Boon's Basement

Being paid to be the mediator?

// June 20th, 2009 // Thoughts

The idea of service for hire was thought by me to only exist in movies and novels until my landlord told me that there is such a service available in New York City. People would hire someone to run errands for them. He or she will be paid at an hourly rate to buy groceries, walk the dog, pick up the laundry or even clean up the house. The idea here  is that you’re pretty much the butler but without the long term commitment or the obligatory benefits that the employer has to pay.

There are many websites that offer service for hire and my landlord told me about one particular company that his friend works for. I thought I would submit my resume to them and see if they would hire me, a hardworking and able lad, to work part time running errands for people in NYC. I did submit my resume, I did get a call back from Alison (name has been changed to protect the original person) this morning about a position with the company but it was not what I expected. They are looking to hire a person that will be a mediator between a company and its employees. Company X is consolidating their office spaces by moving staffs from different locations to one central location  and because of the drastic change, many employees are disgruntled, although no one should be unhappy while they are still employed in this economy, and therefore the employer wants to hire someone who can remediate the situation by making the employees adjust to the move and by ensuring that their demands are met.

Some of the responsibilities of this mediator include organizing get – together among the employees from different locations who will not be working in the same office, encouraging the employees by telling them how great the new office is and organizing happy hour events after work. Although the work sounds interesting because of the heavy interaction with employees but the pay wasn’t too enticing. So, I didn’t take up the offer eventhough she did try to sell me the perks of employee benefits and health care.

I declined the job offer and we bid our farewells. I guess my job hunt continues!

-Boon