When I answer the phone, if it’s a number that I do not recognize, I won’t identify myself upon answering, I’ll simply say ‘Hello’. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but bottom line is if I don’t know them and I don’t know how they get my number, I’m certainly not telling them who I am.

At 7:00 o clock this morning my phone started ringing. Typically, I’ll look before answering, but sometimes I make questionable decisions first thing in the morning.

‘Good Morning this is Jessica calling from ‘X Company’, I was hoping now was a good time to have a quick chat and ask you some questions about your application.’ The woman said.

Oh, yeah. Since I applied for a position with ‘X Company’ last week, I just assumed they were calling candidates with resumes they liked and asking a few questions.

Questions she asked were simple. Things along the lines of ‘So why did you apply for this position?’ and ‘What is your salary expecations for this position?’ and ‘What do you like about X Company?’

They were easily answered and we were about five minutes into the conversation when she said ‘So Holly, can you tell me a little about your experience with Y Company?’

I was confused.

Holly?

Y Company?

Huh?

She’d never actually acknowledged my name. She’d never actually said who she was calling for, or looking for. She simply just said ‘Hi I’m Jessica’ an then started into it.

‘I think there’s a mistake here’, I said.

‘Oh?’ She questioned.

‘I’ve never worked for Y Company’, I said.

‘Oh, Holly, it’s listed on your resume as experience for the past four years’. She started sounding suspicious.

‘My name isn’t Holly.’ I said.

‘What?’ She asked

‘My name’s not Holly and I’ve never worked at Y Company’ I said.

‘What?’ She asked again. ‘Am I speaking to Holly [Insert Last Name Here]?’

‘No. My name is Vee [Insert last name here]’ I responded.

The woman seem to become frantic and scared at this point. She began questioning me as to why I never told her my name. She didn’t take too kindly to my reminding her that she phoned me and she never acknowledged who she was calling so I just presumed in phoning my phone number she was looking to speak with me.

She then said ‘It’s really unprofessional to not acknowledge yourself when you answer the phone’.

I apologized for not acknowledging my name when I answered the phone and then I politely said that as it was my phone number, I again presumed that she was just calling for me. As I applied for this position she was speaking of, I had no reason to think she wasn’t calling for me.

She then, reluctantly, apologized for the confusion. I could tell that she didn’t really want to though.

I suggested that she could use my answers for my own application and that she must have my application there, in her candidates pool and that I hoped the phone call could bring value towards my application.

She said ‘Thanks for your time, we’ll be in touch in a few days with respect to your application’.

When she hung up I had an inkling that I was never going to hear from this company again. Just her tone and the way she spoke, I have a feeling that, though she was the one who messed up, this was counting as a strike against me.

Sure enough, about 30 minutes later I got generic rejection email that said ‘Thank you for your application. X Company has moved on to the next round of the application process and your application is not being considered at this time. Please feel free to apply for future positions on our website ———————.com.’

Welp.

Saw that one coming.

Onto the next, I guess.