I’ve been unemployed ^h^h^h^h resting for most of this year, save for a month at a disastrous cluster-fsck anarcho-software-as-a-m*sturbation-aid house where the CEO felt that you couldn’t possibly have any use unless you had read at least two self help books and three “feel the fear and then finger-bang your cat” type books a month – but that is for another post, I feel.


I’ve been doing the rounds of the agencies on a daily basis and one thing I have noticed that appears to have gone by the wayside is good manners. I’ve been a contractor for so long I can’t recall the last time I was a permanent employee, so getting a new job every so often is second nature to me, but there appears to be a new creature at employment agencies, and he/she has a rather disturbing attitude. This is the mannerless lout who feels that they are qualified to tell you that, despite the advert that suggests that they are looking for someone with recent experience in x, you aren’t right for the role. Dare to protest and they get very aggressive, very quickly about why they are right in an overly confrontational way. I don’t know what such rudeness does for these people, and short of calling them labial (think about it) and hanging up, I don’t know how to cope with it, but maybe that it precisely the reaction they are trying to elicit.

Compare this with other, established agents who may tell you that you’re perfect for the role and “give me five minutes with the client and I’ll get you an interview” and never call back. They are both as bad as each other, sure, but the former are becoming more prevalent. Again, no manners…

I’m wondering, is it that I am of a “certain age” and therefore intimidate these people in some way? Ageism aside, is there a niche market in employment agencies for placing “oldies” that agents haven’t worked out yet? [*]

So as a bit of fun, if you were running an agency for the placement of mature IT people, what questions would you use to test whether a potential ‘wrinklie’ might be right for the role? Navigation commands in wordstar? Describe the difference between config.sys and autoexec.bat? How do you reveal codes in DisplayWrite 4?

There will be a job at some point, I’ve no doubt, and it will be enjoyable and fun. But why should I have to put up with the gamut of bad manners on the way there?

[*] Can I ask any more rhetorical questions? Do I sound like Sarah Jessica Parker in SATC? Eeek, do I look like her?