No one knows yet why or how a post becomes viral, but when it does that communication moves across social media like a hurricane, gaining speed and strength as it is shared exponentially by readers. That was the case with one particular post by a daughter who felt bad about the career stump her father was in and wanted to help.
Rebecca Mix is like any teenager today, active on social media and posting anything that matters online to share, get reactions and interact. In the meantime, however, her father, Jeff, was dealing with the economic reaction to COVID, particularly in the pandemic’s impact on companies forced to lay off employees because of reduced contact and customer inflow in facilities. That put Jeff in the situation of needing to find work somewhere else at a time when everyone else was suddenly in the same boat. It wasn’t a pretty picture in the summer of 2020. Of course, Jeff Mix had his preference if he could choose; he wanted a job that had him moving versus sitting, had decent pay, and involved helping people. The last one was a tall order given the pandemic restrictions and social distancing.
Unfortunately, Jeff was also in the classic category of being an older worker, needing to work still versus retire, and taking care of dependents, namely his family. So not working was out of the question; he had to find something to fill the gap. And, if it was going to be a good spot, he wanted to work at Costco, the grocery warehouse and consumer retail venue that first coined the phrase, “big box store.”
Jeff liked their culture, the hours, and the in-person feel of the business. The culture matches the way he thought a business should run as well as how it dealt with its staff. But, he hadn’t been job-hunting in a long time and the market was very different in 2021. So, Jeff leaned on his daughter, Rebecca, for pointers.
Rebecca, in the meantime, narrated the whole issue on her Twitter account and then moved on. She thought it was a giggle to have her father working at Costco at the time. However, the thing about posting something on the Internet is that it stays there. And it also becomes public. So, among the thousands of readers who could possibly read Rebecca’s post, it turned out the CEO of Costco, Craig Jelinek, got tipped off by active internal screening on posts about Costco, and he read Rebecca’s post. With a few notes or calls, Jelinek arranged for a job interview for Jeff in Michigan via one of the local store managers there. That set the ball in motion.
Rebecca was contacted by one of the managers via her Facebook account and was told it started with her earlier Tweet. In mid-May 2021, Rebecca found herself going bananas trying to get a hold of her dad and make him understand the significance of the digital reach-out, specifically for him. Jeff thought the whole thing was great, but he was also an experienced worker and kept reserved in terms of anything coming of the matter. He was well aware companies do things at times just for goodwill on the marketing side, and then nothing really happens in practice. Jeff met with the local store manager, discussed job potentials, noted there was no mention of the social media posting, and then he left the interview without an offer. From Jeff’s perspective, it was over, maybe just going through the motions.
Then, Jeff got a call. He scored well in the second interview and was hired. Now he could be excited, and Jeff zapped a photo of his new Costco employee badge to his daughter when it was finalized and real. And, the job was what Jeff wanted; he got to mix with people, he was in a store culture he liked, he was on his feet a lot, and the job had good promise and pay for its role. All in all, it was a bit of karma coming back to Jeff and his family after a rough year and losses to COVID. So, the job hire was a huge blessing, and he has a new nickname now at work – the Twitter Guy.
