I Wonder Where Refer Al Is These Days?

Back in the days when I worked at the bank, they had a mortgage referral program that rewarded employees with some amount of cash if you convinced a non-employee to bring his or her mortgage to the bank. They called the program "Refer Al" and even had a cartoony character personifying Al himself, on posters that were put up around the various offices across Canada. Of course, it wasn't long before he became known far and wide as "Reefer Al", and the posters modified accordingly by employees with too much time on their hands or not enough fear of the regime. Though the program died long before my career there did, I still have fond memories of good ol' pot-smoking Al and his self-satisfied smile at the prospect of bringing another poor sucker into the fold... or scoring a spectacular doobie, as the case may be.

(Synchronicity alert! As I was typing that last line, Taking It to the Street by the Doobie Brothers came on digital music channel 722! No lie!)

These days, the only kind of referral I tend to be interested in is the kind my current company provides cash rewards for: referring a successful candidate for a job there! Although the cash prize has been cut in half from what it was back in the glory days of start-up-ness, it's still a not insignificant sum. I had a chance at cashing in several years ago, at the old rate, but that turned out to be a very short story with an unhappy ending.

I'd referred, and spent some considerable time convincing, a friend from the bank to apply for, via a referral from me, a fairly senior position that had opened up. This individual was among the top five people I'd left behind, as far as I was concerned, and so I felt like the addition of such a powerhouse would do nothing but improve my new company and allow him to develop some very marketable new skills. I was entirely jazzed when, after several interviews, the ducks were all lined up fine for shooting and he came in for his first day of work. Although I didn't know it until later, he had serious reservations about leaving his more secure job behind, and was similarly trepidatious about what sort of career he might fashion in this much smaller start-up shop. I naively thought all was well, made a point of stopping by each day to chat with him, and otherwise went about my business, rubbing my hands in glee at the thought that several months later I'd be collecting my referral fee and finding some fun use for it.

So imagine my surprise when I walked into the office on New Guy Day 4, only to find out that he'd come into work half an hour earlier and promptly quit, with little or no explanation beyond the fact that he was going through a bad stretch personally and didn't want to take on the challenge of a new job. He was in and gone before I even got there, and I was left to merely ponder why.

It was a couple weeks before he finally got in touch with me, and eventually we met for a drink and he explained his reasoning, which sounded quite like a partial mental breakdown or something of the sort. And not too long after that, he was back at the bank, working for the same old boss, in the same old department, as if nothing had happened. It was sort of like William Hurt in The Accidental Tourist, when he leaves Kathleen Turner because his marriage to her is dead inside, moves in with Geena Davis temporarily, and then just up and quits that relationship to go back to his more familiar wife and home, in what I guess is the ultimate form of denial. Whatever it was, he was gone after four days. Well, three a bit, really. And with him went my hopes about how much he might help us achieve new heights while growing his own skills considerably.. along with my several thousand dollars of referral money!

Flash forward to just over three months ago, and I was finally ready to climb up on that horse again. I knew of someone who was looking for work at the same time we were trying to fill several positions of that sort, and I tentatively started working those old muscles again. Long phone conversations and lunches ensued, and a referral was put in (the form hadn't changed much since the last time, I noticed) and then the waiting game began, once again. As with the previous example, I was more excited at the notion of getting this person in-house than I was about the money, but having had the cash slip through my fingers once, I was determined not to be tricked a second time. When she did great in all of her interviews, and got the job, and came in for her first day, I told her the story of Day 4 and asked that she at least stay the week! It became quite a joke between the two of us, and her boss, who also knew the story. He'd make a point of stopping by my cube to tell me "she's still here!" at least a couple times a week, in fact!

And this tale has a much more satisfying conclusion. Her probation has ended, my bonus should be in tonight's pay, and I've already told her she gets 10% of my after-tax bonus, since clearly she earned it by sticking around after such a horrible precedent was set the last time! It's great to finally have a positive referral story to tell, after five years of having that unpleasant one stuck in my craw.

No doubt this new employee will end up being ten times better than the other one would've, anyway! After all, winners never quit, and quitters never win, right?

Damn right!