Search has frustrated

Editor’s note: CR columnists Ray Cooney and Steve Garbacz are starting a new tradition. Every time there is a fifth Thursday in a month, as occurs today, their columns will trade places. “Rays of Insight” makes its first appearance on the Family Page today, while “The Garbacz Dump” can be found in the sports section.
If I’ve seemed frustrated — or “grumpy”, as my sister put it this weekend — over the course of the last four months, there has been a good reason.
Since our last city reporter left in October we have offered the job to 10 different candidates. All of them have turned it down.
Of course, there have been applicants who were concerned about dealing with college debt or moving far away from home. Those things are always going to come into play.
But today I’m going to share with you some of the baffling, disappointing and ultimately maddening reasons we have been given by those who have passed. (I’ll also let you in on some of the crazy things we’ve heard from applicants who did not make it to the interview stage of the process.)

Parental dependence
The first candidate we offered the job to after our last reporter’s departure had been working at a clothing store in a mall and said she was looking forward to getting a job in her chosen field.
When offered the position she said she was concerned about her finances and did not want to have to depend on her parents. So instead, she decided to continue living at home with her parents.

Internship issue
We were going to offer this girl the job, but before we even had a chance to do so she accepted a summer internship instead.
Through a casual conversation with one of his counterparts at a Hoosier State Press Association meeting a few weeks later, managing editor Mike Snyder discovered that she had taken that internship because it was at a paper in her boyfriend’s hometown. That boyfriend is headed back to school in the fall, when she’ll be once again looking for a full-time job she could have already had.

Telephonically challenged
We offered this guy the position on a Friday and he said he would call back Monday with an answer. When he failed to do so and we contacted him, he apologized and said he was waiting to hear about another possible job offer.
We agreed to give him a couple of more days, and he again said he would call and give us a decision. He didn’t.
Job offer, rescinded.
In the office, his name has become a synonym for someone who does not return phone calls.

College confusion
When asked what he was looking for in his first job, one candidate said he was sick of school and ready to get a job and put the skills he had learned to use.
We offered him the position. He called back a day later and said he had decided he was going to stay in school and get his Master’s degree.

Among those who didn’t get interviews were:
•The guy who emailed to say he had something set up for the summer and then was getting married and moving to Philadelphia, but he was still interested. When he was planning on working for us, I have no idea.
•The guy who was looking forward to the social opportunity as well as the professional because a friend of his had just moved to Indiana — Crown Point, Indiana. For those of you keeping score at home, Crown Point is a 187-mile drive from Portland.
•The guy who emailed to “apply for the position of Resident Funkologist/Writer/Reporter.” I’m not sure what a “Funkologist” is, and I don’t want to find out.

So if I, or anyone else on The CR staff, have seemed frustrated, grumpy or otherwise annoyed recently, there is a good chance that one of the above or someone like them was responsible.
I can only hope that the long and arduous process will eventually come to an end, we’ll find the reporter for whom we’ve been searching.[[In-content Ad]]