LEGO

April 26, 2012

Dear Charmaine (AKA, LEGO Canada representative),

I must say that you did take your sweet time in getting back to me regarding the contract position for Marketing Coordinator with LEGO Canada. Exactly 78 days passed between the time that I applied for the position and when you contacted me regarding the status of my application. Also it seems extremely impersonal to send me an e-mail message asking me to open a PDF message attachment, just to tell me that I have an interview with you. Said attachment isn’t even a ‘message’ it’s a standardized, “You have an interview, human.” form with my name and contact information auto-filled. Could you not simply have told me this within your e-mail? Here’s a situation that may bring you to light:

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Imagine you are relaxing on a cruise, which is on a tour of the South American coast line. The wind is softly blowing through your hair and you sigh as you take a sip out of the Appletini that was just placed beside you with a, “Here you are, Madame.” Gazing over the vast blue landscape of ocean and sky, you wonder where the waters stop and the heavens begin when suddenly you are blinded by a bright flickering light. You raise your sunglasses and as you sit up to take a closer look, you realize that you were momentarily blinded by the reflection of a bottle, which is bobbing up and down amongst the calm ocean currents.

“Ahoy, Mateys! There be a bo’tle floatsing in dat water stuffs!” you call out (yes, you have bad grammar in this metaphorical leading-to-my-point story).

Quickly the Mateys hoist up the bottle out of the ocean. Excitement fills you as they bring the bottle onboard. You grab the bottle and examine it further.

“Ai! There be a note in dis ting!” you exclaim!

Pulling the cork off the bottle and emptying its contents into your hand, you unravel the note, but to your surprise the note is wrapping yet another bottle. Examining this tinier bottle, you realize that there is yet indeed another note within this bottle too! Pulling the cork off this bottle, you take out the final bottled note which reads,

Please help! Stranded! Google Map Coordinates: 43.8600138, -79.3843134

 You pause for a second before stating, “Why da erf did someone put dis message inside a bottle inside a note inside anusher bottle!?”

You crumple the note and toss it overboard.

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See, wasn’t that ridiculous? That’s how impersonal it feels when you’re sent a message within a standard form within an attachment within an e-mail, 78 days later. 78 days is the length of gestation for aardvarks. I could have had three to seven aardvark babies by now if I knew it would take this long! Not to mention that I called and left a message on your voicemail and a follow-up email to you not long after I applied, since your US counterpart suggested I contact you regarding job status (yes, that’s right, LEGO US suggested you were the best person to get in touch with regarding the position. I guess what they really meant was if I didn’t want to get in touch with anybody, I should contact you).

Overall, I was so upset that it took you this long to get back to me that I moved to a different city and changed my phone number so that you wouldn’t be able to call me to offer any type of interview. I half expect the interview (which, if you haven’t guessed by now, I am declining) to be with Microsoft Sam and not any actual human. I imagine it to have gone somewhat like this:

“Greetings human, Terry. Why do you want to work at LEGO?

“Well, I’ve been the biggest fan of LEGO my whole life...”

“12 second response time limit exceeded, answer nullified. Question 2: List 1 strength and 37 weaknesses.”

“I’m a great people person...”

“Incorrect response, people skills are not necessary. Interview terminated. *click*”

Now, you may think that I’m exaggerating just a wee bit. I mean you must have gotten at least 12 applications for this position, of which you probably responded to 10 of. Given this huge influx, it only seems necessary to streamline your hiring process, right? Nope. According to your hiring site,

“One of the first things you’ll notice about us is that we interact in a straightforward way built around honesty, trust and the fact that we truly care about every single individual within the LEGO Group.”

So far my experience has been that LEGO will not respond to any inquiries and when they do, it will be in roundabout, unnecessary ways in the most impersonal approach possible. Seems a bit odd to come off that way to the people you are potentially hiring, who you will spend more time with than your family, and who will be the future of your company.

In closing, please know that I spent more than 12 seconds in creating an automated response to you, Charmaine, and instead put a lot of work into writing this and making it personal. Still feel free to call me for an interview though. However I have seriously changed my number and I have absolutely no idea who you will be talking to. But, perhaps you will find the perfect candidate in the random person you speak with. I wish them luck.

Sincerely,

Terry Ibele

P.S. I’ve been the hugest LEGO fan my entire life. My childhood literally revolved around LEGO. I was subscribed to the LEGO Maniac magazine, sent in pictures of my creations, probably had the biggest LEGO collection you’ve ever seen and also made Legomations using my grandpa’s old camera. I still check in every now and then to see what new things LEGO is doing. I am thoroughly disappointed that my dream company comes across as extremely lame to people interested in working there. I expected everything to be fun and creative and entertaining and colourful and amazing! Instead, I died a little on the inside.

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May 23, 2012

Dear Terry.

Thank you again for your interest in the position of Marketing Coordinator – Contract Assignment
thru January 31, 2013.

Even though we find your experience and competencies interesting, we have found a selection of
candidates, who better fulfill our required profile and unfortunately you are not one of them.

We would like to keep your data and information in our candidate database for possible future
use. Contact us if you are not interested in this.

The LEGO Group wishes you all the best for the future.

Yours sincerely,

Charmaine Collins
Recruitment & Emp. Relations Specialist
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CONCLUSION: So, their response was in the form of a standardized form within an attachment within an e-mail, AGAIN! Lego - run by computer systems.