Thursday, July 9, 2020

How long can a man/women hold a grudge?

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!


It seems that the job market is getting better. I was approached by a few recruiters and agents who had some positions to fill during the past week.

One of the calls was from the company that retracted my offer a few months ago. I bet the recruiter did not know the history there.

I was open to the opportunity and we agreed to follow up with a call the next day as I needed to rush for a meeting.

To be honest, I was pretty glad that I would have the opportunity to talk to them again and I was hoping to have a fresh start and even land a job offer, as that was a very interesting area for me.
(To clarify, considering the virus situation, my mentor expressed his understanding for me to start looking. And if a satisfying offer comes, we will continue our cooperation in a advisor-style manner.)

To me, what happened was in the past and I would only look forward with no hard feelings. The retraction of the offer was only business after all. It was not like anyone has done anything "wrong".

I decided that the first thing I would tell the recruiter would be the history and let the recruiter decide whether to continue.

I even planned to apologize first for the possibility of "wasting his time". But later, it came to me that I should not.

I was prepared to accept the worst-case scenario: he would tell me that I would be disqualified due to the history, and I would say to him that I would understand and thank him for his call.

At least, it would be a proper grown-up conversation.

Or so I thought.


The next day, half an hour before the scheduled call, I received a message from the recruiter that he would need to cancel the call.

I could only guess he found out about the history.

I replied "Thank you", because I could understand that maybe he did not want to waste his time to call or maybe he was even worried that he would get into some kind of trouble by speaking with me.

And I knew it would not have any tangible impact on my life, not any more.

And I knew there was nothing I could do.

But still, I felt uncomfortable.

Why? Because, half a year later, I was still not treated like any other candidate and I was not given a chance, even for a proper conversation.

It was like I have done something unforgivable to them, even though I was the one who suffered significant loss - because they gave me the offer, I quit from my previous job, and because they later retracted the same offer, until now, I still did not have a job and I almost did not have any income for the past half a year. To some extent, my life had to take a different path!

I just could not understand why they still refused to even talk.

As a person, I let it go; however, the other side, as a company, still held a grudge against me.

I just could not see why it was necessary. Maybe it would be hard for the other side to believe that I actually let it go, simply because they did not.


Happy voting, everybody!

Till next time!

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