Re-Calibration

The 11am appointment scheduled for today still hadn't arrived or contacted Jillian. In her gut she believed he was the top prospect for the position and their phone interview had been superb. So where in the hell was he at 11:30am? The PC blinked and flashed a constant reminder for her to see. Quickly Jillian sighed with angst and clicked "dismiss" on the screen.

The cappuccino on her desk was warm now and even the poppy seed bagel had hardened just a little more. She still nibbled hungrily on most of it anyway. While softly finger combing her hair she methodically continued to monitor her lap top screen for any updates or follow up responses from anyone including fully vested employees.

As a Human Resources Manager for over 20 years, Jillian exuded confidence and professionalism in every encounter. Although Nano Sec Tech as a company had been a questionable tech start up in the beginning, it was now one of the most profitable and sought after technological software organizations in the country.

Jillian's thoughts raced sporadically like a wild brush fire with no end in sight. She genuinely attempted to process or even vaguely recall where any break down in communication could have occurred during their highly informative and pleasant phone interview.

Absolutely nothing came to mind which left her even more dismayed and puzzled about this unusual moment. Health and safety was a major concern and the topic was covered in much transparent detail with him.

The recent updates according to the medical community in all major cities boasted "safe numbers to begin getting back to normal" after an outbreak of an unidentified pathogen led to business closures six months earlier.

The only kinks that hadn't been hashed out with him were the starting salary, the tentative start date, and his request to work weekdays only.

"Hi Christian, this is Jillian from HR at Nano Sec Tech. I have you scheduled today for an interview...I will have to either reschedule it for another date or if you are no longer available for this management position, please call me today or email me with a response by 5pm. Thanks, we hope to see and interview you very soon." Jillian ended the call with the courteous voicemail, emailed Christian another reminder and began preparing for the other prospective work candidates scheduled for later that day.

There were four more very promising interviews and Jillian was determined the rate of success for the day would not be altered by an unexpected no show experience. As she gathered profile question documents for the next candidate and an I-Pad, a notification alert from her laptop compelled Jillian to check the flooded inbox.

She adjusted her eyeglasses and then removed them completely from her face. It had been chilly all morning but the heat she felt internally could not be ignored. Her ears even seemed to burn while she continued reading the last minute email.

It bluntly stated a decision was made not to attend the interview at 12:30pm and included no apology for the short notice given to HR. Jillian could not stop reading the email over and over, before following up with the impressive and prospective candidate.

"Okay take a breath," Jillian mumbled to herself while waiting on Candace, a recent college graduate to answer her urgent phone call.

A familiar robotic sounding message announced that no voicemail box was set up for the number she called , but a text message for Jillian quickly came across her device. The tone of the text was one that appeared to scream at Jillian for disturbing her.

"Not interested sorry!" was how the short, definitive text read. It was now 12:30pm sharp and seemingly ghosting would be the order of the day. She couldn't help but mumble to herself "What the hell is going on with.." but quickly refrained from expressing her complete thought and comment.

Instead she grabbed the once warm cup of cappuccino and guzzled it with an aspirin to soothe a dull, annoying headache creeping its way behind her strained eyes.

No sooner than Jillian processed the digitally blatant comment there were 20 new emails waiting to be reviewed. The notification alerts received in such a succession created a cadence of urgency beyond Jillian's comprehension.

"This is too unbelievable!" she yelled.

The entire Project Management team submitted a collective resignation letter to go in effect within 24 hours if their specific work demands weren't met to suit them. The five page resignation letter sent to HR and also copied to senior leadership had been signed by them including key Project Management Team Leaders.

The years of expertise and long-term employment held by their team alone represented an astounding total of 300 years-each one had earned 15 years at Nano Sec Tech and believed their ideology should be the "new ideology and paradigm our company should follow... including 100 percent remote options to work freely from home or anywhere where a USB port, VPN, and Video Chat capability exists, NO 24 hour on call duty ever again, Rotating shifts should also be eradicated, Business calls beyond normal work hours to us (OUR TEAM specifically) should end immediately, and compensation for any work performed without any shift differential within the last 6 months of the national lockdown should be retroactive and immediate to all employees of NANO SEC TECH...Also we are not convinced it is safe to return to an "in-person" environment and the claims of safety presented are bogus and only an attempt to ensure we CONTINUE TO MAKE MONEY FOR the Entity called NANO SEC TECH.."

Jillian continued to mull over the very specific and detailed document with much meticulousness. She could not pull herself away from the final directive the Project Management team declared.

"IT IS with NO REGRET that we DEMAND A RECALIBRATION OF TERMS, DUTIES, AND ESTABLISHED COMPENSATION FOR OUR QUALITY OF LIFE TO BEGIN TO MIRROR THE PROMISE OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE FOR HUMANS WHO ARE EMPLOYED AS COMPETENT AND CAPABLE EMPLOYEES NOT SERVANTS ON CALL."

Jillian began typing sincere responses to everyone listed on the well written correspondence. While composing the drafts intended for them, she also quietly considered submitting her formal resignation letter by the end of the day-now respectively less than thirty minutes away

THE END