Abusive Organisations 25 October 2007
As you have probably guessed, I am no fan of recruitment agencies or recruitment consultants. There are reasons for that. And this evening, when I saw a taxi covered in the livery of First People Solutions, it brought back an incident which defined both my view of recruiters and my attempt to fit in to the Scottish workforce.
Shortly after moving to the UK in 2003, I started my job search by uploading my CV (resume) to the main Scottish jobs site, S1jobs.com, in what I now know was the naive assumption that employers actually used it to find candidates. One wintry day, my mobile rang. It was a cold call from a recruiter at First People Solutions, one of Glasgow’s main recruitment agencies, who said she had pulled up my CV on S1jobs. And she had the best, brilliant, most fantastic job for me and I would be crazy not to come in right away and register with her to get it.
What was the job? I asked. She refused to say.
What are the duties? I asked. She would fill me in once I came in to register.
Can you at least tell me the sector it’s in? I asked.
How foolish of me.
My audacious act of questioning the recruitment consultant unleashed a torrent of verbal and emotional abuse which left me shaking and in tears. In short order she told me that my education was worthless; that my past experience meant nothing; that I was greedy for wanting more than the job she had for me; that the best thing I could do for my career would be to leave my husband and move to London; that the reason I was unemployed was because I chose to be; that how dare could I say I was looking for a job when I didn’t want to come in and register; and that it was my fault that I was looking for work - “if you want a job you’ve got to get WORKING at this, girl!”
The call ended with my cracked voice barely audible in the parting pleasantries. A little research later confirmed that the brilliant, fantastic job that was so good it had to be confidential was nothing more than an office junior role (the lowest, most unskilled form of admin assistant) for just under £6 an hour.
And this was a cold caller trying to win my business.
This is what I did not understand, and still don’t, nearly four years after that harrowing conversation. Rather than trying to get me through the doors by being supportive and complementary - by saying, for example, that I had a great mix of education and experience - she chose to attack me for having those very qualities. Rather than asking me what I was looking for in a job, she labelled me “greedy” for questioning the one she had chosen. Rather than selling the benefits of what her company could offer me, she spoke only about herself. Rather than asking me to register in hopes of eventually having some suitable role, it was an order to obey her commands on her terms.
All in all, rather than choosing to speak as a professional in her field, she chose to act as the abuser in an abusive relationship. The pattern was the same. I shall insult you, I shall offend you, I shall demean you and belittle you until you have no self-esteem left, I shall even try to insert myself between you and your family; and then when you have nothing and no one left, I shall be the only option you have. I shall tear you down until you are completely dependent on me.
And sadly, it is people like her who were the norm in the years I attempted to fit into the Scottish workforce. The people who actually work with you, and want to get the best out of you, and acknowledge what you bring to the table while encouraging you to grow, are few and far between, and they usually don’t last long. The people like the recruiter - abusive, jealous, ill-tempered and insecure, and arrogant to the point of public delirium - call the shots in this part of the world. They do not seek to manage, encourage, or create; they seek to control, suspect, tear you down, destroy your soul as well as your career. The professional becomes the personal in ways which other working cultures would consider criminal, and the behaviors of personal abuse become the behaviors of professional conduct. The business is a mere vehicle for playing God with people’s lives. And any employee who can brush off year after year of twisted, unwarranted personal abuse smugly couched as “within company policy” is as cold and heartless as those inflicting the wounds.
One of my favourite business authors, Lois Frankel, has written about “depressed organisations”, companies dragged down in lethargies which reflect the mental health of their leaders. Perhaps she (or I) should write a new paper with a new classification - “abusive organisations” - describing companies which emulate the personalities of the executives behind them in the most destructive of ways. More than a few Scottish and British companies would be on that list.
But how do you survive in a world where the rules are upside down? Where do you turn in a country where the concept of HR is laughed at and derided, where outsourcing to recruitment agencies ensures that employees have no legal rights, where the people who are supposed to find work for you have no intention of doing so, where asking for help can get you sacked without recourse, and where the company leaders are the ones doing the abusing? The answer is: you go insane, or you go to work on a business plan.
I started my own business to do what I am good at while still being there for my little one. And the best thing I can do for her is be a good role model: I can do what I love, work hard, be positive, be supportive, continue pushing myself (I learned Ajax today!), continue learning, and continue paving new roads rather than taking old ones. I can do this, give her cuddles and giggles inbetween blog posts and codes, and go to bed with a smile on my face.
It sure beats trawling S1jobs to look for people to phone up and abuse for commission cash and a sales quota.
