I looked up a new word. I feel that this one describes me perfectly right now. I’m sort of a bumbling fool at points in my life.
My interview was not the greatest. It wasn’t awful. It definitely could have been worse. But, it was not the best interview that anyone ever had.
They tell you to arrive twenty minutes early so that you can fill out a criminal history form, view the position description, and review the questions. At interviews for Social Services with the DHS they give you the questions ahead of time. You are then given some time to read through them and prepare your answers for the actual interview. It’s rather nice actually. You get to prepare, and you are ready for what they throw at you.
Well, I am chronically early to important things. It’s almost embarrassing how early I am to things like interviews. Normally, I would have shown up about twenty minutes early, but because they told me to be twenty minutes early I showed up about a half hour early.
What’s weird is that they called me in almost right away. I had MAYBE fifteen minutes to prepare. It was actually more like ten minutes. The criminal history form was filled out, but I never got to review the questions. The job description was like 5 pages long. It doesn’t help that I am a slow reader. The interview questions were at the very bottom of the stack, and I never got around to reading them. I was actually on page three of the job description when they called me in.
It was a panel interview, so it was me versus two DHS staff. The room was set up rather awkwardly. It was a round-ish table, and the two women interviewing me were sitting opposite one another. They asked me to have a seat, so I chose the seat between them. It was more like an octagon table, but it was still rather strangely set up.
The two women introduced themselves to me, and then asked me if I would like to just begin answering the questions. This was nerve racking because I hadn’t even seen them yet. But, I took a deep breath and told them that I hadn’t had a chance to review them, and asked if we could go through them together. They seemed fine with that. So, they began asking the questions, taking turns. I did my best to answer each question honestly and thoroughly.
About five minutes into the interview I realized that we were almost on the last question...What’s that all about? Honestly, the brevity of the interview began to make me nervous. In my experience good interviews last longer than 10 minutes. Usually, if it’s going well it will last about 30 minutes.
It was at this point, nearly half way through the interview that I began to realize that neither woman was really reacting to anything that I had to say. They both fervently took notes, but it seemed as though neither one of them was actually hearing me.
So, about 10 minutes into the interview they asked me if I had any questions for them. I had a few, but I stretched them out to make the interview last longer. When I had asked all of my questions, the interview ended.
As I got up and started to leave the room the woman (who would be my supervisor) said, “So, Go Beavers. I went there too.” Then she indicated my pin and said, “And you were a Chi Omega? I was a tri-delt, all four years.” To which I responded...“Well, that’s okay,” and left the room.
"Well, that’s okay"? REALLY?! I crack myself up, because sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth. It’s almost like I have verbal diarrhea. I just say things, and I have no control over it.
I know that what I meant was something like, “well, we can still be friends.” However, it definitely came out sounded like, “I won’t hold it against you that you were not cool enough to be a Chi Omega like me.” And that’s how I ended the interview.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad interview, but it did not go the way that I had wanted it to. My plan was to walk out of that interview feeling great. Instead, I walked out of that interview feeling like a goob.
I think that they should make a sitcom about me. At times it feels like I am a cross between Elaine Bennis (from Seinfield) and Pheobe Buffet (from friends). I’m relatively successful in life, but sometimes I just do some things that seem ridiculous.
Let’s just hope that what I said left an impression. Hopefully, it made me memorable, but not in a bad way.
Oh gosh. What am I going to do with myself.
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