Tree Climbing Pizza and Other Randomness...

I won’t waste too much complaining about it being a Monday. It’s been a typical Monday. It’s wet and grey and non-committal as far as whether it wants to rain, snow, both or neither. I had one candidate at work decide that the offer from us that he accepted on Friday was no longer his best option and, instead, accepted another position with another company instead. I also have another candidate who is acting squirrelly. This usually translates to the fact that he may have received a counter offer from his current company.

Counteroffers are a pain. They’re tempting in their lure. They offer more money for the same job that you did before. They can make everything seem better. However, as we always tell our candidates, there are lots of statistics/reports to support the fact that 80% of people who accept a counteroffer end up leaving within a year anyway. Whatever was wrong enough with the job to encourage the employee to look for a new one doesn’t get solved with money. Take my old job, for example. Even if my boss had given me a counteroffer, I think I probably would have rejected it. It was never really about the money. It was about the fact that I was bored, the office was a corporate version of high school where cliques ruled, brownnosers climbed to positions of power and those who were really keeping the boat floating were stepped on and ignored.

Also, I had a bad boss. He was nice but he was not meant to be a manager of people and as someone who likes to take action when problems arise, I had a hard time sitting back watching him dither over something that a real manager could easily have decided.

It’s easy for me to look back and say I wouldn’t have stayed for a counteroffer especially as I didn’t get one. I would have been tempted, certainly. However, in my past jobs, I have received counteroffers and I’ve always moved forward because, ultimately, it’s never about the money.
So, this is what we tell our candidates who dither. When they have families and little children, it’s easy to understand why they are tempted to stay at their current job for more money. It’s comfortable. It’s secure. It’s safe.

It’s just hard as a recruiter when you work hard to get them in the running for a position, set them up for interviews, coach them for the interviews, follow up with the interview and constantly try to keep things in motion for them and then, when they actually get the offer from a company, they decide they don’t want it. It’s like arranging a party and having no one show up.

Still, it happens. It happens to me and the other recruiter in the office. People aren’t predictable. This makes them more fun to work with because things stay interesting. It also makes them more infuritating because I have no control and, as we’ve established, I’m a control freak.

Still, it made Monday slightly more eventful than the average Monday upon which people have a hard time coming back from the weekend and they don’t start returning phone calls/emails until late in the day.

Besides, it wasn’t a bad day. It was just, well, a Monday.

Still, you have to find small things that make it interesting, besides the unpredictable nature of people. Today, for example, I was surprised to find that there is a rather large bunch of balloons stuck rather high up in a tree in my neighbourhood. This may not seem so surprising but that bunch of balloons has been there a week. I was more surprised that it was still there. They have managed to survive a minor ice storm, gusty winds, heavy snow showers, rain and frigid cold temperatures. Every time I drive by the balloons, I wonder exactly how they got up so high and didn’t pop. They’re black and red and there are about seven altogether. I’m intrigued to see how long they last. They’re starting to shrink as balloons do which, in my experience, makes them more durable than heavily inflated ones. I’m wondering if they’ll shrink to nothing before they pop. I’ll keep you posted, if you like.

Also, today on my drive, I noticed another interesting thing. A squirrel with a slice of pizza. It wasn’t just a small slice. It was one of those whopper slices you get from places like Sam’s Club and Costco. It was actually fascinating to watch this rather tiny rodent carry a slice of pizza that was at least double his size and still manage to climb the tree with it. What caught my attention was that I didn’t actually see the squirrel at first because the pizza slice was so large. It’s a surreal thing indeed to watch a slice of pizza ascend a tree trunk. I actually had to stop my car for a second and just stare. Naturally, I realized it was a squirrel holding the pizza right away but I admit, for a second,I really thought the pizza was climbing a tree. I was fascinated. I supposed I also didn’t realize that squirrels ate pizza. I pictured them as more the acorn and berry type but this is 2011. Pizza eating squirrels are probably not terribly unusual. I just wonder if someone from 1940 time travelled to our time, what they’d make of squirrels eating pizza.
It just doesn’t seem like something that would have happened back then. Is this a form of evolution, do you think?

It’s amazing the random things that catch our attention, isn’t it? Still, on a bleak and dreary Monday, it’s the small things that make the day interesting.

Sometimes, that’s just all you need.

Happy Tuesday!