Wanted

I've never felt so wanted in my life, so desired, so sought after. The calls just kept rolling in. Yes, I am available. Yes, I do have time to talk to you right now. Yet, call after call, nothing materializes. Recruiters don't call me back. Friends make promises they don't keep. That was my first week of unemployment, back in July.

I realized, rather quickly and harshly in fact, that everyone wants a piece of you when you are employed. But when you are unemployed, the people you meet want to either audition you or position you for how they can use you next. If they feel they can't position you, they file you away in the "to be used later" pile or if they audition you and you fail, they decide to discard you all together.

It's so cynical, I know, to tie being so ferociously wanted now (when I'm not tied to a company) with whatever future barter or favor situation might exist. Yet, isn't that the whole purpose of networking? You meet someone and if the person you've just met can't do anything for you now, you tidily rolodex them into your "later" file. It's like the movie "The Godfather." (Sorely butchered and paraphrased) "I'm going to do you this favor but one of these days, and this day may never come, you will need to do a favor for me."

Baby, that's business.

I can't say that I haven't been guilty of this neat categorization before. I certainly have sized people up when meeting in a business situation and have put them into their respective baskets. Basket One: Can Help Me Now, Basket Two: Can Help Me Later, Basket Three: Can't Help Me at All, But a Fun Person to Keep Around, Basket Four: Discard. It looks so harsh, seeing it all written out like this. But I wonder how many people in the business world categorize their contacts like this. I bet its more than most would expect.

In many ways, being wanted in the world of job hunting is more like trying to get tight with the Corleone's. The boss looks at you, gives you a once over to make sure you are healthy and don't have any major mental problems, asks if you can follow directions, tests your skills and takes you into their office to see if you are the right fit for "the family." And then, if you are truly wanted, they make you an offer you can't refuse.

At the end of the day, in business as in mob life, you treat your enemies like friends, your friends like family and you are always looking to please the boss. How's that for irony?