C'MON SON...

I am irritated. It's kind of funny, too, but still irritating.

Before I explain why, let me get this out of the way because it's the crux of the matter and it's already well documented how I feel about it.  Ghosting is a dick move.  The idea that it's ok to simply stop responding to someone because you don't want to deal with finishing out a conversation, or answer a question, or even end a situation is cowardly, mean, dishonorable, and shitty.  It just is.  I'm pretty sure we all feel that way, or at least we should, if we are decent people who were raised right.  That is awful way to treat another person, and the ONLY reason it would ever be acceptable is if you are in a situation where you might get hurt or get into a fight and need to walk away before things get out of hand.  It's bad, is what I'm saying, and people who use this tactic with dealing with other people are dickbags.

Doing that to another individual is bad enough, but to do it in a professional setting might even be worse.

OK, here is the situation.  It's silly church drama, so forgive me in advance.

For the past few months, our church has been looking for someone to fill an important position on our staff.  The vacancy came quite suddenly, so we've had to scramble to get all of our ducks in a row. A lot of people have shown interest, most of which were not qualified for one reason or another, but we finally found a person who seemed perfect for the job. He'd done similar work in the past, his references were good, his interview seemed to go perfectly and we were ready to move to the next step in the process when a monkey wrench got thrown into the mix.

Someone else comes along at the last minute who is also uniquely qualified for the job and asks to be considered for the position.  This person (forgive my vagary, but anything more specific and I might make someone mad if they were to stumble upon my blog) would also be good at the job, they are a member of our church, and everyone already knows them. The problem is that this particular person being hired isn't the best case scenario for our church for a few different reasons, but because positions like the one we are talking about are hired by votes from our church members, chances are that our church wouldn't even consider the first person and want to hire this second person simply because they are already familiar with them, no matter how qualified the first person might be.  It has become a thing, is what I'm saying, and it has caused a lot of confusion, people getting into business that they have no business getting into, and opinions are all over the place.  The gist is that having a candidate for the job that is not a church member, and who would do a great job, is important to give the church some perspective. So it has become a thing, although thankfully, not a big thing. Yet.

OK, so with that situation going on we had to go into damage control mode.  We had to call the first person and postpone them coming and doing a trial run for us until the the pastor could interview him a second time.  No biggie, obviously, so the pastor sets out to go and visit with him.  Can't find the guy anywhere.  The business this person is supposed to own is deserted, and the phone number on the resume is wrong.  Ok, fine...  We finally track down the person's phone number, call him, and he agrees to meet with the pastor after he finishes an errand he's running.  The pastor, who has driven across town to meet with him, waits in a restaurant for a couple of hours, only to finally call the guy back and hear "Oh, well, I got caught up in something. Sorry. Can we meet tomorrow?"  Could the guy have called the pastor and told him that he couldn't make it? Yes. Did he? No. So the pastor, understandably irritated, agrees to meet with him the next day and tells the guy pointedly to call him when he has a few minutes to talk.  The guy doesn't call.  At this point, I doubt he'll be considered for the job anymore and the other person will be hired by default. Great. Fine. Mysterious ways or whatever.

But still...here we have a guy, by all accounts a functioning adult man, interested enough to apply for a job, come to church to meet people - twice - and who was more than willing to come and do a dry run of the job to see if he'd be a good fit, simply avoid calling us back for whatever reason. Does he not want the job anymore? Did he change his mind? That would be fine, we'd leave him be if that is what he wants, but he needs to TELL US. Why is it that people feel that they can just stop responding altogether and that be all well and good.  It isn't!!!!!  We have put time and effort into creating the rapport and relationship with this man (again, a grown up, professional man) and he has decided that just noping out without an explanation is ok? That is seriously uncool, especially when he asked to be considered for the job in the first place and we have to go back and unpick all the stitches that we've put into place, and that's a pain in the ass.

I don't understand people.  Have we devolved so much as a society that some people think it's acceptable to blank out, not just in personal situations, but in professional ones too?

I don't understand people at all.  Doing stuff like that makes them look like such an asshole, and chances are, they are creating chaos somewhere. Even if they are a misanthropic person, they should have the decency to end the things they start. If nothing else, it'll guarantee the person/people/business/situation they don't want to be involved in will stop trying to contact them and they won't end up on someone's shit list.  I hope that you, whoever you are reading this, don't do this sort of thing. Be a good person.

And that is my rant for today. Thank you for coming. :)