Don's day at the office...

Monday I was called into assist at one of the recruitment places I signed up at – place where the lady from Colorado is the manager. It was about 8:30am and I was just starting to make my cup of coffee. I received a frantic call from Sarah, the head consultant at Advanced Personnel. Sure enough she needed some help as her assistant was home sick. Well I check my calendar, it was clear (big surprise), and agreed to help out however I could. I was a bit bummed that I was going to miss my morning workout but figured I could catch up on Tuesday.

So I walked in to discover that Monday was not only timesheet day but they also had also just placed several very generic ads in the paper prompting a large amount of calls and walk in business. Sarah had little knowledge of the phone or computer systems and wasn’t really clear on the requirements for timesheet day. She was a bit more concerned with a couple upcoming meetings for applicant placement and a contract with a client for all temporary work. She turned on the monitor for me, gave me the login information, told me how to check voicemail, showed me where a few of the forms were located, and then left for her meetings. She said she’d be back by noonish – it was 10am. Fantastic. So the calls started coming in about the ads in the paper – which I had no information so just told people to come in and sign up. People then started showing up to complete the applications and had many questions that I could only guess at answering.

A little on the office. For one, it was freezing. Not the it’s 70 degrees and the AC is blowing on me but more like it’s about 56 degrees and just damn cold. I also notice the office was lightly equipped on technology side. They have two computers, an old scanner, an old printer, a digital camera, and a velobind machine. That’s about it. No copier. Two calculators (only one of which worked). No paper towels in the bathroom, just a dirty rag. Worst of all, no coffee. Ugh.

I was busy all day but still had a little time to chat with the owner of the car dealership whose building we were sharing. He’s not overly happy with the economy right now and even less happy with the governments’ handling of this. He basically went off on the NZ government. He did say he didn’t want to sound negative to which I replied, “it’s too late.” I also reminded him that I’m from the States and have to deal with the worst president of all time and probably the worst leader of a democratic society. He agreed with that. He went on to say he did a lot better when he was living in Sydney. I reminded him it could be a lot worse (more just a general statement by me to keep him going). He agreed and proceeded to tell me about his total ecologically friendly house up by Abel Tasman (with landing strip) and his own airplane. Seems like a interesting guy – plus he’s got a gold front tooth – cool.

I spent the day answering phones, calling references, greeting applicants, scanning documents, and finding paperwork that Sarah needed. Since I have management experience and I’ve done my share of hiring, I was also able to offer some feedback on the candidates. All in all it wasn’t that bad. Bonus - Angela brought me lunch.

**Slight interruption here – nightly news just had a story on the Erotica parade in Auckland and there were several topless women shown without distortion or cover up (no, this is not cable). Ok, good on them. **

Back on track. I do have several pretty funny stories that I can’t disclose as I signed a NDA and legally I’m not able to repeat. Oh well – your loss.

So I’m headed back tomorrow at 9am to discuss my future with this company. They need a lot of help as they are overwhelmed at the moment. I pushed that they should take me on part time and I could assist as needed. I’ll probably do some part time work over the next couple weeks to help them get caught up. Sarah also expressed interest in getting me more involved with the recruitment, placement, and client management in the near future.

Who knows where this will lead. For now I might have a PT job that will bring in some extra $, get me out of the house a couple days a week, and help me make some local contacts (where better than a recruitment agency).

That’s it for now.