Frustrated

Being back has its good days and its bad days. Today is bad. Last Friday was bad. Of course, that was Friday the 13th, so maybe there were other forces going on.

Friday I was working on my two day try-out with MADE Designs. They are a few blocks away from my house, which is convenient. But they are a newer company (only 3 years old), so they don’t seem to know exactly how to interview, hire and have employees. The one guy they already had on staff told me that the two owners were pretty tight-lipped when it came to giving him direction for his job. Not out of meanness, but out of inexperience. Allowing employees to do things their own way isn’t always a bad thing, but I read it as being inexperienced with having to teach employees how you want them to work. I just don’t think they have ever had to think about keeping their vision alive and on track while bringing new people into their company.

They had given me an odd corner cabinet – nothing too crazy, but they use mitres on every joint, which isn’t standard in the industry. So I was battling that hurdle. And there were a few times I lost the battle. Since I had already worked on the one cabinet for a full day, by Friday afternoon I was getting frustrated at not being further along. So when something went wrong, I was frustrated and angry at myself.

Then I got a call from my old boss Mike. He said that he was leaving the hiring and firing of employees to his newly promoted shop manager, and that I should expect to get a call from Scott, the manager, to talk to me about coming in for an interview. I did get the call and set up a time on Tuesday morning to go meet Scott. But I was insulted that I was being asked to interview for a position that I had already held for two years and for which Mike had said that he would hire me back into.

I’m actually getting frustrated with Mike. We have been talking since I’ve been back about getting me back into his shop. Recently I had been leaving him alone as I didn’t want him to feel like I was pestering him. But he has been getting a lot of calls from the other people who I’ve been applying with. So there is a bit of pressure on him, I guess. On Thursday afternoon he called me up to ask about the most recent call he had received. He wanted to know how bad I wanted to work with the guy, what I knew about his shop already, and other stuff like that. It was odd. In this case I had found the company in the Yellow Pages, and sent my resume in to them blind. I knew very little about the company aside from what I had seen on their website. And Mike hadn’t asked me about other companies I had applied to even though he had been getting calls. So what was so new about this one? If he is feeling the pressure to hire me sooner than he would feel comfortable at the risk of losing me to a competitor, that’s his problem. In that case he needs to decide what is more important to him. Either hire me or let me loose. Don’t play games like this with me.

Very frustrating.

I’m also on hold with MADE as they had also tested someone else out last week. Now Bo and Tim are talking with each other and making their decision. Fair enough. But I have no idea where I stand with them. I realized on Sunday morning that I had seen the cabinet the other guy had been asked to make. I didn’t realize it while I was working there for the two days, but suddenly I remembered having to walk around it while I was there. And I realized I got the harder cabinet. His cabinet was your basic square cabinet. Essentially the only challenge he would have had (if he had the same level of experience I had) would be to deal with mitering the corners. My cabinet was L-shaped. I had to deal with more mitres and more issues than he would have. So does that play into my favor? Or did they set me up to fail? Yet another sign that they didn’t think out their trial period concept. If they were trying to judge two people, it would make more sense to have them both make the same cabinet, or make similar cabinets. Now they have to compare apples and oranges in order to make their decision. Again, not my problem, but frustrating nonetheless.

So Monday April 16th isn’t much better than Friday April 13th.