Who loves ya, baby?

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a recruiter emailed Hubby, but he was busy writing his thesis so he ignored the email. He finished writing his thesis, he defended his thesis, and lived, somewhat happily ever after, in postdoc land. But the recruiter emailed again, so Hubby wondered what to do. And I said, "It can't hurt to talk to them." So Hubby talked to the recruiter, who wanted Hubby to do a phone interview. And the phone interview turned into another phone interview, which turned into a day-long interview with lots of different people. And at the end of the day, the company gave him an interview gift. Hubby had never gotten a gift for going to an interview, so he was amused.

A couple of days later, the recruiter called to let Hubby know that the interviewers got together and they all decided that they really wanted Hubby to be hired. Hubby was not opposed to seeing what kind of offer they would put together, so he gave the recruiter the green light. The offer was not bad, but not amazing. Still, it was very good and much better than Hubby was making in postdoc land. So he told the recruiter that it sounded good, but he had a couple of questions on a few certain points. The recruiter said they'd get back to him and so Hubby waited and waited. Eventually, the recruiter called back with an amazing deal that Hubby decided he couldn't turn down, so he said yes. So they sent him the paperwork. And then they sent him a gift basket filled with goodies.

I have had a lot of jobs and for the most part, they've been crappy. When I worked for a Dilbert-esque company, on employee appreciation day we were given a CD case (like a cheaper version of a Case Logic one) and they had the greasiest, cheapest pizza in the break room. It was so bad everyone got indigestion from eating it. And it only had pepperoni. But I digress. And then there was the company after that, which had employee appreciation hour. (No, I'm not joking.) They gave us ice cream bars in the parking lot. You could only have one.

So suffice it to say, I've never been sent a gift basket from a future employer. So I'm kind of impressed. And jealous. But either way, the Asiago cheese dip is really, really yummy with the honey wheat dipping pretzels.