Oil and water don't mix

I have a company party tomorrow evening! We normally have 3 parties a year - a pre-season party, a post-season party, and a Christmas party. Hmm...since our high season at work has already started, then the party tomorrow cannot really be called a "pre-season" party, now can it? Oh well, a party's a party... .

For those who do not know, I work at an incoming travel agency here in Copenhagen. I've been working with this agency for 9 years now, so it's definitely longer than my marriage ;o). Our office has a very international environment, and that is something I like very much. We have only 2 Danes out of 15 people in our Copenhagen office! Only 2! One of them is from an island called "Bornholm", so whether he's considered a Dane or not is questionable ;o)... .

I'm the only 1 from Singapore, though :o). The rest are from China, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Taiwan, Brazil and Korea...so we're pretty mixed even though we are just 15.

Anyway, I have colleagues coming and going all the time in this travel industry. Sometimes it's sad to see them go, but on the other hand, it is also great to meet new people... . I've made some very good friends at work, most of whom I still keep in contact with even after they've left... .

I don't know about you guys, but there is something which I personally stand quite strongly against, and that is recommending friends or family members to vacancies at the office I work in. It is one thing is to make good friendships with colleagues, but it is totally something else to make good colleagues with friends/family. Especially with family. I mean, if something should happen at work, you will still have to face your family member, or if something should happen in the family, then you will still have to be professional to each other at work. Friendships and relationships can be easily broken at work, so I prefer to keep these separate. Oil and water don't mix either.

Which is why it puzzled me (and I'm actually still puzzled) as to why the Yellow Goddess had at one point in time wanted to apply for a positiion at my office. Our "in-law" relationship was not the best already at that time, but still she wanted to give it a shot. Can you imagine working from Mondays to Fridays, 8 hours each day, with somebody whom you don't get along well already outside of work, and then seeing that person sometimes during the weekends as well?! I'd be more married to her than her own husband then!

The worst of it was that she was quite sneaky to get information from me about the vacancy. According to her email to me, she was recommending her cousin for the job I had mentioned:


The blue text had been edited to protect the names of the people mentioned, and the red text is just me being mean to point out some grammar mistakes (eg. the part of her not having my phone - of course she doesn't have my phone! Duh...). Although you can't see it in the above mail, she had signed off very formally with her first name and last name, as if I didn't know that we share the same married last name or something... . That, plus the fact that she didn't tell my manager that she was my sister-in-law (she just said she knew me) says a lot of our very distant relationship... .

Anyway, she might as well have been honest and say that maybe the job was something for her too, instead of using me and her cousin as means to her sneaky ends... . To cut a long story short, it was a very good thing that she didn't get the job in the end (and that she didn't quit her current job after the interview).

The funniest part though, was that she gave the lamest excuse I had ever read in my life in reply to her job rejection standard email. Something in the lines of "It's ok, I wasn't interested in the job anyway. I only wanted to check out the place for a friend of mine....blah, blah, blah."

WTH?!? Was her friend in a wheelchair or something that she couldn't go down to the office to take the interview herself??? Or was she really such a good (imaginary) friend that the great and all powerful Yellow Goddess would drive all the way down from the middle of nowhere to Copenhagen to "check out the place" for her???

Oh well...at least she made me laugh that day ;o). How silly to burn one's bridges like that though. Very professionally done... .

By the way, just for the record, her cousin did have an interview too, a week after Yellow Goddess. Although she knew that Yellow Goddess was going to apply for the job too, she was nevertheless surprised to hear when Yellow Goddess had her interview because she did not mention the date of it even to her dear cousin. And even though her cousin didn't get the job either, at least she was adult enough not to give lame excuses... .

Anyway, I've learnt my lesson: never put your hand in the lion's cage to give it food. It'll take the food, but it'll also bite your hand off in the process.