Something for the weekend

My first ever boss was a big fan of weekend work and he was full of wise, detailed advice such as that if you do a good job and work hard that you may get a job with a better company someday.  Mind you, looking back I think we can discount most of his views as this is the guy who felt that making Steve McLaren manager of the England team was a stroke of genius....

I am currently at the research stage of a major Search Assignment and so worked  for most of the weekend that has just gone and actually quite enjoy working at the weekend with the music turned up and no phone ringing or imminent deadlines to hit.  The nature of my business involves a lot of working with US Clients and also talking to genuinely busy people who can’t take calls during the day so I am used to taking/making calls outside traditional working hours.  Mind you, one of my US Clients - who has now moved on - did take it a little far expecting me to regularly participate in conference calls on a Sunday afternoon that could stretch as long as four hours!  However, in the scheme of things, even that wasn’t too bad compared to some of the other things I could have been doing such as:

·        -  Watching a compilation of Nick Clegg speeches  (Charlie Brooker has posted an amusing article about him today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/25/charlie-brooker-nick-clegg);

·      -   Listening to an entire ‘Slip Knot’ album on repeat;

·        -  Reading Wayne Rooney’s autobiography;

·        -  Watching either of the Sex in the City Films.

Luckily, in the specialist markets in which I recruit most of the people I need to talk with are online at some stage over the weekend so we often converse via email but I still struggle with making phone calls.  When is an acceptable time to call somebody and why do I always feel the need to apologise for calling  at the weekend?  I try to only call people I know at weekends as we then can usually get straight to the point of the call rather than taking extra time to develop some rapport.

Actually, this rapport building is another issue that I spend way too long thinking about and is a common criticism of recruiters who are sometimes perceived as far too bright and bubbly on the phone which sounds fake.   Don’t you just hate that – I know I do?  I get a lot of sales calls and I really dislike it when someone I don’t know asks me how my weekend was or whether I have anything nice planned for the coming weekend.  I have to constantly resist the temptation to go on a twenty minute rant about how awful my weekend was or how I am due to have some horrendous surgical procedure next week.

No work for me this evening though as I am at Elland Road for a night out with some of my friends from Cardiff as we renew our ‘friendly rivalry’ with the welsh club.  For those of you not lucky enough to be at the stadium to watch low quality football in sub-zero temperatures, you will be delighted to know that you can still follow the latest victory for the Mighty Leeds United live on Sky.....