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Extremely disappointed in APCO because I used to have good impression of them.
I recently had a Zoom call with their China MD, Jeff Astle, whose line got disconnected a few times. On the last occasion when it did again, I expected him to come back online pretty quickly like previously, but he never did! Given that during our Zoom call, his screen kept freezing (I was sitting right next to the router so my connection was good), I waited for him to come back, thinking that he might have some problems with the internet. I even rescheduled a client call just in case Jeff Astle came back online and our call overran into my next scheduled call.
After about 15+ min, he still didn't re-appeared so I emailed the person who helped us with the administrative side of things (e.g., arranging for the Zoom call link). Another 10 min passed by and I finally received an email with a blunt response from his assistant that Jess Astle has had sufficient info about me and decided there was not an immediate position that fit my profile.
What a surprise because:
1) all along I have only talked about freelance being my first priority (so the fact that the HR was involved was a surprise to me too).
2) I actually approached another office, not their China office, but my profile was shared with the China office which contacted me "unsolicitedly".
In total, Jeff Astle, has wasted me 25+ minutes of simply waiting for him to come back online and to figure out what happened to him after disconnecting himself from the Zoom call so suddenly!
Very unprofessional!
However, I have to say the other APCO employees (two) whom I've been in contact with for this particular engagement have been helpful and friendly. I don't blame the assistant for the "blunt" response because English is not her native language so she might not realise her email sounded blunt. She also didn't know that Jeff Astle's line disconnected suddenly. Everything was so abrupt--the disconnection and the email with such content that didn't include anything to explain why Jeff Astle never came back online to properly end the Zoom call.
So I think other APCO offices should be ok but this incident alone is enough to ruin my impression of the entire company. 25+ minutes of my time was gone for nothing!
I recently had a Zoom call with their China MD, Jeff Astle, whose line got disconnected a few times. On the last occasion when it did again, I expected him to come back online pretty quickly like previously, but he never did! Given that during our Zoom call, his screen kept freezing (I was sitting right next to the router so my connection was good), I waited for him to come back, thinking that he might have some problems with the internet. I even rescheduled a client call just in case Jeff Astle came back online and our call overran into my next scheduled call.
After about 15+ min, he still didn't re-appeared so I emailed the person who helped us with the administrative side of things (e.g., arranging for the Zoom call link). Another 10 min passed by and I finally received an email with a blunt response from his assistant that Jess Astle has had sufficient info about me and decided there was not an immediate position that fit my profile.
What a surprise because:
1) all along I have only talked about freelance being my first priority (so the fact that the HR was involved was a surprise to me too).
2) I actually approached another office, not their China office, but my profile was shared with the China office which contacted me "unsolicitedly".
In total, Jeff Astle, has wasted me 25+ minutes of simply waiting for him to come back online and to figure out what happened to him after disconnecting himself from the Zoom call so suddenly!
Very unprofessional!
However, I have to say the other APCO employees (two) whom I've been in contact with for this particular engagement have been helpful and friendly. I don't blame the assistant for the "blunt" response because English is not her native language so she might not realise her email sounded blunt. She also didn't know that Jeff Astle's line disconnected suddenly. Everything was so abrupt--the disconnection and the email with such content that didn't include anything to explain why Jeff Astle never came back online to properly end the Zoom call.
So I think other APCO offices should be ok but this incident alone is enough to ruin my impression of the entire company. 25+ minutes of my time was gone for nothing!