a potential employee, she held all of that power over me. It’s not like she was my boss, but that feeling of seniority still felt very present, whenever there was an email, or a face to face, like right then.

“Yeah, sorry, look, I haven’t seen this guy in like ten years. So I didn’t really feel right going through his resume. I kind of just wanted to do him a solid, pass along the document. You know what I mean?”

And she shook her head no, like she didn’t know what I meant, “Rob, look, if you want to network, and I get it, OK, I get the whole networking thing, it’s really important. But if you’re going to do someone a favor, do them a favor. Look at the resume. Do you see all of these typos? It looks like this thing’s current as of 2012. If you’re going to pass along a document, if someone’s reaching out to you for help, you should try to help.”

And this is exactly why I didn’t want to get involved in the first place. Like I said, what was I going to do? What if I tooled around with his resume and it wound up backfiring? What if whatever skills I brought to Bret’s resume wound up negatively affecting whatever chances he’d have not only at gaining employment here, but everywhere? Especially since he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that actually updates his resume, I couldn’t bear that, the idea that I’d be permanently hindering this guy from getting a job, all based on good intentions, it doesn’t matter.

Sarah looked at me, she was still kind of shaking her head back and forth, but eventually she did this sigh before looking up at me and saying, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to call your friend Bret in for an interview, but you have to spend some time helping him with his resume. OK? When I see this guy next week, I want to see something polished, is that cool?”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. Maybe she was doing me a solid, but she definitely felt like a boss in this situation. Worse, when I got back to my desk, there was another email, it was from LinkedIn, a message from Sarah, she wanted me to join her professional network. And that sigh that she did when I was up at her office, I was doing it right now, I tried to log on to LinkedIn to accept her friend request or whatever, but I couldn’t remember my password, or my username, I couldn’t remember which one it was that I couldn’t remember, it had been so long since I’d signed up for that site.

A week later, Bret shows up for the interview. I had to meet him for coffee and we had to go over his document and it was just like I knew it would be, I barely recognized him. And the part that I did recognize, it just sort of jostled in my memory how Bret and I, we weren’t even like direct friends. We hung out with the same group of people, but I never did anything with Bret one on one, it was always within the context of the larger group.

Even weirder, Bret wound up getting the job. Sarah made a comment to me, something like, “Nice work!” And I couldn’t tell if it was my resume-building advice, or if she meant like nice work on finding such a great hire. But Bret got hired, he was joining the HR team. And so now, I mean, I never see Bret, he works on a different floor. But every time I run into him, that thin veil of old friendship, it’s totally overpowered by the slightly thicker veil of is-this-guy-my-boss? And I don’t know? Is he my boss? What’s the HR relationship with the rest of the company? I wish we had a flow chart like I see at other agencies, like an organizational hierarchy, because it’s so weird, I don’t know how I’m supposed to address anybody, and I worry that I’m constantly coming across as too standoffish, or not serious enough.

I’m with you, sir

Sir, I just wanted to let you know that, despite all of the growing doubts about your ability to lead this company, I’m still with you, you’ve still got my support. And so, going forward, I hope you don’t feel like everyone’s turned on you, that the vote of no confidence is unanimous. Because regardless of how everyone else voted, you’ll always have my vote, a vote of yes confidence.

And when the board meets later today to decide your fate, know that it’s against my strongest objections. I object to the fact that they’re meeting in the first place. We don’t need a board. We’ve got you, the best boss this company has ever seen. Sure profits have tanked lately, but there’s always going to be a period of loss. We’re cutting out the crap, right? Isn’t that what you said? So it’s just a matter of time before things turn around.

If they do throw you out, and things do get better, that’ll be exactly how you saw it coming, loss, then gain. But the board, the rest of staff, everyone’s so short-sighted. A few misguided ethics inquiries and it’s off with the king’s head. Well I want to you let you know that, whatever future successes this company might achieve, and whoever happens to be leading the helm to take credit for those future successes, I won’t be sticking around to add on to the pile of false praise.

No, because if they kick you out, I’m going with you. That’s if they kick you out. The board hasn’t even met yet, and so, who knows, right? Maybe they’ll all have some eleventh hour sense knocked into them. True, it does seem more and more unlikely that anything is going to sway the tide of popular opinion. But one has to hope.

Still, like I said, if that hope winds up not bearing any fruit, I’ll be by your side. Wherever you wind up next, know that you’ve got my unconditional support. Even if that means no pay for a while. Even if it’s just you at your house getting up in the morning and trying out a next move. I’ll make you breakfast. I’ll help you look for a new job, for a new company to lead.

Remember that speech you gave at last year’s quarterly? You said something about, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” That was really inspirational. And I’ve kept that with me, not knowing exactly when I’d get to actually utilize such wisdom. But the moment is now. We are tough, and we’re going to get going. Together. Like if you’re pacing back in forth in your living room, trying to figure out how you’re going to get back in the game, I’ll have a pot of coffee going, so when you want a fresh cup, you’re not even going to have to ask, you won’t even have to stop pacing, you’ll just get to the natural end of your stride and there it’ll be.

And when you do make it back to the top, assuming that the board does vote you out today, and again, I’m not hoping that’s what’s going to happen, nor is it a certainty, I just feel like we should be ready for anything. Because if the office chatter is backed by anything substantial, it only makes sense that we brace ourselves for all options. But when you are back on top, you’ll have me right by your side. You won’t have to lower yourself to your opponents, sinking to their level, getting in their faces, pointing your finger at them and saying, “Hmph. I told you so.” No, I’ll be the one to do that for you.

So keep that chin up, boss. For the next four hours or so, you’re still the one in charge around here. Don’t forget it. Keep that chin up. Tell that guy over there to stop standing around by the water cooler and get back to work. There’s still time to get a few office wide memos in circulation, I could help put everything together.

And just remember, whatever happens, I’m with you all the way. My name? It’s Johnson. I work on four. Remember? I met you a few months ago at the spring benefit? We talked about the chicken, how dry it was? My hair was a little longer, not that much longer, but I just got a haircut the other day? Our wives had the same Chanel clutch? I passed you the salt shaker? Remember? Nothing?