Saturday, December 22, 2007

My Name Is Smith, Just Smith

Some recruiter simply named Smith left a message on my cell phone about a job I might be interested in Connecticutt. He didn't leave his first name, or even called himself Mr. Smith, just Smith. Weird. And the man sounded like a desi, not some random native American. It was a deeply-accented English too, the kind spoken by Indian code jockeys that come to the United States, don't communicate much (except with each other), and pretty much keep to themselves, so their language skills, to say the least, are a bit stilted.

I decided against returning his call because I wasn't interested in going to Connecticut at all. Nevertheless, as is the practice, the recruiter followed up on his voice mail with an e-mail, which was asimply signed 'Smith'. I kept asking myself: is that really his name? Or is it an attempt by the recruiter to ingratiate himself to candidates without scaring them away with an ethnic-sounding name? But why rest with just one name.