Posts Tagged ‘bad job interview’

Will the mole people have snacks?

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

By Tiber

I had another job interview today. Okay, all together now…

…“It did not go well.“

Right off, I started sweating so much, it looked like I’d just knocked over a liquor store and had only ducked into this interview so I’d have an alibi.

And then my mind went to Morocco. Well, it could have gone anywhere. I just know it wasn’t with me.

Obviously, back when I applied for the job that I just lost, I was younger. And when you’re younger, you figure any company you interview for is only one out of thousands anxious and ecstatic to compete for your unique services.

Now, all I could think about was blowing this interview, never getting another one, never scoring a new job, and Dad throwing me out of his house, until I ended up wandering on some stark and desolate moors, where my only hope would be to fall down a rat hole and be clothed and fed by the underground mole people.

Mentally envisioning the rest of my life spent below the earth’s crust, I realized I suddenly couldn’t remember my own phone number here aboveground. And then, for a moment, even my own last name eluded me.

Fortunately, I hazily remembered that the interviewer had recently said my first name, so by repeating that name over and over in my head as a guide, at last the matching last name resurfaced.

Of course, the reason the interviewer had recently said my first name was because he’d been asking me a question and since I’d been out getting to know the mole people, I hadn’t heard a word of it.

So the two of us sat there for a long awkward moment, while he waited for an answer to whatever it was that he’d asked and I decided that for future job interviews, I really should write down my personal info and pin it to my jacket the way they do with kids’ mittens.

I didn’t get the job.

I was so ticked with myself, that when I got on the elevator, as loud as I could, I screamed out my name and my phone number followed by “You jackass!“

The woman I hadn’t noticed, standing in the corner of the elevator, recoiled and raced out before the door even closed.

Looking back on it now, I’m sure she thought that was the worst pick-up line ever.

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Job Schmob

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

By Tiber

As I‘ve said, since I lost my job, I’ve been back living full-time at my parents’ house. With my old bedroom up here on the third floor, they still don’t know and I figure once I get a new job, I can move out again and they’ll never have to know.

So I went on a job interview today. I looked good. I felt good. I arrived at the office where they were hiring and I rode up on the elevator with some other guy. Was he going for the same job? He looked pretty average. Less than average.

We both got out on the same floor just as two employees passed by, saying that the company was only going to interview one more person. I eyed the clown next to me and the two of us took off running full-tilt down the hall, towards the company’s doors.

We both saw the two executives coming out of said doors and the clown made what I have to admit was possibly the better decision. He stopped.

I kept going, however, and sailed over the execs’ frantically ducking heads, as if they were high-jump hurdles. I did clear them, which I think somebody ought to be grateful for. But then I landed on the receptionist’s polished desk, skidded across it and sailed right onto a table where a cake was being set out to celebrate another employee’s new citizenship.

My shoes took out half the cake but really, what was worse was that the resume I was clutching in my hand met the match of the girl who’d been lighting the cake candles and caught fire. The woman, whose “Congratulations, Citizen Alma” party it was, mistakenly thought, since I now was holding a flaming torch in my hand, that I’d been hired for her party to impersonate the Statue of Liberty. There was a split second, when I thought, hey, maybe I can at least get paid for that, and I proudly held my resume torch up high, when of course, another split second of thought would have reminded me of the fire sprinklers.

The woman in the ruined red outfit (as opposed to the women in all the other drenched, ruined colors) must have known I sometimes play sports because she tried to make me a new cup from an ice bucket. Despite the pain, I would have thanked her for her accurate choice in the size department but Security was already escorting me out of the building. I think the usual line is “Clean out your desk and Security will escort you out of the building.”

I never even got the desk.

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