Human Resources Director at work on Monday

My assistant opens the doors at 9:00 a.m. exactly on Monday morning. I've had my cup of coffee and I'm wearing my best pressed suit. There's already five people waiting at the door as she unlocks it and greets them with a smile. They waltz in and take a seat in one of the available chairs set before my office. They look at her and they look at me with a sense of bewildered hope on their eager faces. I look at my appointment book and read the first name outloud.

"Alison Cooke?" I glance around at the five faces and one lights up and is staring at me with a wide smile. She quickly jumps out of her chair and begins to approach me with her hand willing to shake.

"Yes, that's me," she says with a sweetness in her voice that sounds like sticky honey. "Are you Ruth Lestermann?"

"Yes," I inform her and take her hand for a shake quickly so that she doesn't feel antiquated. "Let's talk in my office."

We sit down. She's trying to be still and pretend she's not anxious or eager. I'm trying to find her resume. I find it in the stack of today's appointments and set it on the desk looking it over again to refresh my memory.

"Your resume says you have waitressing experience?" I hum as if an opening for her to jump in as I'm thinking about several events coming up where they want caterers and servers.

"Yes," she replies proudly, "I worked at Applebees for two years."

"Great," I reply, looking down into my coffee mug and seeing it almost empty, "Would you get me some coffee?" I hand her the mug.

She looks at me perplexed for a moment as she takes the cup. Then she realizes she doesn't know where the coffee is in our office. I giggle at her and grab the coffee cup from her.

"Just kidding," I tell her, "I just wanted to see your willingness." She sighs a bit relieved, but now she thinks I'm trying to mess with her head. I guess she was expecting a two-hour long assessment test to see if she was smart enough to fill a cup with coffee. No, ma'am, I can sum you up with just a few jokes.

"Would you be willing to work at the Hilton next Friday for a special event? The pay is $25 per hour."

Her face lights up as if she just won big on a scratch-off ticket.

"Definitely!" she says confidently. I hand her the information which includes the location and times and requirements.

"That's all I've got at this time, but I will send you an email with any other compatible opportunities that come in."

After Alison leaves, I go back out to the waiting chairs and see that there are three more sitting there waiting. I call the next name. "Ken Driver?"

A man in stained jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt, unshaven, with his left arm in a cast, walks slowly towards me. He isn't smiling. I'm afraid he's going to beat me up with his cast.

"Hi, Ken," I say gently, "How'd you break your arm?"

"Fell off a porch I was trying to fix for my neighbor," he tells me.

"Ouch. C'mon into my office. Sit. You want a bottled water?"

He shakes his head no as he takes a seat.

Before I can get to the next thing to say he blurts out, "Look, I don't want to be rude and I know I look like I can't work with my arm broke and all, but I've got years and tons of experience in manual labor jobs and I just want to get some money flow. You've gotta have something I can do."

Most of the jobs I have are for driving and hospitality. I'm trying to figure out how to explain that to him.

"I've got some driving jobs. Do you have your CDL?"

"My Certified Douchebag License? Yep, sure do."

I catch my breathe for a moment, because he's beat me to the punch on punchlines. I didn't want to laugh because I didn't want him to think I was laughing at him.

"Great," I say enthusiastically, adding "Can you drive my BigRig to the parking lot downtown?"

"Right now?" he asks as if I'm crazy.

"Yeah. Now Hiring!" I smile, hoping he'll take my joke easy.

"Well..." he pauses and figuritively scratches his head thinking, "I'm, uh.." he looks at his cast and thinks about the pain pills he took before he got here.

"You're still somewhat disabled from the fall?" I help him finish his sentence. He nods in proud acceptance.

"No problem," I say and then I hand him a list of the trucking companies that are hiring CDL drivers. "That should help you."

He looks it over, and if the man could smile, it would have shown. He nods at me and heads out.

I'm thinking about hiring the next person on my list to take over my work for the rest of the day.