I had taken a risk by registering with a new recruitment agency, and had secured a locum position on the acute wards of a large hospital in South London about a month before moving to London; however in the week before starting, they had changed their mind and I was jobless. At the time I was snowboarding in Switzerland, so this new recruitment consultant sweet-talked his way into my resume, and promptly spammed the inboxes of every SLT manager in London shouting my praises trying to get me (and him) a contract. He certainly caught my ear when he told me I'd been 'headhunted' and that my name was being tossed around by London managers who were interested in having me on board.
A day later, he found me a job. I was told it was acute. I was told it was inpatients. Despite asking numerous times, I was assured that my criminal record check, ID, heck, even my surname and address, were not necessary before starting. I believed him. He even had the nerve to tell me I was worrying about nothing.
I turned up on day one.
After half a day being oriented to rehab inpatients (no, not acute, but at least they were in beds...) they introduced me to the second part of the job. Community visits. Requiring a car. And a UK drivers licence. And preferably, a passion for working with people in the community. I had none of these.
My boss then asked for my CRB. Nope. My passport. No. A UK licence? Nada. Any licence? Yes, an about-to-expire Aussie one. She sighed, put her head in her hands. I held back tears.
"Lindsay, the only thing I can do is let you go."
I nodded.
"You're completely inappropriate for the job. You don't even have ID. You could be anyone!"
I agreed.
She took me into her office. We spoke about it. I wouldn't have minded trying neuro rehab, and apart from not having a legal licence, I'd love to have done some home visits (tea and cake, FOUR TIMES A DAY!). We then discovered that this recruitment agent had messed with her before, and had short changed me a rate as well as blatantly lying to both me and the boss. He'd also made me look disorganised and unprofessional.
So my boss, a woman I'd only known for 4 hours, calmly rang the agency, told him how completely wrong I was for the position, how unsafe and risky I could have been... thus releasing me from their contract. She then called my old recruitment agency and promptly re-employed me on the spot with them instead. I got a pay rise, a referral bonus for 'finding my own job', a day off to gather my documents and get a UK drivers licence, and worked for the next 7 months in a neuro rehab unit as well as in domicillary outpatients, learning more skills in that time than I had in years before.
Locuming is stressful and not for the faint hearted. I've written about it before. That position however, although it began with huge stress and near-disaster, ended in a new-found love for working in rehab, and with a toolkit of skills that are invaluable for my career.
The agent, on the other hand, called me half a dozen times in the following days. He started with sweet talk, but unfortunately when he saw I wasn't a push over, he began insulting and then yelling at me over the phone. He continued to lie to me, refusing to allow me to speak to his manager, and refusing to apologise or even acknowledge that he had lied to me. He wouldn't process my pay. I found the email trail of lies, I managed to contact his manager with sneaky detective work, and was informed the following week that he had been asked to leave the company for misconduct.
I'll gladly give anyone the name of the agent so that you can avoid him. I found out this week that he's back on the prowl, with a different company, telling the same lies. But for me, this contract was the stepping stone into working in London, so it all worked out for good.
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