Looking for a Sign

It seems like wherever you go these days someone is selling those wooden signs with inspirational quotes painted on them:

• My sister, who is obsessed with her cats, has one that says “My kids are purrfect.” 
• She also has “This may be the wine talking, but I love wine.”
• I gave one to my mother-in-law that says “Pardon the mess – my grandchildren are making memories.”
• My other sister has one that says “Be yourself, unless you can be a unicorn, then be a unicorn.” 

What do all these signs have in common? They make us smile. Or at least feel like we’re smiling even if it’s not showing. 

I decided I needed one for my desk at the office. I happened to come across one while out buying lunch at a café that said “I drink coffee for your protection.” Perfect! (Or, should I say, Purrfect!). I would have preferred “Stay the F*&% away from me until I’ve had my coffee”, but the message is the same. 

I still felt like I was missing that one sign that REALLY made me smile... And I’ve needed one more than ever since I’ve been in a bit of a slump this quarter.

When you work in sales (which does include being a recruiter at an executive search firm, people!) you have your bad days and terrible days. I don’t need to define the good or great days for you. You know it when you have one. The terrible days? A fallout, a candidate who doesn’t clear their background check, that search you’ve been recruiting on for nearly three months and then you’re find out that the client is hiring an internal candidate…

Unfortunately, bad days seem to be much more common, and for me, I define them as the “go-nowhere” days: Nobody is picking up the phone, returning my calls, or responding to my emails. No feedback on how the candidate did on the interview.  And where is the resume from the candidate who told me that they’d have it to me by Monday, the last two Mondays? 

But, we can’t be afraid of the bad or terrible days because we truly learn and improve from those experiences. Louisa May Alcott once said “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Then I found it--the PERFECT SIGN. While wandering around Marshalls during a recent lunch break, I came across one that read “EVERYDAY is a fresh start.”  Purrfect!  Simple. So true, yet easy to forget. It’s in a spot on my desk where it’s visible to everyone who walks by and even to the hallway. A few of my colleagues have even told me how much they enjoy seeing it. 

Things change so quickly in recruiting. We need those small reminders telling us that the bad days don’t last forever. “Don’t start your day with the broken pieces of yesterday.”

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