[ericschand]

Another thread reminded me of this...

So I'm looking for work.

I find a number of leads, they all lead to interviews.

Rejected by one company, 2nd on the list. Offer from one company,
but for some reason they decided when I counter-offered that they
would pay 60% of pay up-front, the rest in "bonuses". Uh, no thanks.

2 more interviews, both went very well. Both companies say after their
second interviews, "You *will* get an offer from us."

Great. One offer comes, slightly low, but I can negotiate, no biggie.
As this happens, the 2nd company phones up, and the HR person
says, "Would you accept any offer that we put in front of you?"

This completely caught me off-guard. WTH does that mean??
So I replied that the offer would be listed and worked through.
Now she got audibly annoyed. "List?!? What list?? Why would you
have to work through a list?!?" I replied that I would have to
weigh the benefits, pros and cons of the position.

She then basically asked if I was interested. I told her that
there was no way I was going through 2 interviews, plus time, etc.,
to not be interested. I don't have the time to waste like that.

Fast forward one week. The low offer, I counter, and they
counter, etc and we come to agreement. I tell them I need
2 weeks, so I run off to hand in my resignation.

Fast forward two weeks. I'm now in my new position. My
phone rings. It's the HR person from the second company.
She starts going into an offer spiel, so I interrupt, and say
that I have already accepted a position at a different company.

She once again gets audibly annoyed, with her voice going up
and stuff. She says that it's only been a couple of weeks.
I tell her, no, in fact it's been over 3 weeks. As such I naturally
assumed that they were no longer interested and accepted
a different offer. She then says that, hey, she was on holidays!
My response was, "so....?? I can't just sit and wait, I had other
offers, and since your company wasn't giving one, I had to
accept another." Then I said my goodbye's and hung up. Any
longer and I might have told her exactly what I thought of her
and her company.

First off, who the heck does she think she is with her,
"Would you accept any offer?" Forget the "any" for a moment,
but why would I bother with the interviews if I wasn't interested
in the position? What was she getting at? (I think she was
trying to figure out if she could lowball the offer)

Then, to get annoyed that I accepted a different one, because
she was on holidays?? So, you are going to try to hire someone,
and then you leave on holidays? And you don't bother delegating
the task on the way out?

The whole thing reeks of incompetence.

Please tell me that this is not a normal occurance.

ers