Be careful what you wish for: The dream job that wasn’t

Have you ever thought you were going to get your dream job, then have it not come to pass? I did. At first I was disappointed. But as I learned more about the company, I was relieved to have dodged a bullet. You never know what ugliness hides beneath an impressive outer layer.

At the time, I was ready to move on from the major consulting firm where I was employed, mainly because I was frustrated about my lack of career advancement. I was also ready to live in a different location. After some searching, I landed an interview for the job of VP of application development in a city I really liked. I was impressed by the company from the research I’d done.

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I arrived on site armed with a list of questions, wanting to make sure I was careful even though it seemed like a dream job. The building was classy and pleasant, and the people courteous and professional. I was ushered into a meeting with the CIO, who was personable and conducted a good interview.

Getting answers

In preparation, I’d studied the industry and noticed the company was moving in a direction counter to that of its competitors, and when I asked why, the CIO laid out a very sound business strategy. In my research, I’d found that the company’s financials were positive — it’d been through a rough patch, but the new management team appeared to have turned the ship around.

The CIO explained how the company was building new systems that were key to significant cost savings and improvements in service levels. I was interviewing for the position to lead that application where the systems strategy was central to the success of the business strategy — an exciting prospect.

I had a couple of concerns. First, the company was building its own code generation engine, which could be a real can of worms in the long haul. The second had to do with a clear vision the entire executive team had bought in to. In my work as a consultant, I’d seen major systems implementations run into problems when executive management was not aligned.

The CIO told me the executives were all rowing in the same direction except for one person, who was on vacation. The CEO had told the exec that when he came back from vacation he needed to start rowing in the same direction as everyone else, or maybe he needed to go do something different.

The CIO and I really hit it off, and he wanted me for the job. He asked me to come back and interview with the CEO. I was jubilant and started looking into what it’d take to move. I was flying out on a Sunday, and my interview was Monday. I had my airline tickets and was all set.

Sweet news turns sour

That is, until Friday evening, when the executive search firm I was working with called me at home and told me I wouldn’t be going forward with the interview. What happened, I asked. They couldn’t say, except that the CIO was no longer with the company and his separation agreement precluded him from talking to me. What?!

I was beyond stunned — in fact, I was devastated. I was ready to leave the life of a constantly traveling consultant to become the VP of app development in a company where systems were the key business strategy, as well as move from a cold climate to a warmer one. It all disappeared in an instant, and it wasn’t because of anything I did or didn’t do.

As I licked my wounds and continued to look for another job, I followed news about the company that I had so badly wanted to be a part of. As I watched, I was able to piece together what happened.

From disappointment to relief

Evidently, when the exec returned from vacation he had a showdown with the CEO. The CEO lost the battle and, as a result, had to fire the CIO who had interviewed me. Some months later, the CEO was unseated by this exec, who then became the CEO. He scrapped the whole systems strategy and hired a renowned systems integrator to put in a widely revered software package. That’s when the real fun started.

It turns out that the packaged software could only handle 10,000 line items per day versus the hundreds of thousands of line items per day required. Change management was poor, and upset at the threat of losing their jobs to automation, warehouse workers damaged inventory and didn’t fill orders. According to reports, inventory amounting to tens of millions of dollars was lost at one warehouse. Workers at several other warehouses walked out at once to protest the automated system.

The business was put in serious jeopardy as orders couldn’t be shipped and customers took their business elsewhere. The new CEO was asked to resign. The company, before the implementation, was doing billions in business, but was ultimately forced into Chapter 7 liquidation.

If the interviewing process had progressed faster by even a week, I could have been on board when the turmoil began. Who knows how I would have fared? As the saying goes, everything happens for a reason.

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This story, “Be careful what you wish for: The dream job that wasn’t,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more crazy-but-true stories in the anonymous Off the Record blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.