Death by Lousy HRM — Chapter II

[Chapter I in case you missed it.]

Meanwhile, Doha Doha Castiglione, Dee Dee to his friends, was watching in shock and disbelief the dramatic interaction between Creepy Cummins, whom he’d begun to loath, and Zelda Kahniefmeyer, who had swooped in like an avenging angel to save his candidacy.  So, when Zelda suggested that they grab a cup of coffee so that she could tell him more about Project Metadata Hall while Creepy — Mr. Cummins, the head of professional recruitment for the parent company — prepared a proposed offer letter, Dee Dee jumped, literally at the chance.  In doing so, he inadvertently knocked over Creepy’s most prized career momento, a picture of him as a young man taken with no less than that paragon of virtue, that role model of effective leadership, none other than Moneybags Drumpf (a very distant relative of you know who!).  Apologizing profusely while trying to stand up the beautifully framed and autographed picture and backing out of Creepy’s office at the same time, Dee Dee practically ran after Zelda who was already en route to the cafeteria.

After collecting their beverages and a sweet roll each (for such discussions do benefit from a sugar high), Dee Dee and Zelda sat down in a quiet corner of the cafeteria to get better acquainted.  Some preliminary small talk revealed that they had graduated from the same fantastic computer science program at Carnegie Mellon, albeit a decade apart, that they’d studied under some of the same professors, and that they both longed to make the complicated trip to Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea for the annual August Sing Sing.  And while Zelda had to be very circumspect about her next gen architecture project, she did feel comfortable probing (tactfully) Dee Dee’s grasp of object modeling, definitional development and, most important, how to design architectures which could be overhauled completely while in flight.  It was a great conversation, with each of them wanting to continue it, and Dee Dee’s antipathy toward Creepy was overtaken by his simpatico with Zelda.

Unfortunately for both Dee Dee and Zelda, not to mention for Great Software, Creepy, left on his own to prepare the proposed offer letter, allowed his essential creepiness to influence his judgment.  Thus, he proposed about 80% of the market rate for such a scarce and high demand skill set as a starting salary, thinking that the negotiation that was sure to follow would land them at the market rate rather than his having to deliver above market and/or a signing bonus.  Creepy also avoided any mention of incentive pay or equity participation, and added nothing at all to sweeten the deal.

When they returned from their coffee klatch, Dee Dee was shocked and insulted when he read through the draft, and Zelda realized that her whole project, and perhaps career, were being put at risk by Creepy’s creeping.  But what can a hiring manager do?  And what can a candidate do?  Clearly a council of war was needed, but Zelda wanted to collect her thoughts before sitting down to discuss this travesty with Mr. Cummins.  So she asked Dee Dee to give them a little time to confer internally on the proposed offer, and Dee Dee agreed to give them forty-eight hours before he needed to respond to another offer that was in hand.

Stay Tuned For Chapter III