It was, so strange… No, unbelievable.

I was sitting at my desk, typing away, when the phone rang. Hmm, I don’t recognize that number… “Kay speaking”

“Hi, I’m Random Headhunter X with Random Company Y, and I was hoping I could talk to you about a position. I know you’re not looking, but I was hoping you might know someone…”

My brain froze for a minute. I know more words followed but… did he just say what I think he just said? I rewound the conversation “…I know you’re not looking…” Yes! Yes he did! Oh… my… god! He can read! There’s a note on my home page next to the resume link. It says “NO. I am not looking for a new job. Don’t offer.” And … he read it! He read it, and understood what the words meant.

I know. I know. Some of you are thinking “so what”, but trust me, this is an incredible event. You see, until now, all observations have indicated that headhunters work on a simple form of pattern recognition. Like bees and flowers. They see the pretty color, and they zoom in to it, even if it’s just a piece of plastic. They see “Java” and their dialing finger starts an uncontrollable sequence of motions. “Rails”! *dialdialdial* In some species, the fingers are attached to e-mailing devices, but the actions are, in essence, the same.

But this one… this one seems to have made an evolutionary leap beyond simply recognizing patterns of letters, beyond words even. This one was able to grasp that words have meaning and can be placed in a specific order to generate further meaning that goes beyond that of the individual words that have been arranged.

I feel out of my depth. I feel like a child in the back yard who just witnessed a raccoon giving birth to a kitten. Who do you call about these things? Will anyone believe me?