monkeys and ponies

I don't usually discuss much about my personal/business life in unlocked entries, but I think this incident is worth mentioning.

For those of you who don't know, I'm the co-owner of a small design firm. I am also female, which is not unusual for people in my industry. Today I received the following call from a (male) tech recruiter.

Me (answering the phone): Hello, this is [my name].

Recruiter: Hello, I'd like to speak to the head of your software development team.

Me (pausing, noting that the man on the other end of the phone hasn't even bothered to give me his name, but willing to give him one chance before I write him off as "he thinks I'm the receptionist"): We don't have a software development team.

Recruiter: Okay, then I'd like to speak to whoever's in charge of your technical hiring.

Me (frostily): You are speaking to the principal of the firm.

Pause.

Recruiter (obviously surprised and a bit deflated): Oh.

That was a very satisfying little "oh," let me tell you.

He then gave me an endless spiel about his .NET rockstar I was never going to hire, which he'd have known if he'd made even the slightest effort to read up on my company, because we are a tiny firm that doesn't offer in-house development. And then I got off the phone and fumed for a little while.

The morals of the story:

1) WOMEN. WE EXIST. WE RUN THINGS OTHER THAN TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARDS.

2) DO YOUR FUCKING HOMEWORK BEFORE COLD-CALLING.

That is all.

ETA: No, wait, that's not all -- because I just got off the phone with an entirely different recruiter. This one was female and confirmed I was the co-founder of the company before saying a damned word about another developer I'm not going to hire. At the end of her spiel, after I told her we're not hiring, I told her I appreciated that she'd taken the time to learn who I was and not assume I was the receptionist, like the last guy. You see, recruiters? Take even half a second to learn something and you won't insult the person on the other end of the phone! You might even get a compliment!

Getting a little desperate for photography subjects at home, but this one's got some interesting color, and has a surprising amount to say about me. There's the pink gel pen I like to use for proofreading. The shiny silver and orange ballpoints from two different tech firms I've worked with. The children's pencils with Sanrio and other Japanese cartoon characters, because I love their cheerfulness, and the similarly amusing Peeps pencil with matching eraser. An X-acto knife I used to use to cut line tape and waxed stories on resin-coated paper for the college newspaper.

And of course, the talking Dalek pen and a sonic screwdriver.

"No. Stop. Their logo is Copperplate. We can't shop here."

(Actually, I think Copperplate has its place, but the rest of the material in this strip is dead-on.)

Via my friend lullabypit at Scholars & Rogues, a short video about making a stop sign that should be painfully familiar to those of you who have to work with marketers on a regular basis. Personally, I started to lose it at the bit about the partner logos, because I've had that conversation. Oh, yes, I have.

Please go admire iainpj's outstanding work here and here, inspired by something I wrote in a f'locked entry about needing to be well enough to write more porn.

Samples below:

Because I know there are at least a couple of you reading this LJ. This made me laugh really hard, and not just because my brain consists entirely of flu germs at this time.

"Yes, I wanted to do this as a kid. No, there were no printing colleges for me to study at. And no, Steve Guttenberg did not invent the printing press!"