Unprofessionalism

I met with a recruiter yesterday, who found me on a generic job posting/resume site. He's been blowing up my email box for a few days now, with everything from compliments about how my resume stands out from the other 1,500 he's read recently, to his "interviewing tip guide" to emails telling me what to wear.

I appreciate his situation, after all, his livelihood is based on finding quality candidates who not only meet specific job listing criteria, but then have to impress potential employers enough to get hired... that being said, I find it unbelievably rude, that after having me choose the time of our appointment, and confirming it twice, he was still 40 minutes late to come out and meet me. I just sat there in front of the receptionist with a glass of water twiddling my thumbs. Once he brought me in, he asked me when our appointment was.

"11:00," I said.

"Good, then I'm not running late!"

I managed to stifle the fact that I found 11:50 to be late for an 11:00 meeting. Clearly I'm too nice. Anyway, the meeting was mostly productive, some of his suggestions are blatantly obvious to pretty much anyone who's ever applied for a job. Some of them are useful enough to help shape my responses to typical questions I'll probably be getting in the near future. He seems convinced that I'm a perfect fit for one particular job he is trying to fill, so we'll see where that goes.

The drawback is I felt I had to lie about one piece of my background. Past readers will remember the drama of 2 years ago and my employment situation, but I can't always bring myself to advertise that I was dismissed from a prior position. I've spent so much time with my revisionist answer about moving on to escape an oppressive office culture, that I almost believe it at this point. Hopefully that fib won't come back to bite me.

Sorry I haven't been writing, to those limited few of you who occasionally check up on me. Life has changed a bit the last few months, and I've been pretty blocked up creatively. I'll try to keep you all abreast of the changes, and perhaps keeping a pseudo-diary of this process will open me up a little.

If there's anything you think I should be reporting on, let me know. Happy to oblige!