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Kicked In Guts...


mrbouffant

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About six months ago I applied for a DoM job at a church. Naturally this was a job I _really_ wanted.. Anyway, the incumbent appointed an "independent assessor" to oversee the interviews. Turned out I was the only candidate. After a rigorous going over, they decided not to offer me the job.

 

Fair dos. I was disappointed, but that's life.

 

Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...

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Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...

 

Hmm, one can see why you're upset!

 

I'd have thought that accepting a role as 'independent assessor' meant that, quite apart from anything else, one rules oneself out of the running for the post.

 

(As it happens, I was recently invited to be one of the panel shortlisting and interviewing candidates for a musical post which I would really have liked to get. The invitation came just before I sent in my application for the job: so I accepted the invitation, and did not send the application. Perhaps I was just too sensitive, but it seemed the right thing to do.)

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About six months ago I applied for a DoM job at a church. Naturally this was a job I _really_ wanted.. Anyway, the incumbent appointed an "independent assessor" to oversee the interviews. Turned out I was the only candidate. After a rigorous going over, they decided not to offer me the job.

 

Fair dos. I was disappointed, but that's life.

 

Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...

 

 

First, may I say how sorry I am about the way you've been treated. A similar though not identical thing happened to me a few years ago. I had been dong some part-time work at the local crem and when I heard that a full time post was coming up I looked for the adverts - and eventually I contacted the manager asking why I had not been notified of the post being vacant as I had done quite a bit of work there before and seemed to be a satisfactory employee. I was asked to send in my CV which I did, only to disocver that the appointment had been made - to the partner of someone who works for the body which operates the crem. Seems a little to me that this was a case of nepotism, but of course there is no proof of this at all.

 

P

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About six months ago I applied for a DoM job at a church. Naturally this was a job I _really_ wanted.. Anyway, the incumbent appointed an "independent assessor" to oversee the interviews. Turned out I was the only candidate. After a rigorous going over, they decided not to offer me the job.

 

Fair dos. I was disappointed, but that's life.

 

Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...

Some time ago a local church advertised for a DoM and the person appointed was a personal friend (and regular musical partner) of both the independent advisor and the parish rep. The guy appointed is v good - but the process was very suspect - did the other applicants waste their time (and play a service for free for nothing?). As one of those I share your feeling of being 'used'. I did consider sending in a bill for the service but decided to open a beer instead and add it to the (longish) list of the downsides of choosing to work in the church!

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I guess I must be unprincipled or something, but I can't really say that I see anything particularly untoward here. I'd be disappointed, yes, but this sort of thing happens - and not just in the organ world either. If I've learnt one thing about life, it's that it ain't fair and I gave up expecting it to be long ago.

 

In this case, I take the view that the church has the right to appoint whoever they want for the job. If they want to give it to two-fingered Fred simply because he's the churchwarden's son, so be it. Similarly, if I went for a job feeling I was the best candidate and a better one miraculously came flying up the wing at the last moment, well, that's how it goes.

 

What does brown me off is the stalking-horse situation described by mgp, where you get invited to an interview even though the employer already knows who they are going to give the job to. This is just a waste of everyone's time.

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Didn't something like that happen at a cathedral north of London a few years ago?

 

If I remember the rumour correctly, the advisor (who was in between positions at the time), when asked whom he would recommend for the job, said "me". He got it, and stayed until retirement, I think.

 

Does this ring bells with anyone else?

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Guest Nigel ALLCOAT
Didn't something like that happen at a cathedral north of London a few years ago?

 

If I remember the rumour correctly, the advisor (who was in between positions at the time), when asked whom he would recommend for the job, said "me". He got it, and stayed until retirement, I think.

 

Does this ring bells with anyone else?

 

Indeed it does ring a bell. Life is not a bed of roses.

 

N

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Indeed it does ring a bell. Life is not a bed of roses.

 

N

 

It certainly isn't.

 

But that shouldn't stop people from wanting to be honourable, and I'm sure members of this forum would wish to be so - thus we should deplore all those situations, including Mr Bouffant's, IMV.

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Guest Barry Williams
It certainly isn't.

 

But that shouldn't stop people from wanting to be honourable, and I'm sure members of this forum would wish to be so - thus we should deplore all those situations, including Mr Bouffant's, IMV.

 

 

There is no obligation, whatsoever, in law, to advertise a post. If a post is advertised then it must conform with all legal requirements.

 

The treatment Mr Bouffant has received is yet another example of how bad an employer the clergy can be.

 

However, there is nothing new in this situation. Dr George Oldroyd was the adviser on the vacancy at St Michael's Croydon in 1921. He took the post himself, holding it until his death in 1951.

 

Barry Williams

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Thanks all. I appreciate "these things happen", but he feeling of being "used" is very real. Indeed, I have it in black and white from the "independent assessor" who wrote to me before interview saying that he wasn't interested in the post. I guess it's that kind of two-faced hogwash which gets my goat really...

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Guest Nigel ALLCOAT

It isn't - but we must always realize that their are some unscrupulous people in our business. The same can happen over organ design/consulting. I have written a paper for an institution on behalf of one particular builder that they had in mind (so they said and also led me to believe). Then another builder is plucked from the vestry so to speak, and given the job. What do they do? They use the more important points that were in my writing. They nor the the new builder had never contemplated any of them. They told me so! But, those sort of folk get their comeuppance sometime - I am sure. Anyway - that place got a dreary organ in my opinion because they couldn't interpret what I meant.

 

Best wishes,

Nigel

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About six months ago I applied for a DoM job at a church. Naturally this was a job I _really_ wanted.. Anyway, the incumbent appointed an "independent assessor" to oversee the interviews. Turned out I was the only candidate. After a rigorous going over, they decided not to offer me the job.

 

Fair dos. I was disappointed, but that's life.

 

Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...

 

I have an exact similar case, but the application was a test for me (how far can I get?) Since I wouldn't have taken up the job anyway I was annoyed by the procedure but not much changed for me.

It's scandalous though ...

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Hmmm....

 

I've never had it happen THAT way, but I've had my share of disappointments when applying for a position, and some of the attitudes I have run across are... well...

 

Uninformed?

 

I've learned now to ask early on if they are interested in someone applying from out of state - some places are only interested in getting a person close by, and even if there are folks much more qualified from further away, they settle for the "easy" route.

 

There is also a certain slice of the world that refuses to consider anyone who doesn't have an advanced degree and/or string of certifications. I understand this a bit more - at least it is quantifiable, but I've known chaps with NO degree that could play/lead circles around most of us. I've also known some who have a LOT of letters behind their name, and are really not that good...

 

~~

 

Sadly, there will always be situations where one is not treated fairly, be it in the hiring process or during the course of employment. I've been blessed the last 8+ years working with a supportive church and fellow staff... alas, it has not always been so... in other situations I've had my struggles, too.

 

My only consolation to you would be that if they would pull something like what you have described in the hiring process, it doesn't bode well for how one might be treated once employed(!)

 

~~

 

now, off to the bench for the Big Day - hope you all played well!

 

-G

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"The same can happen over organ design/consulting."

 

At one time some Diocesan Organ Advisors insisted that churches got three estimates for any organ work to be undertaken, often directing the Churches to the firms that they should obtain said estimates when they knew in advance who they were going to favour. This is why we started charging for our estimares unless the organ concerned was in our care.

 

FF

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Guest Barry Williams

I have heard that in the past certain 'independent organ advisers' have been known to seek up to three 'free' estimates (to be sent to them and NOT to the church,) only then to compile their own 'technical report', based on what someone else has told them, send it to the church and suggest that other organ builders should quote to that specification.

 

In the Diocese of Oxford we always advise churches that the minimum payable for a report and quotation by an organ builder is currently £235 + VAT. Although this does not cover the organ builder's costs, it goes some way to meeting the outlay of preparing a report. One organ builder told me that a report can cost up to £600 to prepare. Someone has to meet those costs and inevitably it is the other churches. Frank has suggested that the fee might be waived when the organ builder has care of the organ. Notwithstanding that, we still recommend payment of a proper fee for a report. The quality of the reports is always high and invariably most helpful.

 

A report by a surveyor on a house has to be paid for. Why is it different with an organ? Only a properly qualified organ builder can give a report that a church can reasonably rely on.

 

The labourer is worthy of his hire.

 

Barry Williams

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I have heard that in the past certain 'independent organ advisers' have been known to seek up to three 'free' estimates (to be sent to them and NOT to the church,) only then to compile their own 'technical report', based on what someone else has told them, send it to the church and suggest that other organ builders should quote to that specification.

 

In the Diocese of Oxford we always advise churches that the minimum payable for a report and quotation by an organ builder is currently £235 + VAT. Although this does not cover the organ builder's costs, it goes some way to meeting the outlay of preparing a report. One organ builder told me that a report can cost up to £600 to prepare. Someone has to meet those costs and inevitably it is the other churches. Frank has suggested that the fee might be waived when the organ builder has care of the organ. Notwithstanding that, we still recommend payment of a proper fee for a report. The quality of the reports is always high and invariably most helpful.

 

A report by a surveyor on a house has to be paid for. Why is it different with an organ? Only a properly qualified organ builder can give a report that a church can reasonably rely on.

 

The labourer is worthy of his hire.

 

Barry Williams

 

 

Thanks Barry - sense at last.

 

FF

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