[Note: Though I speculate on whether CommonHealth was involved in my receiving the e-mail at issue, I should emphasize that this is not conclusive. However, details and nuances below suggest merits for different hypotheses on the matter. An edit is done 9/12/12 (and another 12/18/12) between asterisks. Also note (added 12/18/12): The term "medical media" refers to medical advertising/promotions, not to genuine medical academic publishing.]
1. Introduction
As I work myself along to extending my blog story about CommonHealth, I realize that the disinterested outsider might ask, Did anyone at CommonHealth seek to communicate with me to try to mitigate our “disagreement” or “issue”?
Of course, for a long time I wasn’t going to be the one to reach out, because of what developed in late August 2010. There was, in fact, a letter that came from CommonHealth in late March 2011—a full seven months after I left. I actually was able to determine most of what it said without opening it—I held it up to the light—then had it returned to the sender by the post office. Among other things you can infer from this situation, it is mighty strange that, if indeed I had left the firm in the way I had in August 2010, and since I had posted some usually discreetly framed things about my experience there (groping for some sort of satisfaction in the very vexing matter) on my Web site, it took anyone there a full seven months to communicate with me. Indeed, if you knew the substance of the late March 2011 letter, you would find the firm’s position even less acceptable. But we’ll hold off on that.
There was some other “communication” that came to me in December 2010, which I suspected was initiated by CommonHealth. It was a sort of query from what seemed like a placement agency for an apparent temp job in Parsippany, N.J., with significant parameters that could only apply to a very few companies in that town that would seek me out for work, and I figured that CommonHealth was one of them. The fact that they sought me then, and not earlier, is compatible with the fact that the young woman regarding whom I was alleged to have engaged in some sort of harassing behavior in August 2010, as best as I could determine, had been laid off or fired from CommonHealth by about November 18, 2010. Thus, a manager could reason, with the “woman who was part of the August 2010 controversy” gone and not likely to “pose temptations for me,” I could be brought back. *[Note: This account may be adjusted in the future in line with a project category I'll announce, called Afterthoughts.]*
But under what weird circumstances I could be asked to come back, if indeed this placement agency query was for work at CommonHealth! First, I would not be there as a freelancer directly employed by CommonHealth, as I had been off and on from 2007 through 2010. It would be, as sporadically in 2001-06, through a temp agency. Yet the agency was in Georgia!
LET ME MAKE CLEAR: it is not decisive to me that this temp agency was working for CommonHealth. And whoever it was working for, the manner and details of its query made the query quite unacceptable. (But if it was working for CommonHealth, well…my comments after the e-mails below will spell things out.)
I indeed wanted to comment on this e-mail query on my Web site in 2011, and never opted to do so. It seems good to do this now because it helps answer the question that might have occurred to people recently, Did CommonHealth ever try to reach out to me after I left?
A few things seem clear: (1) Even if this query was not on behalf of CommonHealth, and CommonHealth’s only reaching out to me was in late March 2011, that hardly befits the moral and ethical circumstances I was in in the wake of how I left the firm, nor does it seem respectful to someone who had served them through nine years. (2) Even if one could say I could have reached out to CommonHealth myself, which given my moral position regarding them seemed, to me, not incumbent on me at all—it would have been like reaching out to make amends with someone who had grossly assaulted me—CommonHealth’s position as shown in the March 2011 letter shows they were hardly going to be a respectful (or truly understanding, and ready-for-accountability) partner in any sort of “coming to terms with each other.”
Whether CommonHealth was responsible for the e-mail below or not, with all I’ve discussed about the company so far, even if you discount half of it, you have to wonder what kind of company this is. Leaving aside the 2010 developments, I would have said it was a company given to ethical missteps (several over several years, and some serious), at least. Add to this what others I’ve communicated with have said negatively about CommonHealth over the years, and you have a portrait of a company that raises a lot of questions, though whether it could ever be brought to account in any sort of legal manner on one of the more serious issues is, for practical reasons and regarding how the practiced-law field tends to be in New Jersey, not highly likely.
Let’s look at the e-mail, and then we can ask ourselves, if it wasn’t CommonHealth who triggered this, what not-entirely-respectable firm did trigger this?
2. The e-mail
On December 13, 2010, I received the following e-mail, which I have a printout of; I typed this from a photocopied version of the printout--and the copy and the original printout both have a tiny part that is unreadable--hence I edited the part as “the we[bsite to] ensure,” though I strongly believe this reflects the original wording. (*I found the electronic version as of 9/12/12, and the correction is right, but web site is two words.*) Otherwise, I follow the e-mail exactly as it was, with minor (insignificant) formatting changes; I editorially changed tiny things, or commented, in brackets.
First comes a version of the e-mail without editorial comments interposed. Then comes a version with editorial comments interposed, to explain how bad—indeed, unprofessional—it was.
From: [name]@acsicorp.com
Subject: I need a Copy Editor!
Date: Mon, December 13, 2010 9:48 a.m.
To: [regular e-mail addr]
Hello,
I recently came across a resume of yours on the [I]nternet and believe the job opportunity below would be of interest to you. It is a 5 month [sic; no noun describing the job was included] at a large company located in Parsippany, NJ. The position is paying from $30.00 to $35.00 an hour W2. If you or someone you know is interested and meets the below qualifications, please send your most updated resume and the best number to contact you. I will call you to address any concerns and to try to move forward, only after recieving [sic] the resume and verifying that you are in fact a good fit for the position.
NO SPONSORSHIP AVAILABLE for this position
NO THIRD PARTY RESUMES
JOB DESCRIPTION [number is given]
Duration: 5 months
Short description:
Coordinates with writers, producers, and other contributors to the we[bsite to] ensure consistency in style, tone, and quality of the organization[’s] site. Requires a bachelor[’]s degree and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area.
Complete description:
Coordinates with writers, producers, and other contributors to the we[bsite to] ensure consistency in style, tone, and quality of the organization[’s] site. Requires a bachelor[’]s degree in a related area and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Has knowledge of commonly-used concepts, practices, and procedures within a particular field. Relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the functions of the job. Works under immediate supervision. Primary job functions do not typically require exercising independent judgment. Typically reports to a manager.
Thank you.
[name]
American Cybersystems
[e-mail address]
[Mailing address of “American Cybersystems World Headquarters” in Duluth, GA.]
##
Now here is a version of the e-mail with editorial comments, with some parts deleted.
##
I recently came across a resume of yours on the [I]nternet and believe the job opportunity below [(A) shouldn’t this say “temporary”?] would be of interest to you. It is a 5 month [sic] at a large company located in Parsippany , NJ
NO SPONSORSHIP AVAILABLE for this position
NO THIRD PARTY RESUMES [(F) They offer this advisory yet, above, say “If you or someone you know…” If I knew someone I would feel comfortable with referring this query to—which I would not—then I hand it off, and that’s it; the relationship is then only between that third party and this firm?]
[…]
Duration: 5 months
Short description:
Coordinates with writers, producers, and other contributors to the we[bsite to] ensure consistency in style, tone, and quality of the organization[’s] site. Requires a bachelor[’]s degree and 0-2 years of experience [(G) See comments above, (B) and (E).] in the field or in a related area.
Complete description:
Coordinates with writers, producers, and other contributors to the we[bsite to] ensure consistency in style, tone, and quality [(H) This sounds as if the editor has to exercise his or her own judgment (based on his or her experience), and yet…see (L) below.] of the organization[’s] site. Requires a bachelor[’]s degree in a related area [(I) Related to what? How would I know if I fit?] and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area. [(J) What field? Related to what? To the content of the web site this job is concerned with? Or to the general type of media (if it was medical) that the Parsippany company handles?] Has knowledge of commonly-used concepts, practices, and procedures within a particular field. [(K) What field? Why not say? See (J) above.] Relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the functions of the job. Works under immediate supervision. Primary job functions do not typically require exercising independent judgment. [(L) Oy oy oy! See (H) above. How can you be an editor dealing with issues such as “style, tone, and quality” without using judgment? Being an editor centrally involves judgment.] Typically reports to a manager. [(M) “Typically”? Sounds like the copy editor always reports to a manager.]
##
3. General comments
There are too many vague, or “question-begging,” specifications here. In fact, there’s such a wealth of them that you have to wonder if the person who sent this is grossly incompetent or if this is a fraud.
Another reason—actually, it alone can be decisive—as to why I would not follow this up is a simple, practical one. If this was a placement agency contracted by CommonHealth, then I already knew from hard experience that if this placement agency stopped paying me, because (as happened with “The Gary Laverne Group” in 2007) it wasn’t being paid by CommonHealth, then I would be even more up a creek than I was in 2007. The reason: this firm is in another state. I could not appeal to the New Jersey Department of Labor because this employer (in Georgia), who would be my employer, not CommonHealth, is in another state. If I ran into substantial legal problems, I would have to file a federal lawsuit, it would seem.
Also strange is why, if CommonHealth was contracting with a firm in Georgia, why they would go that far for a placement firm?
Of course, I hypothesized that if this was not a serious try by CommonHealth to get me to apply for work there via American Cybersystems, with the inevitable restraints (and advantages to CommonHealth) of its use of a placement agency, then maybe it was just a way for CommonHealth to get me to submit my resume for them to see what I had on it. I’d already indicated on my LinkedIn page by this point something about there being further details about CommonHealth on my resume. And how shitty if they were so paranoid and sneaky that they would resort to using this trashy query-writing placement firm to do this.
But again, maybe CommonHealth wasn’t involved with this—and some other dubious firm got American Cybersystems to send this.
