Rumours have been swirling around Auckland’s recruitment community this week after a story emerged in the Herald at the weekend about a cocaine sting at a hairdressers in Newmarket. It appears as if the hairdresser, a fashion designer, and a patched gang member have been using the business as a conduit to supply cocaine.
The bit that really got tongues wagging across our industry (which is so unlike us recruiters!) was the bit that read:
“Among the alleged cocaine clientele is a stockbroker, a senior music executive, the boss of a large company, a recruitment agency owner, the husband of a TV actress and a personal trainer.”
Naturally disposed to over-reaction and hyperbole that us recruiters are, we seem to have all decided that there is a cocaine dealer in our midst. My initial reaction to this story was an assessment of the recruiter himself (or herself). It’s pretty good times for recruitment right now with a strong local economy and positive hiring intentions across many businesses. Having to resort to doing drug deals on top of perm deals smacks of either laziness, incompetence, or greed. Or more likely all of the above.
But in reality it appears as if the recruitment boss is simply a customer of the dealers. Whilst it’s not exactly a great look, it is also hardly really “news” that a recruitment company owner has been using cocaine. In London it would be more newsworthy if they discovered one that didn’t, from the stories I’ve heard.
I’m also sorry to have to use this platform to do this, but I must scuttle the rumours and suggestions from a (worryingly large) number of you in our recruitment community who posited that the unnamed cokehead might be my very own business partner Sean Walters. Whilst Sean does enjoy to bask in unfounded (and often exaggerated) rumours about his nefarious extra-curricular activities, I’m afraid I must disappoint you this time:
It isn’t him.
I’m sure the truth will come out eventually. But by then I doubt anyone will really care, such is the nature of PR blunders these days.
Thanks to everyone who came to the #RicePowWow last night too. Fun night as always and great to see so many of our recruitment community still keen to get together to share some recruitment yarns and bury the agency / in-house hatchets. Thanks again to Xref Global for sponsoring the event and well done to the winner of the RHUB NZ ticket.
If you’re keen to attend RHUBNZ yourself you can get 10% off the ticket price by entering the promo code RICEROCKS (disclaimer – not my choice of promo code!)
Maybe see some of you there.
Happy Friday!
