greener grass

I hardly ever get an opportunity to use the word "headhunter" (in its incarnation as semi-slang describing a recruiter of job candidates) and then had opportunity to include it in sentence, and caused consternation (unintentionally).

Was mentioning -- "...had a phone call for maintenance supervisor which sounded like legitimate-usual-relevant -- the caller was so enthusiastic & energetic, and when the guy took the call.. it turned out to be a -- head-hunter!"

The listener's chic hairstyle swung wildly for a moment, as she about-faced, exclaiming in shock and horror, "What??!!"

[Picturing, perhaps, machete-wielding pygmies from Amazonian jungles, roaming our vicinity in search of mechanics....]

(In future, must leave the term "headhunter" for those who work in that business -- who -- by the way -- will write, of themselves, descriptions such as the following ... "although we [head-hunters] will gladly accept the assignment to search for a CIO, for example, we might have no idea about what makes a good one or whether this job will advance your career."...

in Forbes, no less....)

When the -- shall we say, quarry -- took the phone call, it turned out to be brief.  Very brief.  As quarry exited, grumbled without looking at me,

"He tried to hire me. 

I should have taken it."

=========  I felt two things --
1.  like I'd been tricked by the caller -- he sounded so enthusiastic and confident, and "on-his-game" -- like he knew what he wanted -- I thought he was calling with some important "part," or piece of equipment, or information that would be necessary to some on-going project.  First he'd asked for the maintenance manager, by name, so I thought OK...and upon being told that that person was not in but he could leave a voice-mail, he then wanted the maint. supervisor who's on-duty -- which increased my impression that this was of imminent importance.  (yeah...for some job-recruiter, it was...)

and 2.  the other thing I felt was a little envy.  I make it a practice not to envy people, & most of the time it works, but man, for a moment, I felt like -- "Geez, nobody ever calls and tries to hire me...." 

It is a thought which one thinks grumblingly to oneself....and it makes no sense, because -- am not a mechanic!  Hello -- that's the profoundly irrational thing about envy -- it rarely makes any sense....

When I admitted my irrational grumbliness / envy to one of the headhunter's "targets," sighing that these fantastic far-away offers are never aimed at me, he queried, "Well did you send 'em a picture of yourself-?"

("Yeah...I'll do that, if I want to scare 'em, so they'll stop bothering us"....)

-30-