Quiet! I think I hear dice.

About a month ago I, on a lark, applied for a job for which I am utterly and completely qualified, a job which had I seen it advertised in the local paper I would have passed by without a second thought. Why, then, did I apply for this job? Because a boss that I like works at this organization.

D. has a grasp of what I consider high-drama in the work-place; after all, he was my boss when I worked for The Tree-Huggers. He knows from stress and being overloaded and having no resources (though given that our department budget there was more than the entire organizational budget at the place from which I just resigned, maybe he really doesn’t). He is big, though, on leaving on time and not taking his work home with him, which he assures me he has been doing regularly for the year and a half, or so, he’s been working for these folks.

So even though he wouldn’t be my direct supervisor, I applied for the job. He talked me up and down, five ways from Sunday, and I got invited for an interview. And apparently I didn’t do so badly at that because they invited me back for a second interview.

Now, my mama raised me right: of course I sent thank you notes. But I walked out of the second interview with the woman who would be my boss’ boss (at least until they’ve hired someone to replace the guy they forced out of the head Information Services position) pretty much convinced that I didn’t want the job. Why, you may ask? For a lot of reasons not the least of which is that I’m always more than moderately suspicious when someone with the title Senior Vice President tries to sell me on the idea that an organization has flexible work hours (sure, lady, maybe for you, but what about us grunts?) and wants the employees to maintain a reasonable work/life balance but then turns around and replies to my thank you note at 9:45pm on a Tuesday when I know for a fact she was in her office at 1pm (let’s see 1+8=9…yeah, a 8hr 45 minute work day sounds “balanced” to me).

Mostly, though, I decided I didn’t want the job because the woman was arrogant (yes, I did get the message about business casual; yes, I picked this outfit for a reason: if you won’t hire me dressed like this you don’t want me working here dressed like this) and just plain wrong about something I consider to be vital to the stability of modern society: the proper use of the apostrophe.

My cover letter included the following sentence: “In addition to nearly seven years’ experience with web site design and maintenance, I am supported by extensive and award winning writing experience, by a Master’s in Film, by considerable customer service experience, and by significant experience managing outside vendors and contractors.” Ms. Senior Vice President told me in no uncertain terms that if she had read my cover letter first, blind, without a recommendation from my former boss, she would have tossed it in the trash on the basis of this one sentence. Why? Because it’s “not seven years experience possessive” nor is it “Masters degree possessive.”

I think I did quite well controlling the mythical fist of death. I merely nodded and smiled politely and in my thank you note replied with this:

I also appreciate your comments regarding the construction of my cover letter. I will definitely be looking for a citable authority regarding the best way in which to refer to my Master of Arts degree. I will, however, be continuing with “seven years’ experience…” It seems a logical form given that “two weeks’ notice…” for resignation from an employment, for example, or “thirty days’ notice…” for the severing of a contract are both grammatically correct. I offer the citation from Lynne Truss’s excellent book Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach To Punctuation

Everywhere one looks, there are signs of ignorance and indifference. What about that film Two Weeks Notice? Guaranteed to give sticklers a very nasty turn, that was – its posters slung along the sides of buses in letters four feet tall, with no apostrophe in sight. I remember, at the start of the Two Weeks Notice publicity campaign in the spring of 2003, emerging cheerfully from Victoria Station (was I whistling?) and stopping dead in my tracks with my fingers in my mouth. Where was the apostrophe? Surely there should be an apostrophe on that bus? If it were “one month’s notice” there would be an apostrophe (I reasoned); yes, and if it were “one week’s notice” there would be an apostrophe. Therefore “two weeks’ notice” requires an apostrophe! Buses that I should have caught (the 73; two 38s) sailed off up Buckingham Palace Road while I communed thus at length with my inner stickler, unable to move or, indeed, regain any sense of perspective.

– Truss, Lynne. “Introduction – The Seventh Sense”. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Suffolk, UK: Profile Books, 2003: 2-3.

My references, of course, proved up (who would be so stupid as to give a reference that would not speak of her in glowing, laudatory terms?) and, as my luck would have it, they’ve offered me the job…at $9,000 a year more than I’m making in the job from which I just resigned.

I most definitely hear dice.