Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Helpless Situation

The son of one of my mother's co-workers is applying for a job at my
former employer. She asked my mom to ask me to put a good word for
him.

I have obviously never met this person. I have probably met my
mother's co-worker at some point, but I do not remember anything about
her. I assume that the guy is decent, and I'd like to help my mom's
friend, but how can I possibly do so? Imagine that I called up my
former boss to give a recommendation. If you were in the room with
me, you might hear something like this:

"Well actually, I don't know anything about how good an accountant he is."
"No, I don't know anything about his character or work habits."
"I've never met him, but his mother is my mom's friend any my mom is a
good judge of character, so I would assume that this guy turned out
okay."

Keep in mind that I was basically a computer techie when I worked
there, and that it has been almost two years since I left.

Mark Twain described a similar situation:

http://www.mtwain.com/A_Helpless_Situation/0.html

1 comment:

Lou said...

hey richard....i enjoyed reading the twain piece attached to your blog. dad.