Missed Opportunity

I was scheduled to interview someone for a position at my office at nine this morning, but no one showed. At about ten-thirty I received a call not from the candidate, but from the candidate's mother. The mother explained to me that her daughter had had a flat tire and was very sorry for missing her appointment and would it be possible to reschedule. Her husband was out fixing the tire, and she could be available as early as three o'clock that afternoon. My nature is to give people the benefit of the doubt in these sort of circumstances. And I actually did suffer the misfortune of a flat tire on the way to a job interview once, so I know these things can happen. If the candidate had called herself and she seemed truthful, I may have considered rescheduling, but there is something about having one's mother call that just didn't seem right. It felt like a mom making excuse for a kid and I didn't want to hire a kid. I imagined someone hung over or someone who overslept who begged her mom to put in some good words for her. I pictured someone who couldn't be responsible. I ended up telling the mother that we had several other candidates lined up, but I would call her at the end of the week if none of the others panned out.