Are you one of those people who would forget to put a shirt on in the morning save for the fact that you would freeze to death in December?
I am.
I routinely forget to do something five minutes after I tell myself, “When I get to [location X], I need to remember to immediately do [thing Y].” Then, five minutes later, I’m at Location X and have promptly forgotten to do Thing Y. I usually remember when I’m in the car driving away from Location X, though. So that counts for something.
I used to think this was a Me problem, but I’ve come to realize that I am not alone in this great, big world. Many other people suffer from a similar affliction, and the only reason we haven’t started a support group is because there isn’t a church basement large enough to hold everyone and football stadium rentals are too expensive. I hold out hope, though. Those Sunday morning televangelists have some big churches. One day we will get there and bam! 90,000 people will report for their weekly dose of truth serum.
How do I know I’m not alone; you ask? I recently picked up a call from someone who needed to schedule an interview with the on-site supervisor (as so indicated in his file). I transferred the call and moved on with my day. Interview presumably scheduled.
Not an hour later, I was checking the incoming text messages when I saw a text from the very person whose call I had transferred earlier in the morning. You know, the one who needed to be scheduled for an interview.
The text asked if we could tell the person where the interview was to take place. Another text pinged as I was reading the first asking if we could re-verify when the interview was. Confused, I pulled his file. Sure enough, the file verified that an email had been sent with all the interview information (date, time, address, where to go, for whom to ask upon arrival, etc.) about 5 minutes after the person called in earlier.
Relevant note explaining my confusion (and I'm sure we've discussed this before): When we are scheduling an interview (or, frankly, sending ANY email to a candidate), we tell the person that we're sending an email. This generally goes something along the lines of, "We'll be sending you an email with the information you'll need for your interview: date, time, address, for whom to ask upon arrival, tips, etc. It may end up in your junk/spam folder, so make sure to check there if you don't see it in your inbox. If you do not see it at all in the next 30 or so minutes, give us a call back."
Because I’m me, I let the guy stew for a while before asking him if he checked his email.
"No."
Now, I think I’ve got a problem, but this guy. Oh, this guy. He not only forgot that we told him to check his email, but he also forgot every life lesson ever taught to him about how to act like a professional and do some due diligence (like check your email) if you feel you are missing critical information from an exchange with another professional.
But my firm is a ‘give a guy a fish’ kind of a place, so we texted him the information shortly thereafter as email seemed to be too complicated and he showed the ability to send and receive texts. We'll see if he shows.
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