(Dis)connected

I love connecting people who will benefit one another.  I don’t mean on dates (although I do that, too). I mean in business. I always hope the people whom I’ve connected will be grateful in one way or another, but that isn’t always the case.  Here’s a story I will never forget.

I was the top editor of the leading trade publication in the home furnishings industry, so lots of executives in fields such as furniture, cookware, gifts and electronics, would call me to talk about their businesses. One exec, planning for his retirement, asked me to recommend some candidates who could take over his company. I recommended two men and called to tell them.

Months later, I was sitting at my desk and heard that one of the men I recommended got the job. I was actually pretty friendly with him so I was taken aback that he hadn’t called to personally tell me the news.I knew he had gone on a number of interviews. I dialed him right away: “Congratulations, Paul. I heard you got the job. Why didn’t you call to tell me?”  (The Internet didn’t exist then).

“Oh, we had to wait until it was officially released,” he said, as if he had become the new Pope.

If that wasn’t thoughtless enough, Paul refused to advertise in the trade publication I ran, blaming the owner of the company (who asked for the recommendation in the first place).  “You know Jack doesn’t believe in trade advertising.”   Paul gave me the news the weekend my husband and I spent with him and his wife in Terre Haute, Indiana, where his new company was based.

This guy turned out to be a real grade-A jerk. He was fired eventually. Can’t say it made me cry.