When The Balance Of Power Turns

No, this isn't about D/s or even about sex.  Consider it more of a life lesson on how you treat the candidates you interview for a job.

To keep it brief, back in September, I interviewed for a job North Carolina.  It was a good fit, for a number of reasons I won't go into and I was excited about moving back to the East Coast.  Shocker, I know.  I even had an inside track in the form of a friend whose agency does all the marketing communications for this company.  He fed me all the info he got on the other candidates and how their interviews went, from another friend who worked for the company.  Total lock, right?

Well, the hiring manager didn't think so.  This job was sales management and he thought I was 'too much of a marketing guy.'  Except despite my follow up just outside the time he committed to have a decision to me, the guy was dark.  I actually found out I didn't get the position from my friend.

Fast forward two months and I'm sitting in a global marketing meeting, where one of my colleagues speaks about developing an electric ass scratcher (make believe product the company I interviewed manufactures).  I see an excellent opportunity to partner with an expert on electric ass scratchers, instead of trying to develop our own, because our value proposition is high tech anti itch solutions, of which we have significant market share.  I intended to connect my team with the company in NC, but then I thought, fuck them; they didn't have the decency to provide me with some form of feedback. The vindictive part of me wanted to reach out to rub it in the ass scratcher's face, that being an asshole lost them a fuck ton of revenue and market visibility.  But I'm too professional, burning bridges and all. 

Things changed the next evening, because I finally did receive a rejection email from ass scratcher.

I responded and concluded with this:
Furthermore, during our global marketing meeting, last week, one of the other market managers mentioned development on a ass scratcher unit and the potential need for a higher capacity ass scratching system.  I informed him that there were companies whose sole business was ass scratching management and that he should consider partnering with one, rather than reinventing the wheel internally, particularly because the market position our company enjoys in this application would drive significant revenue for both parties.

Best Regards,

So, back to the moral which is essentially the golden rule, because being an asshole can get you fucked out of millions in revenue.