A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Bank...

There is a fine line between persistence and being a pain in the ass. I was walking that line the last few months on a job I had been feverishly following. It was for a bank branch manager job RIGHT HERE in Shakopee USA! (And it's a little known fact that Shakopee MN truly IS its only namesake in America).

How much better could it get? Working right down the street? The ability to come home for lunch or a quick snooze? Heaven.

So when I saw this job posted back in October, I knew I had to go for it. I applied, and of course, heard nothing. This is not surprising to me, because in job search, it is just assumed that whenever you apply to a job on-line, expect to hear nothing. Sound frustrating?

Oh, it is.

The job kept showing up on various job boards on the Internet. One of them listed some poor guy's NAME, and I to this day don't know if that was a mistake or really meant to be. A name? Jackpot.

Time to go into stalker mode.

So I stalked the guy down, coming across his e-mail address by doing a little sleuthing, and quickly sent my resume and cover letter directly to him. "That'll do the trick!" I thought.

I thought wrong.

His name could have easily been "Black Hole". Frustrating? Yes. (That is now MY middle name).

AGAIN the job appears at the end of December. What the???!!!! So I go to the company website where I applied the first time, and it said "You have already applied for this job, would you like to apply again??"

If there had been a "Hell Yes" button, I would have pushed it.

So on Friday, January 1, I applied for the second time. On Monday, January 5th, Mr. "Black Hole" called me up.

Uh oh. He's going to tell me to leave him the hell alone already. I was ready for his shots at me. After all, I likely had crossed that fine line.

With hesitance in his voice he proceeded to ask me some basics, and by the end of our 10 minutes, he had me coming in for a face to face interview later that week.

Persistence is not futile.

So the interview goes great and he said he would get back to me within 5 days. 5 days came and went so I gave old Nick a call.

A woman's voice: "You've reached the voicemail of Nick ____________. Nick is no longer with the company. Please press 0 for another member of the bank human resources department".

Again, had there been a HELL ZERO button I would've pushed it.

It was the episode of Cheers where Rebecca finally makes it to the head cheeses office, tells her all the reasons he should hire her, he's about to give her a job, and WHAM, the Feds rush in and arrest him for tax evasion.

And thus, in a flash, Nick is gone, and I later learned my dream job so close to home has been put on hold.

Not knowing the sequence of events that led to the demise of Nick, but knowing his quick departure was likely not on his own terms, what I do want to know now is:

Is Nick's job available????

;-)