Phone tag

A minor continuation from the Happy Hour post. As I had mentioned, the Headhunter told me to call and during our conversation they offered some contacts that might prove useful. But out of the few names they gave, they specifically told me to call up one firm in particular and ask for “Mary” (or so we shall call her). Mary as it turns out is the office manager for a small firm who is somehow a ‘close personal friend’ of the headhunter. The headhunter tells me they might be looking to add someone to the firm as their business has ticked up in the past year. The headhunter went so far as to drop Mary an email saying I would be getting hold of her via email and also calling to speak with her.

I was very grateful to the headhunter for this very specific introduction, and I proceeded to send Mary the usual email with my resume and basic info. She responded to my resume with an email stating “please give me a call when you have a few minutes to talk.” Which to me, sounds a lot like a phone screen interview… but then, I am wrong a great deal. Regardless, as soon as possible, I call the office. And the phone rings… and rings.. and it goes to voicemail. So I leave a message. No response for the rest of the day and the next. So I call again. Same deal… rings to voicemail. And another message. This continues for a bit over a week. I call pretty much every other day and get no response.

Finally after about 10 days, I actually get Mary on the phone. And she says, “Oh.. I really wanted to talk to you, but today is not a good day. Can you call back on Wednesday?” I ask when, again trying to nail down a specific time, and the best I get is ‘in the morning’. Then she tells me ” Oh and here is a different number to call me at because I am not often by that phone you’ve been calling.” Ah. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten her on the phone… but… that first number was the one she gave me in the email she sent… and is she saying she doesn’t listen to her voicemail or was she explicitly ignoring my calls… maybe it was all just an oversight; right?

So I call back on Wednesday. Ooo.. turns out she’s super busy, can I instead call tomorrow. “Sure” I say. Why not? So I call the next day. No answer, and I am back to leaving messages on voicemail (now on the new and improved number). 3 more days of calling with no humans answering and I finally get a human. A secretary (where the fuck have they been this whole time?) answers and tells me Mary is in a meeting and what is this call in regards to? I leave a message with a human this time, but still no callback from Mary. I make a personal promise since it has now gone on 2 and a half weeks of phone tag, I won’t bother if it hits the 3 week mark. I basically give it one more real attempt to contact Mary. By some stroke of luck, she picks up the phone on the terminal end of my self imposed deadline.

But gosh darnit, don’t-cha know… she has to go do something out of the office. And she says, “You know, why don’t you just show up here. Cause if you’re here in person I can’t just ignore you.” and she laughed sardonically. I said, “yeah, sure. I’ll do that.” or something to that effect and hung up.

I’m not sure what the purpose of constantly telling me to call her back was. I assumed I was calling for a job, but over the better part of a month — I never did find out. I can’t help but be a bit paranoid if this is what happens when I deal with a “close personal friend” if there was some ulterior motive I just can’t see at play. Regardless, I highly doubt the head attorney for the firm has any idea, and I am sure they would be unhappy considering how it reflects on the firm.

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