A bit of a slap in the face

I guess it’s my own fault, but really, people could show a little more professionalism. 

A few days ago I saw a job posting.  Let me state for the record that I am happily employed  at my current job and the only real downside to it is the fact that I have to drive 90 minutes round trip.  And even that’s not so bad given that I have Hinterland Who’s Who experiences every day.  Mostly, my disatisfaction about this job comes from  feeling guilty about my increased carbon footprint but overall I have very little  to complain about work-wise.  I’m very lucky I know.

So I mentioned the job posting to DH.  And told him that while I probably should apply for it (I was eminently qualified) I wasn’t going to as there was no real benefit  – my commute wouldn’t be considerably shortened, the work was not something I was especially interested in, the pay would likely be on par with the current job (or less) AND most importantly, I had applied to that company many years ago and thought then that the person I’d be reporting to was a bit odd.  That person is still there and would be my boss.  I also knew, within minutes of beginning that interview way back when, that I didn’t want to work at the organization so I essentially dialed it in.  I also didn’t get a second interview, so no farm no foul right?  Clearly I was not what they were looking for and that was fine for all parties involved. 

So I had reservations when I saw this posting.  And I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to DH who is all about applying for jobs just for practice.  After some discussion, which entailed me saying I wasn’t interested and him saying I could always say no if I got an offer, I decided against the whole thing.  I mean really, what’s the point of jumping through hoops if you don’t really care about the outcome?  DH said I should do it but it was my decision in the end.

But this morning I figured oh, why not?  What did I have to lose?  Maybe it was a different environment now even though none of the players had changed.  So I fired off a resume and figured that would be the end of it until the closing deadline passed.  I figured I’d likely get a call for an interview and I would deal with the whole thing if and when that happened.  I was not going to devote any more of my time to this.

Until I happened to go back to my “professional” email box for another matter and I saw an email from the person I sent my details to.  They had written back three words…Oddly, no interview.

That was it.  Not sorry, you don’t meet our qualifications.  Not sorry, we’ve selected someone else.  Not even a thank you for applying, we’ll call you if we want to see you.  Just those three cryptic words.  I even went back to the documents I sent to see if I had any glaring errors….nope, they were good.

I have to say those three words make my life easier.  I don’t have to worry about a future job interview for a job I don’t particularly want.  Nor do I have to deal with thinking about weighing the pros and cons of taking a new job two months after taking, well, a new job. 

But the unprofessionalism bothers me.  Would it have killed this person to be a little more polite?  After all, that’s what social lies were invented for.  And better yet, they could have not bothered to contact me at all.  Email silence is better than email rudeness.  And I think we’re all used to applying for jobs and having our resumes disappear into the ether never to be heard from again. 

But the manager will be someone else’s problem thankfully.  I’m staying where I am, with my awesome boss.  This is the last time I listen to the DH with respect to applying for library jobs.  I told him it wouldn’t end well but  I have to say that I didn’t think it would start off badly either.