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>Ned Bedinger said:
>>James Barrow wrote:
>>>Al Geist said:
>>>>Edgar D' Souza asked:
>>>>>classe -at- charter -dot- net wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>[]we interviewed a candidate who seemed to fit the job description very
>>>>>well. When the HR manager informed my manager and I that he was on his
>>>>>cell phone in the company lobby, arguing
>>>>
<snip>
>>>You may have eliminated an excellent candidate because the receptionist
>>>perceived that he/she was having a heated discussion with their partner
<snip>
>>It's irrelevant if the candidate yelled, used profanity, or jumped up and
>>down. The fact that his behavior could be viewed as argumentative, and he
>>was in the company lobby, shows that it was inappropriate. Not just
>>because he was arguing, but because he didn't have enough good judgment to
>>take the conflict outside, away from the company.
>
>The schlemiel who gets his/her buttons pushed in a phone call right before
>an interview is egregious, I'll agree. Still, kicking him out is worse.
No it's not. If Mr. Restraining Order has an argument in the company lobby
on the day of his interview, then it's likely that this behavior will
continue since (as you said) he's either unaware of his behavior,
indifferent about it, or unaware that it's inappropriate. In any case, do
you want spend company time and resources teaching him good social skills?
>The solution, per occassion, is to interrupt the phone call or cubie
>meeting and ask if you can help them find a meeting room or other
>sanctioned place where their voices won't carry into the work area. You
>don't need sarcasm, wittiness, petulance, or gravitas to do this, just a
>little dignity. Practiced politeness may help you to be disarming when you
>make this request. If you feel like you're too demure to ask someone for
>this consideration, consider asking HR for an appropriate training in
>managing workplace conflicts, or public speaking, or whatever floats your
>boat.
Well, Kermit, you seem to have leapfrogged past the interview to a time when
this character is actually working for the company. I'm not sure if you
were addressing someone specifically above, or you were just throwing that
out here, but it addresses a problem once the company has made the mistake
of hiring this person. Why would you risk hiring someone like this in the
first place when you had clear and compelling evidence not to?
>Of course, once in a while you run into someone whose voice naturally
>booms like an orator, or carries like a marketplace fishmonger, or
>expresses distracting levels of attention-getting qualities of one sort or
>another, and hiring them to work in a cubie farm may be a mistake,
>depending on the culture. But people who do this other 'loud thing' (and
>that is the workplace problem in this case, not fighting with S.O. on the
>phone) generally do not realize that they're too loud. Face it, they're
>everywhere. Learn how to solve, not avoid, the workplace problem, and then
>you'll look a lot less like a chicken running around with its head cut off.
Your logic is like a rollercoaster. I recently worked with someone who
sounded a lot like James Earl Jones and was as loud as Roseanne Barr. His
phone conversations were always appropriate, just loud. We all gave him a
break. But people like that were not the topic of the original post. Stay
focused, Ned, we're all counting on you.
The other type - the type that argues on the phone during a personal phone
call on the day of his interview - has raised a very bright, red flag that
says to me: This guy is a hothead, and cannot make good judgment calls.
Hire him at your own demise".
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