Sunday, August 10, 2008

I passed on that opportunity

Five years ago, a guy named Jas tried to recruit me to his company. He knew that I needed a job, and he wanted to farm me out to this semiconductor automation company for a certain project. He assured me that they would find additional projects for me afterwards, but didn't provide any specifics.

When I asked him about the company's finances, he said, "Under my leadership, we always turn a profit." However, he offered me a salary that was about half of the going rate, which made me doubt that he was telling the truth. As a former supervisor said when I related this story, the figure he gave was an insult. Even during the economic slowdown, it was still a pathetically low figure. He sure sounded like he was lying, and not for the first time.

The worst part? He even asked me to lie to this other company about my employment status. I was on H-1B status, and it would have taken a few days to file the work authorizatio for me to work for his company. Without any hesitation though, he told me to tell this other company that I was already working for him. He was a very dishonest man, and he obviously expected that I would approve.

I don't regret turning his job offer down. It's a safe bet that when the project was over, I would have been out of work. He obviously wanted to hire me just so that he could land this project, and once it was over, I would have been out on the street. Oh, he told me that there'd be work for me afterwards, but why should I have trusted him to be honest with me? After all, he had no compunctions about telling me to lie on his behalf.

After I turned him down, he mentioned that he had another person to take my place. I know that he was still lying though, since I saw that he had reposted his job advertisement on the web. Jas, you were a liar.