Job Interviews and Being Intimidated

    I'm thinking today about life changes. How sometimes you plan them - seek them out and strongly desire them - and sometimes they fall in your lap and it's up to you to deal with them on the fly. I've spent a lot of time whining and worrying about my job change over the last few weeks, but it's really not all that bad, and it's time for me to shut up about it. I can make some changes so that it's not such a drastic difference from "The Way Things Were", if that's what I want, but I can also change the way I perceive it. So I'm going to set out to do that. Sleek's here today. It's obvious, and becoming more so by the minute, that he doesn't know that I exist. Have I mentioned that he's tall? Well, I didn't realize just how tall until a moment ago, when I was coming into Technical Services and he was flying out, into the foyer in front of the administrative offices, heading toward the circulation office. For one thing, I crept up on him and startled him, so he jumped and sort of "eep"ed when he saw me. But more significantly, I might come up to his elbow. The man is tall. I don't know if home-state men are abnormally short, but I don't think I've regularly spent time with anyone who's this tall. I'm fascinated! But he seriously doesn't seem to notice that I'm in the room anymore... unless he's about to walk on me. I wish I could just shut it off, but now I'm too interested in what he's doing. And he just keeps running back and forth between Technical Services and the circulation office like there's a fire - or like he really doesn't want to be back here. Sigh. T.O. has an interview today at a large library east of here. The job sounds like a good one - an interesting position that would use a variety of her skills, education and experience. A real challenge. Unfortunately, the posting wasn't very specific, and the HR person with whom she spoke on the telephone wasn't terribly helpful, so she's going into the interview feeling at a disadvantage. It reminded me of some job-hunting experiences I've had... * age 16, applied to be part-time dishwasher at Happy Chef Restaurant. Didn't get an interview. * age 16, applied for posted position in bakery at grocery store. Interview involved bakery manager and 2 store owners and lasted 1 hour. Received job - my first - at $3.85/hr. * age 18, applied for work-study position in Audio-Visual dept. at the undergrad university. Initially hired to staff computer lab, eventually (i.e. after a month or less) migrated into the office, where I was the right-hand guy for the office manager for 4 1/2 years. Because of a change in the financial aid requirements, I lost my work-study grant, but they hired me back directly as "student help" and kept me on through vacations and summers, and even after I graduated. One of the best jobs, working conditions, learning experiences, and supervisors I could have ever asked for. I was very, very lucky to find it. * age 19, after [angrily and abruptly] quitting the bakery after having my hours cut from 60 [posted!] one week to 6 [!] the next, applied for "veggie prep" job at pizza parlor. Job hours: 11 pm-2 am. Conditions: sucky. Uniform: cream t-shirt, size small ("it's the only size we can get - sorry"). I accepted the position because I had to make my rent, but... * age 19, at the same time I'd applied for the pizza job, applied for night cook at ice cream parlor/burger joint. Pay was the same, but hours were better and there was no sexist uniform. I never called the crappy pizza place back to tell them I wasn't coming - I just didn't show up. The interview at the restaurant was a joke. "Can you cook?" "No." "Knife skills?" "No." And so on. But I was a history major, and the owner had a history degree, so he hired me. (Is it any wonder they're out of business?) He turned me into a damned good cook, or, more likely, I became one by watching him and in spite of his best efforts to teach me. * age 22, just moved to A2, desperate for something to do, picked up the student newspaper. Classified ad: "office help. Call 662-####." So I called, and I talked to this totally incomprehensible person with a very heavy urban accent. All I picked up was "3-- East Liberty", so I dressed up the next day and walked there to fill out an application. Cream blouse, shortshortshort black-watch plaid cheerleader skirt, black strappy slipper flats (and probably huge Julia Roberts Pretty Woman hair). A very handsome young man (my age? maybe a year or two older?) in cowboy boots retrieved an application form for me and told me he was impressed that I brought my own pen. I looked at him like he was a little dim and said, "It would look pretty lame to a potential employer if I didn't." He laughed and said, "I'm the manager, you know." I turned a dozen shades of red and figured any hope of the job was lost. Actually, I found out later that that comment (and the pen) were what got me the job. I stayed there for about 3 years and was happy in the job (which began as enrollment counselor and ended as office manager of that test prep center). * age 24 - planning to leave the test prep place (after Andy, the guy in cowboy boots, had left), I was applying for *anything*. Including (shockingly) youth education secretary at a local church. The interview: me, at the end of a long conference table, with 3 people on each side. Pastors and laypeople. Questions like, "Give the first 3 words that you think of when I say 'teen'!" My answer: "Jaded, annoyed, scared." What?! Should I be working with teenagers? No! They apparently decided I was less frightening than my competition, God forbid, because they offered me the job. Luckily, I'd regained my sense and turned them down, claiming (correctly) that it didn't pay well enough for me. They counter-offered! They increased the original offer by about 30%! Outrageous. I managed to get out without taking the job, but it was damned close. * age 27 - second year of law school, needed a GA position that had a stipend. (Short background to this: the law school encourages students to not work during law school, at all. Apparently so we'd spend all our time studying. But how coming into a career with mountains of debt is better than having your school pay for it is beyond me. In addition, the law school provides grad assistantships, but they don't pay a stipend - they only cover tuition. And they don't reveal that other GA-ships at the university do have stipends, so when students find that out they're often really pissed.) I had a law school GA-ship my first year and then was applying for external ones - assistantships in departments and colleges at the law school university but outside the law school. I had interviews all over the place and they were all at crazy times and often during exams, but there was no way around that. I tried to be as accommodating as possible. One was with a minority student assistance program. The coordinator was difficult to contact. We played phone tag for weeks. I finally got the interview, arrived for it (4th floor of a building with no elevator, in the spring on a hot day, so I was sweating and uncomfortable but trying to make the best of it), and she wasn't there. No message, either. She'd had a car accident. So we rescheduled. I went to the second interview. Also too hot. She didn't show up. No message. She'd forgotten! Third interview. She was there. She was rude and abrupt, and treated me as if I'd already agreed to take the job - which involved nothing more than driving underprivileged children from D-town to N-ville and R-ford for day trips. In a van. A [not even] glorified taxi driver! I couldn't say 'no' fast enough. * same time, applied for a GA gig with a nursing prof. Interview scheduled at 8:00 in the morning. Brutal time of day for me to get there, but I did it. And when I arrived, I was told by her bitch of a secretary, "You're a day early, honey. The appointment's tomorrow." The fuck it was! I'm enough of a night person to be extra, super, extremely careful about stuff like this. There is no possible way that I could have gotten that confused - she did. I could've screamed. Instead, I was about 2 1/2 hours early for class and I had to do it all again the next day! And, to cap it off, I lost out to one of my classmates who just happened to have an MD. Prick. Just 'cause she wanted a research assistant.... * same time, applied for a GA position with the University's Career Planning and Placement office. A cushy job, really - paper-pushing. NO stress whatsoever. Some copying, a little answering of telephones. I think it even had a private office. The interview took place in a very large room with 3 long conference tables pushed together to form a U. I was at the bottom of the U. There were 2 others in the room, one at the middle of each side of the U. I couldn't look at both of them at the same time, so when one asked a question, I had to either focus only on that person or look back and forth like I was at a table-tennis match. It was very uncomfortable, because I was spending a lot of time trying to determine what they wanted me to do. It was obviously some kind of psych-out trick. I remember being asked specifically about "the worst job I ever had, and how I left". I blew that answer completely, just laying into the management system at the grocery store - I did all the things that 'they' say you shouldn't do at an interview while answering that one question. The interview lasted about an hour, and when it was over they were sweet as pie; "We'll give you a call soon to let you know where you stand." I left, walked to my car (which was in the parking lot directly outside the building), and drove home - no more than a half hour from their door to mine. There was a message on my answering machine when I got home, saying that they appreciated my coming in for an interview, but the job was filled. Ooops. At the time, I was mortified. Looking back on it, they were no more professional that day than I was. They made every effort to make me uncomfortable, and to obscure their objectives. Mind-game-playing pseudo-academic bitches. * same time, I applied for a GA gig with the physical therapy dept. They called me very late - late enough that I thought they weren't serious. But I went to the interview, and when I was seated in the dept. chair's office she said, "Your grades are good, and your application is fine. Do you want the job?" "Yes." "You have it." * Finally, I've always wanted to work in a library. I love books and reading and people who love books and reading. People who want to learn - voluntarily - are like me. So when a job was posted at the library at which I now work (and I lived 8 blocks away) I applied. I wasn't called. Several months later, another job was posted. I applied. I interviewed. I wasn't called back. Several months later, another job was posted. Although I thought I was losing my self-esteem and my mind, I applied. I interviewed. Finally, I was hired, although the director at that time told me that she wasn't sure that the library world was "right for me". She was a cataloger, too. It wasn't more than 6 months later before the president of the Board of Trustees came in, handed her an empty box and said, "You have 30 minutes to gather your things. You're fired." I'm still here.