As mentioned in the previous post, I went out yesterday to a job interview for an IT position. "How hard could it be?", I figured, "After all, I've done IT before, it's just getting used to a new system." While I was right about that particular train of thought, I hadn't realized that my recent attempts at bettering myself had taken a toll on my ability to suck up and fit in.
Going by my usual habits, I got in to Boulder and parked about half an hour early for my interview. Unfortunately, it was incredibly hot, and the email sent to me had specified professional dress (something I intentionally own very little of), and I didn't want to hang around and get all sweaty. So I did the super-un-cool thing of arriving for an appointment more than 15 minutes in advance. The books that I'm reading at the moment are "Committed", a book that looks very chick-ish, and is about marriage, and "An Intro to Islam",
because I'm pretty ignorant in that area and why not. Neither one, to be honest, seemed like a very good idea to bring to an interview (I can just imagine getting thrown out of a professional building in downtown Boulder while a freaked-out IT director is screaming about jihads and suchlike), so I cut out a crossword puzzle and brought that instead. For those of you who know my love of puzzles, you'll know why this occupied me for all of about 8 minutes, and then there I sat... staring at the wall... for another 22 minutes... an activity guaranteed to put you in a great mindset for an interview.
I finally got called in, and we went over the usual questions: what times can you work, let's discuss your employment history, why did you leave your last job, etc. Despite having prepared for this inevitable question on the way there, the interviewer threw me for a loop when she asked me for not one, but THREE "areas of improvement" about myself. Now, to begin with, I don't agree with the "of" in that phrase. Shouldn't you be looking at areas "for" improvement? If it's an area "of" improvement, wouldn't that mean it had already been improved? It's the little things in life that distract and bother me.. and they're mostly words.
However, semantics aside, I now was in the unenviable position to find and confess three faults to a potential employer. Don't get me wrong, I know I have more faults than California's landscape, but most of them are not work-related. Do I really want to tell someone I just met that I need to work on personal interactions and try to learn to open myself up in relationships better? Not really. So I gave my standby work fault, that I sometimes let things overwhelm me and I need to walk away for a minute. That's a safe one, because I've already worked out how to fix it: walk away for a minute. It's a quick, short fix that interrupts things for as little time as possible, but it shows I think about consequences. Yay me! Oh wait, she wanted more... crud. I hemmed and hawed for a bit and came up with some other minor thing that I'd already identified and fixed and then just hit a wall. After staring at her blankly for a minute or two, I said I was out. I just flat-out couldn't think of any other "area of improvement" that was work-related, so we left it unanswered and moved on.
It turns out the job is an on-call position for local restaurants. For however many days a week, I would be tied to a phone for all restaurant hours (keep in mind how late most of them stay open!) and be front-line defense for when they had problems. Now, think about how stressful and fast-paced most restaurants are, and the attitudes that servers and managers can pull when things go wrong. If you've never worked back-stage in a restaurant (and these days, I'd imagine that's rare), it gets tense. Everything needs to be done, and done 10 minutes ago, and god help you if you're holding someone up. Is that really what I wanted to do?
After the usual "I have other interviews, but I'll give you a call if we want a second interview", I walked out of there in my nicely-pressed pants and sensible, shiny, polished shoes, and thought to myself, "Wow, I really hope they don't call back. I have no desire to get this job". For me, this was a blinding revelation. In office work, you generally take what's given to you, and in this economy, you do it with gratitude. I have always aimed to please unless it runs contrary to my ethics or beliefs, and to have something that I could do in reach, and realize that hey, it's my choice, I don't have to... I felt like another rug that had been blocking me from the sunlight and freedom had been pulled off of my brain. Instead of walking out of that building burdened with anxiety and desperate hope that I had performed well and that they would like me, I walked out of there like a man walking out of prison. The day was beautiful, the sun felt great, the wind was glorious, I didn't care if I sweated or sneezed or didn't have my make-up on perfectly... I felt alive and great, and ready to go looking for a job I really did want. It may not be glamorous, it may not pay huge amounts of money, but darn it, it's time for me to find one I like. Cheers!
Going by my usual habits, I got in to Boulder and parked about half an hour early for my interview. Unfortunately, it was incredibly hot, and the email sent to me had specified professional dress (something I intentionally own very little of), and I didn't want to hang around and get all sweaty. So I did the super-un-cool thing of arriving for an appointment more than 15 minutes in advance. The books that I'm reading at the moment are "Committed", a book that looks very chick-ish, and is about marriage, and "An Intro to Islam",
because I'm pretty ignorant in that area and why not. Neither one, to be honest, seemed like a very good idea to bring to an interview (I can just imagine getting thrown out of a professional building in downtown Boulder while a freaked-out IT director is screaming about jihads and suchlike), so I cut out a crossword puzzle and brought that instead. For those of you who know my love of puzzles, you'll know why this occupied me for all of about 8 minutes, and then there I sat... staring at the wall... for another 22 minutes... an activity guaranteed to put you in a great mindset for an interview.
I finally got called in, and we went over the usual questions: what times can you work, let's discuss your employment history, why did you leave your last job, etc. Despite having prepared for this inevitable question on the way there, the interviewer threw me for a loop when she asked me for not one, but THREE "areas of improvement" about myself. Now, to begin with, I don't agree with the "of" in that phrase. Shouldn't you be looking at areas "for" improvement? If it's an area "of" improvement, wouldn't that mean it had already been improved? It's the little things in life that distract and bother me.. and they're mostly words.
However, semantics aside, I now was in the unenviable position to find and confess three faults to a potential employer. Don't get me wrong, I know I have more faults than California's landscape, but most of them are not work-related. Do I really want to tell someone I just met that I need to work on personal interactions and try to learn to open myself up in relationships better? Not really. So I gave my standby work fault, that I sometimes let things overwhelm me and I need to walk away for a minute. That's a safe one, because I've already worked out how to fix it: walk away for a minute. It's a quick, short fix that interrupts things for as little time as possible, but it shows I think about consequences. Yay me! Oh wait, she wanted more... crud. I hemmed and hawed for a bit and came up with some other minor thing that I'd already identified and fixed and then just hit a wall. After staring at her blankly for a minute or two, I said I was out. I just flat-out couldn't think of any other "area of improvement" that was work-related, so we left it unanswered and moved on.
It turns out the job is an on-call position for local restaurants. For however many days a week, I would be tied to a phone for all restaurant hours (keep in mind how late most of them stay open!) and be front-line defense for when they had problems. Now, think about how stressful and fast-paced most restaurants are, and the attitudes that servers and managers can pull when things go wrong. If you've never worked back-stage in a restaurant (and these days, I'd imagine that's rare), it gets tense. Everything needs to be done, and done 10 minutes ago, and god help you if you're holding someone up. Is that really what I wanted to do?
After the usual "I have other interviews, but I'll give you a call if we want a second interview", I walked out of there in my nicely-pressed pants and sensible, shiny, polished shoes, and thought to myself, "Wow, I really hope they don't call back. I have no desire to get this job". For me, this was a blinding revelation. In office work, you generally take what's given to you, and in this economy, you do it with gratitude. I have always aimed to please unless it runs contrary to my ethics or beliefs, and to have something that I could do in reach, and realize that hey, it's my choice, I don't have to... I felt like another rug that had been blocking me from the sunlight and freedom had been pulled off of my brain. Instead of walking out of that building burdened with anxiety and desperate hope that I had performed well and that they would like me, I walked out of there like a man walking out of prison. The day was beautiful, the sun felt great, the wind was glorious, I didn't care if I sweated or sneezed or didn't have my make-up on perfectly... I felt alive and great, and ready to go looking for a job I really did want. It may not be glamorous, it may not pay huge amounts of money, but darn it, it's time for me to find one I like. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment