A Funny Story
Today I applied for a temp-to-perm Prepress position through the temp agency that's gotten me every job I've ever had. (Prepress is page layout, photo editing, and vector art programs. All of which is stuff I like to do.) This was the only listing in their entire directory for the state of Michigan.
In the section where they asked me to briefly describe why I'm the best candidate for the job, I said I had more than five years professional experience in desktop publishing software. Then I also mentioned I had almost three years working as a Print Producer for an ad agency, interacting all day every day with a Prepress department.
Like theirs.
Exactly like theirs.
The software package, the city, and the advertising industry all match up with the prepress department I liaised with every day at my last company. Even the precise beginning and end times of the late-shift hours. So, I'm betting that I just applied for a job at my last company, doing the position that I wished I had all that time!
Of course, with temp listings they never tell you the name of the company, so that you can't go around the temp agency and apply directly, cutting the agency out of the profits. Even though I suspect which company it is, I still can't, because I'm bound by my severance contract not to talk to anyone who works for my company!
Comments
twoofdtm on Jan. 31, 2007 5:59 PM
I hope you get the job Matt!
And, that is actually kinda funny that everything is the same as your old companies.
twoofdtm on Jan. 31, 2007 7:54 PM
That previous comment might make it seem like I didn't know that it was your old company (possibly) that you used to work for. So, yeah, I did know that you thought it was, and I was trying to make a funny. I think I failed. :P On me I say.
But yeah, I still wish the good wishes part. ;D
zifferent on Jan. 31, 2007 6:26 PM
Oh wow! That's a sticky situation.
Last year, I was contracting in Detroit and at the same time interviewing with my current company. Shortly before I received the job, it came out the contracting house was slumming around my prospective employer.
I ended up taking the job (obviously), but contractually it was iffy going to work (direct-hire) for one of their clients. I kept my mouth shut and they only found out where I was working several months later and even then I'm not sure they put 2 and 2 together to make 4.
Even though I was worried, there was essentially nothing they could do because I had started interviewing and talking with my current employer long before they started recruiting through them, and according to my contract, since I was never assigned to my company I wasn't exactly poaching on their territory.
Still it is somewhat of a likely position, especially in small, inbred, specialty job market to run up against these conflicts of interests.
In any case, good luck!
bardicwench on Jan. 31, 2007 7:21 PM
So... do you have a chance to be hired on with your old company again, or will it could against you that you used to work there?
Before I quit my old job in Troy, I was looking for a new job and happened to run across a job posting on Careerbuilder... it was the job that I was currently working for posting MY job on the site... so they were taking applications to replace me before I quit. Glad I quit... I would have rather quit than have been fired by a bunch of conservative assholes.
phecda on Jan. 31, 2007 10:12 PM
That could be rather amusing as should you get placed there you officially can't talk to anyone. But of course you can do the job. Play your cards right and this could end up in people either eating a lot of crow, or the basis of a rather amusing law suit.
Seriously, if this is your previous employer, and you do get placed there, then I recommend that you get in writing a statement that your previous onerous termination conditions are null and void.
tlatoani on Jan. 31, 2007 10:35 PM
What exactly are your termination conditions (unless one of them is "I will not post my termination conditions on the Internet")?
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