Ghosting is the seemingly familiar and growing practice of not showing up for a job interview, a job, a friend, a family member, or anyone else. This article reveals five compelling reasons people to stop ghosting employers or anyone else.
Yesterday, I ate an overpriced hamburger at a friend’s restaurant. We always greet each other with a hug and say, “I love you.”
Having grown up working in hotels and restaurants, I have infinite empathy and compassion for people who serve others on a daily basis. Serving the general public is one of the toughest jobs in the world, and it can help us build relationships, skills, and character traits that carry us onto better things.
Joe told me how hard it’s been lately to find employees. Finding “good people” seems a universal dilemma for employers, especially small business owners.
Joe went into detail and explained, “Cliff, it’s worse than ever. Ninety percent of the people who apply for the jobs ghost us for the interview. Ninety percent of the people who show up for the interview don’t have the skills we need for the job openings. Ninety percent of the people to whom we offer jobs don’t show up for the first day. And Ninety percent of the people we hire stop showing up because it seems they don’t want to work.”
I could feel Joe’s pain.
Ghosting sucks. I’ve experienced a bit when hiring for myself and past clients. I figure it’s a function of decreasing awareness of the power of virtuous living and core values.
Here are five reasons to stop ghosting people if you care about yourself.
- Ghosting violates The Golden Rule; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. How do you feel when someone says one thing to you and does another?
- Ghosting violates the ancient Toltec wisdom from the book, The Four Agreements. The Four Agreements is a book written by Don Miguel Ruiz. The Four Agreements go something like this:
- Be impeccable with your word. In other words, if you say you’re going to do something, do it.
- Always do your best. That’s a matter of personal integrity. If you don’t do your best, how does it feel?
- Take nothing personally. The world around you is not about you. It’s about finding ways to get along with everyone considering the seeming propensity for many of us to place blame and shame on others instead of owning our crap.
- Make no assumptions. What you feel is a function of how you think and process emotions. We all get programmed into our way of thinking and interacting with the world. You got programmed by your family, culture, teachers, coaches, and everyone else in your immediate environment.
- Ghosting violates karmic law; what you do to others, you do to yourself. If you ghost people often, chances are you get ghosted. In other words, what goes around comes around.
- Ghosting costs people time, money, and stress. We could all benefit from having more of the former and less of the latter.
- Ghosting undermines your character. Look at the Five C’s of your credit score. Character is at the top of the list. Your credit capacity, capital, collateral, and conditions are the other four C’s.
The bottom line is when more people realize the cost of ghosting to themselves, they are less likely to ghost employers, or anyone else.
In today’s society, when more of us become aware of how we treat others, more of us might practice the Golden Rule in all our affairs.
