We, uh, didn't hire her.

It's been a busy two days at Corporate Behemoth. The really cruddy thing about taking time off is then making up for everything you missed when you get back.

But speaking of things I missed ... I returned to Corporate Behemoth to find some formerly familiar faces. Seems that many of the folks who were laid off a few weeks ago have now been hired back.

Corporate Behemoth? Methinks you have your head up your ass - for the firing, not the rehiring. Figure out which way is up and quit fucking with people's lives.

But speaking of staffing issues ... I recently uncovered this unpublished post from about 18 months ago. Back from the days when Dorothy was still my partner in crime and we had the budget to, like, hire people. Good times.

From the archives:

Dorothy and I have been interviewing candidates for positions on our team. We’ve received roughly one gazillion resumes for two spots. The interviews have been grueling, not because we’re mean and scary and trying to intimidate, but because it’s so much work pretending to be normal.

It’s a lot like dating.

Today, our final interview of the day called the HR lady to say she was running late. She finally arrived at Corporate Behemoth half an hour late. My heart hurt for her as we took the elevator down to greet her. I was sure she was flustered and having a really bad day and just beside herself over being late.

I was right.

Well, sort of.

This candidate – let’s call her Flo – met with us for only 20 minutes. But Flo crammed about an hour and a half worth of conversation into that 20 minutes. But it wasn’t so much interview conversation as, say, happy hour conversation. Happy hour after most of the people have left and you’ve had a few and are huddled in a booth with your very best girlfriends.

Flo told us about her troubles finding Corporate Behemoth and how she’d been out of work since July, on account of having some elective surgery and then not being able to find work.

I noticed she was using a large white pencil eraser as an earring back on her left ear.

Without being prompted, Flo gave her opinions on the different tools and processes used in our line of work. She joked about being old. She gave in-depth descriptions of her former jobs … descriptions that weren’t really necessary since her resume was five single-spaced pages long. She assured us that no work was too boring.

Then, Flo started talking about her work experience at a large area corporation. This Other Corporate Behemoth is famous for its hideous layoffs – which Flo told us about in great detail. Then, she started ranting about Other Corporate Behemoth’s former CEO and his recent – and very profitable – golden parachute.

About this time, Dorothy and I could no longer look at each other.

If Flo had that kind of golden parachute, she’d use the money for charity or the cancer society or the church or the boy scouts. And she was sorry if that former CEO was one of our dads, but it just wasn’t right. And she couldn’t believe that he went on to take another job, because he certainly didn’t need the money. Now, if she had that set up, she wouldn’t sit around watching HGTV all day, but she certainly wouldn’t take another high-stress job. And if saying that cost her this job, so be it, but she just couldn’t help it. That CEO was not a mensch, and forgive her Yiddish, but her best friend in the whole world is a Jew and taught her all sorts of wonderful vernacular, and don’t they just have the best way with words?

Oy.