Wednesday, April 08, 2009

bad form dude, bad form

i have thought about this letter since 10 am. I finally wrote it, but as of right now I'm not sending it. i wrote it more for me, to make me feel better. so....without further ado, i present my letter to (what i think is) a very unprofessional employer....

Dear Mr. X-

During my interview I informed you of another job that I had, teaching dance. I told you of my plans to keep that job and that it would affect my Friday afternoons. You asked me what hours I could work and you also asked me if I could come in at earlier times during the week to make up for the missed Friday hours. You mentioned that Fridays were slow and that leaving early should not be an issue. I also informed you that I was still a student and while I could start quickly, I would have classes to still attend to and graduation services and you made note of those days and seemed to be okay with those scheduling conflicts.

When you sent me an email offering me the job, I was thrilled at the opportunity to expand my horizons with your company. I replied a few hours later with my positive response and a reminder of my scheduling conflicts. Your accounts payable employee called me and I told her of those conflicts that I had mentioned in the email and told her I would like the job. She asked if I could start the next day. I was surprised at this, and informed her that I would need a few days to wrap things up at my current job, but I could start on Monday. She accepted that.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up my email this morning to find a letter informing that my "scheduling conflicts would not work" and that you had decided to "go with a different candidate." I was shocked and appalled that you would take such action, especially in an email format that wasn't from you, but rather your accounts payable employee. I see this move to be of bad form in your regard since I had informed you of the conflicts prior to the job offer. I hope you realize your error of judgment and will do better to improve upon that the next time you offer a job to a prospective employee.

I am not extremely pleased with the way things were handled and even though I understand your reasoning, I don't feel it fair to me that you would go back on what you said during earlier conversations.

-Alishka Babushka

obviously...this isn't a perfect letter and I tried not to rip him a new one, even though this is all anonymous and he'll never see it...unless i email it to him. thoughts? should i email him? should i just drop it and count my blessings that i don't have to work for a boss who jerks me around like that? I'm still frustrated with him, but have moved on and i'm applying for other jobs in my field. if any of y'all know of places looking for a secretary or receptionist, let a girl know yah? Thanks!!!

6 comments:

Giovanni Schwartz said...

What a jerk... Send it, for sure.

Anonymous said...

I say we go with silly string (or even better, shaving cream) and attack the new receptionist. Or maybe cookies full of interesting surprises for the boss.

erin said...

I don't think you would have wanted to work for a guy like that anyway. And I do think you should send them your letter. You might want to tighten it up--okay a lot--so it doesn't sound like it's whining. But I do agree that he does need a professional kick in the butt.

jacob said...

That really sucks! And, it sounds pretty fishy.

I understand that they might want to choose a candidate that doesn't have schedule conflicts, but they should have given you the choice. I mean, they could have very easily said that they would hire you but that they were unable to give you a schedule around your dance teaching, and then at least let you have the choice!

You definitely should send a letter, but I think you should tweak a few parts to make it sound more professions. For example, rather than "shocked and appalled," you could say "very disappointed." I would also recommend that you take off the last paragraph and a half, so that the tone of the letter is more "I'm informing you that....." rather than "I hate you because...."

Good luck with it!

Sam, The Nanti-SARRMM said...

I would e-mail it to him. Yeah.

Dal said...

um. ya. you probably should not send a letter to that employer.

#1 he doesnt care. he probably would not even read the whole thing if he even started it.

#2 you dont know exactly what happened in your situation. he might have wanted to hire you but got the kabosh from higher up or something like that.

#3 i totally understand that you are frustrated and it was unprofessional, but even if you "tighten it up" or whatev, its going to just make you look like a sore looser. And once again... he just doesnt care. If he has the ethical reasoning to care, he already feels bad; if not, it wont matter anyways.

the whole thing does suck though. why are you looking for a day job anyways and not trying to get more teaching hours? just curious