I was listening to SiriusXM today when I heard an old Broadway tune titled “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet.” It’s the opening number from the musical “On the Town” and is sung by a gruff workman not wanting to leave his wife and their warm bed.
It’s in the second verse that our sleepy workman calls his wife “his old woman.” Hearing that archaic and very non-wokish phrase (the musical dates to 1944) reminded me of an employment decision I once made–a decision that was certainly not the best one of my career.
It was in the first six months of the development of our private laboratory. We were in the process of creating a fairly specialized area of the lab, one dealing with small cells and colorful signals. The applicant pool was not a large one, and my decision was narrowed down to two candidates, both of whom looked good on paper.
The company had no Human Resources Department in those early days, so the decision of who to hire was all mine. I interviewed each of the candidates, first Pamela, and then Frank, running through their work experience and trying to assess their capabilities for creating and then leading the lab section.
Pam had solid experience and had worked in both the clinical and industrial aspects of the lab business. She answered all my questions appropriately and made no glaring faux pas. I had no formal rubric for evaluating candidates, but I probably would have given Pamela a score of 7.5 out of 10.
When I interviewed Frank, he was knocking it out of the park. Personable and experienced (though admittedly not quite as widely experienced as Pam,) he was well on his way to racking up a score 8.5 and a job offer. And then he did it…he referred to his life partner as “THE Wife.” I can’t explain it, and with no objective reason for it, my mental rating of Frank was sliced in half.
So yes, I hired Pamela. And yes, as you can surely predict, her tenure turned into a disaster. Rigid and inflexible, she did not play well in the sandbox with any of us. Although she wrote some excellent policies and procedures we all breathed a sigh of relief when she resigned to go back to industry, shortly before her lab section was to open for business.
I called Frank and was delighted to hear him say he was still interested in our position. He gave his then-current employer his two-week notice and was with us for the section kick-off.
For more than 10 years Frank was a wonderful asset to our lab. He was a thorough and accurate technologist, an excellent section leader and organizer, and a great friend to all. He was truly the heart of our workplace.
Over those 10 years, I met Frank’s Sheila on numerous occasions. Frank and Sheila were a loving couple and treated each other well. She was “THE Wife”, he was her husband–and it was my mistake that I almost didn’t hire him.
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