Pet peeves

I will soon graduate from ASU and, alas, will have to find a real job. Two days ago I blew the dust off my monster.com resume which had previously gone untouched and unread for over three years. By yesterday afternoon, my inbox was on the verge of bursting from the messages from prospective employers. One overzealous recruiter has managed to activate two of my worst peeves and forever alienate me against his outfit.

Around one o'clock yesterday afternoon, two calls were made from the same number in an unfamiliar area code to my cellular phone, both of which I ignored. Upon hearing the sole message recorded by this individual, I discovered that both had been placed by the same recruiter. However, he did not leave his number. I shrugged it off.

I checked my e-mail a couple of hours later. The man who had forgotten to leave his number had also e-mailed me. To my horror, he had spelled my name "Jonathon".

I admit that my compulsion attention to miniscule details is much more that can be reasonably expected of most people. I also know that what I consider to be "common knowledge" frequently isn't. I recognize in myself, too, a tendency to pick the wrong moment to issue a correction. One recent episode at the zoo demonstrates these qualities vividly: with much difficulty, I restrained myself from correcting a mother after she pointed at a siamang and told her toddler it was a monkey. "APE!" I screamed in my head. "Siamangs are APES, NOT MONKEYS!!!" I narrowly avoided causing a scene that would likely require apologies to the mother, the child, and the Hylobates syndactylus.

While some may regard my similar aversion to misspellings of my name as another example of these character defects, I disagree. After all, Jonathan is a very common name. It has exactly one traditional and correct spelling. I have never understood why people cannot master the spelling of such a simple and ubiquitous word. Nevertheless, I have seen myriad versions invented as some struggle to guess without bothering to ask me or look it up!

It is hard to decide which kind of misspelling is my most hated. Typos are easily forgiven because anyone can hit the wrong key. Jonathon, however, is not just a typo. If you are not familiar with the traditional QWERTY keyboard, look down. Note the distance between the a and the o. This kind of error cannot be produced by someone who knows the correct spelling. It is pure ignorance. Another class of errors comes from confusing the names John and Jonathan. Though both names come from Hebrew, notice the differences in their etymologies. John is NOT short for Jonathan. The Bible does not use these names interchangibly; neither should anyone else. However, this does not stop anyone from trying to spell my name Johnathan. Attempting to transliterate this abomination back into Hebrew yields gibberish. However, none of this knowledge is really necessary; all you need to know is how to spell my name.

This recruiter had seen my resume, which has the correct spelling of my name in big, bold type. The fact that he had this resource at his disposal and still misspelled my name indicates that he doesn't respect potential applicants enough to bother. I politely informed him that as a result of his misspelling of my name I will not consider applying for any job listed with his agency.

Professionalism would dictate, at this point, that the recruiter not waste any more time corresponding with me. But he had already demonstrated how little regard he has for professionalism by misspelling my name after having seen the correct spelling. Instead, he chucked professionalism out the window by sending me a very snide response.

Adding insult to injury, the recruiter managed to aggravate another of my biggest peeves: acting like a child and attempting to disguise it as professional manner. His response, despite his efforts to dress it up, translated as "I know you are but what am I?!". To top it off, he closed with "Thank you for saving me the time [of considering you for this position]." If his time was so valuable, why bother trying to get the last word in? In his bald attempt to make me regret burning bridges with his agency, he accomplished the opposite. Now there can be no doubt that I want nothing to do with him or any company that would put someone like him in a position of authority.

Perhaps I wouldn't have bothered to stoop to his level if it weren't for my plummeting blood sugar levels at the moment I read his juvenile missive. "What the hell, " I told myself. "It's not as if I am acting in any professional capacity. He opened the door; I am just using my inalienable prerogative to be a jerk on my own time to someone who's a jerk on his company's time."

So I skewered him. I dissected his pre-school professionalism and CC'ed his boss. And I won't lose any sleep over it.