opportunities with overalls
May 9th, 2010 by tortoise
Act 1
I have two friends. Both are looking for work.
Something came up at the job I have. A rush job, requiring boring secretarial grunt work. Or maybe it could have done with some coding, I don’t know.
Up to now, I had been looking for opportunities to get both friends in here. My workplace seems to be a little skittish when it comes to hiring full-time, and I can understand why. Because of that skittishness, I thought the best way to get each friend in here was to find opportunities to showcase what each could do. And an opportunity arose.
An emergency rush job came up, and none of my co-workers were available for overtime. I called both friends. One is a VBA and Excel programmer exploring SharePoint. The other is interested in working for a hedge fund. (What a time to be trying to break into that field!)
Act 2.0
The conversations I had with each were very different. The VBA programmer — I’ll call him Idling — is months behind on his rent and months behind on a mortgage, currently unemployed, and recently received a letter from his landlord asking for an income by next month and a plan to repay what’s owed. Idling wasn’t interested. He wasn’t even interested in coming down and looking at the work which needed to be done.
I’ve seen how my workplace processes their files and I know the system can be improved; I just don’t know how. I had talked with him before about creating something to improve the workflow. Creating something which addresses that could be used not only at my workplace, but other companies in the same field, generating income for him independent of “employment.” Idling is… Uninterested.
Act 3
The other friend — I’ll call her Frieda — was reluctant at first. Then I mentioned that my workplace did work with hedge funds. That was the end of the conversation; she was on her way.
Contrast
I remember several conversations with Idling in which he mentioned that he felt like he had been given a “do over” after he had been away from the city for awhile in some dreadful part of the country. But at his last job, he put all of the data into one big database table. He knows better. And of course, he had to go back and normalize the thing. And of course, he looked like a fool, because what database programmer doesn’t know about normalization? And he made a number of other really stupid choices because he didn’t like the job and wanted to get it over with quickly.
My hedge fund friend — I’ll call her Frieda — hated the work she was given. She kept calling me, saying “I’m going to kill you,” while she was working (and when there was no one around). But she worked. I stationed her in the same office with the office manager (who gets the part-time workers for the company) so they could see what kind of worker she was. And she pushed back her arrival at a networking function to help as much as she could. And I don’t really think she understood the extent of my plan until we talked some before she left.
She’s not looking for full-time work as a secretary. She wants to work for a hedge fund. But by working for people who work with hedge funds, even as a part-time temporary worker puts a little money in her pocket and puts her in a better networking position.
Epilogue
Before writing this entry, I had been giving Idling the benefit of the doubt. I know that sometimes changing direction in life can seem overwhelming and oftentimes you can feel like you’re paddling through space — making a lot of motion, but not really sure you’re getting anywhere. Now that I’m writing this, I’m thinking his “do over” is less like a second chance and more like a repeat loop.
It reminds me of this quote I picked up somewhere: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”