Okay, so before I begin, I’d like to say that even though my comments about the company I work for will make it seem like I’m exaggerating, but I’m truly writing the truth and nothing else.
- Background
My workplace has a culture where ANY employee has the freedom to poke their nose into anything they’d like to. The C.E.O is an eccentric bookworm who wants the environment to be a knowledge sharing frenzy.
So, when I asked to participate in recruitment, I was promptly added to the interview team. Initially an observer, with time, people that the team believed to be “unfit” were sidelined to me, to better me at the craft.
Scene
With our “bosses” (we don’t call our superiors bosses, actually even calling them superiors is against company values) out of town, we hatched a plan. The HR recruiter would pretend to be an internee, the culture specialist would pretend to be the C.O.O, and I the content writer and Arabic translator would pretend to be the HR recruiter.
I know this is a lot to keep up with, but stick around, it’s getting better.
- The interview
The interviewee arrived. And when she walked in the door with a huge smile on her face, I felt sad that we called her while having decided beforehand that she wouldn’t get the job anyway.
She sat down and I, like I had seen the HR do so many times before, acted like a professional interviewer. “Chauffeur knowledge” you could say, not backed by any self conducted research, purely copying the interviewer’s style, I asked her questions about her values, what she wanted to be in life and blah blah.
It turned out that she was a really sweet person, shy and timid, someone who recognized their faults and wanted to work on them. She’d done her bachelors in marketing and she wanted hands on experience in the digital marketing field.
I saw this as a plus point, she was open and honest about her faults. She wanted to work on herself and she had already started taking action for her to be a better “expresser of feelings” per se. Plus, she had applied to be an internee and our criteria for that was just that the person be willing to learn.
On the other hand, the culture specialist saw her shyness as a negative. She claimed in very clear words (to the interviewee’s face) that with the characteristics the young girl possessed-
“If I want me to give you sisterly advice” the culture specialist said, leaning in towards the interviewee, puffing herself up to authoritatively to blurt the words — “leave marketing, it’s not for someone like you”
And that’s when things went wrong.
My brain at that point
- It wasn’t polite to put the girl down like that, it was so demoralizing. She had come to learn, come to change. Trainees don’t come all polished up, that’s why their called trainees.
- I can see the girl’s heart crumbling. That must hurt so bad, ouch!
- The culture specialist had determined that she was incapable to fit into the marketing field because she was unable to vocally express herself. But most digital marketing isn’t conducted on the front end anyway.
- It’s annoying that the culture specialist is misrepresenting herself as a woman with large amounts of knowledge about marketing (she didn’t know as much as she was claiming). And on the basis of her scarce knowledge advising an ambitious young girl to quit.
Result
ISHAQ’S INTERVENTION. TADA , TADA, TADUMM
“Mrs.Larry? I think it’s time I give some feedback too”
“Excuse me? I am not done talking”
“Ummm”
Glares at me.
“Sure, please continue”. Proceeds to whip out his phone and begins a rapid fire of texts at her
Sent from Ishaq: Stop
Sent from Ishaq: Bass
Sent from Ishaq: WTF
Sent from Ishaq: -.-
Sent from Ishaq: STOPP
Sent from Ishaq: ZIPPP
Looks up from her phone. Makes a face at him. As if saying, you’re not respecting my ‘authority’.
Then proceeds to turn her attention back towards the interviewee, and continues explaining why the slumped interviewee was wrong for marketing.
There was nothing that I could do at that point. Persisting further would blow our cover and it would be even more humiliating for the girl to know that we didn’t see her capable enough to conduct a serious interview.
Sometime later, the specialist left the room. And I was left to try to help the girl recollect herself.
I tried my hardest, told her that being shy didn’t mean a ticket out of the industry. And that her eagerness to learn and self improve would take her a long way. I tried my hardest.
But the damage was done.
She walked out of the office with a smile not a fraction of the size it was when she came in. A polite smile, a smile of defeat.
The Aftermath
“What were you thinking?” she yelled with her right index throbbing at his direction. “D’you think I don’t know what I’m doing?- I’ve counselled people before, how dare you try to disrespect me like that” she took a deep breath and continued “ We thought of this as a good opportunity for you to practice but that does NOT mean that you forget your place!”.
Author’s note: I have some difficulty articulating myself with clarity in Urdu. But maybe it was the inner me that really wanted to stand up for the interviewee. So my inner me, well… It overcame its obstacles. Not only that, it became the most fucking articulate that I've ever seen it be over the last few years.
A cold power took over me. My eyes narrowed and focused, and it was as if every single part of my stiff body was channeling an inner anger. “You think I was disrespecting you? If I was, if I truly was, I would have cut you off right there and then- I would have yelled out during your river of ill-based demoralizing bullshit”.
“Bullshit?” “You think what I was saying was bullshit?” — “You’re a fucking content writer
She had officially crossed the line. I’m a simple dude. Tell me that we have a competitive culture and I’ll be competitive. Tell me that your culture is that which appreciates diversity and is an environment which pushes people to learn and value the opinions of others, I’ll scan it through my brain and adjust to act the same.
Author’s note: I lost what little respect I had for the ‘culture specialist’. And it may be so that my articulation issue only comes into play where I have sufficient amount of respect f the person that I’m talking to, to think before I speak. But apparently in brain she didn’t even have that anymore.
I set out my destroyer pointers. And terminated her. Not literally, but yeah, literally.
I fear if I describe those, this piece off writing will seem like a hate blog. And that’s not what I’d like it to be.
