Seriously. I think I look pretty darned good on paper, but then I get into interviews and blow them so badly that the hiring organizations don't even bother to contact me to tell me that I didn't get the job -- they just repost the classified ad and only let me know when I write to find out about the (fairly obvious, but still) status of my application.
Anyway, I mention this because I had an interview last Friday that was flipping brutal. I'm not sure how appropriate it is to mention many of the details in an online forum -- what I was applying for, specifics of the interview, etc. -- but let's just say that I felt like the lead interviewer essentially called me an ignorant American and at one point told me that I'd given a terrible response to a specific question. It was the kind of interview where I almost wish I'd flipped out, cursed everyone relentlessly, and maybe even tossed in a few German suplexes for good measure. Yeah, that kind of ferocity isn't really in my nature -- and I certainly wouldn't have gotten the job unless I'd been applying to the UFC competition (which I wasn't) -- but I a) wouldn't be worried about whether I got the job (which, amazingly, I'm still hoping for at this point despite the utterly abysmal nature of the interview) and b) could have walked out of that room with my pride intact. As it was, I felt utterly emasculated when it was over.
If I did anything right at all during the interview, I think it was that I probably came across as wholly docile and non-threatening -- which may be good considering that half of the interview consisted of the interviewers telling me how reviled and potentially feared I would be in the position owing to the color of my skin. I guess there were other parts of it that may not have been completely terrible. I got a chuckle out of my mention of octopus-flavored ice cream, even if I did choke on the word "octopus". I probably choked on more words that I don't precisely recall -- I know I choked on my words at least five times while saying goodbye to another interviewee with whom I had the pleasure of chatting during the bus/metro ride to and from the interview. Yep -- my Smoothest Dude Ever Award is in the mail.
I may have accrued some positive karma points, though -- and not just because the interview went so terribly, either. At the bus stop en route to the interview, this old woman happened to drop one of her gloves before going off to hail a cab (apparently the bus was taking too long for her). Now, I didn't notice her dropping the glove, but another woman at the stop happened to see it and stated flatly, "She drop [sic] her glove." And then I found myself in one of those moments where time stands still, because I was totally waiting for the woman to reach down, pick up the glove right in front of her, turn to the other side, and hand the glove to the old woman -- who, at this point, was still standing on the curb about an arm's length away. Instead, she did flipping nothing. When it became apparent that no one else was going to do anything either, I found myself dashing forward (I was standing on the opposite side of the bus stop enclosure), scooping up the glove from the ground, and running up to the woman just as she got inside a cab while waving the glove and shouting, "Ma'am! Ma'am!" The cabbie rolled down the window, the woman got her glove, and all was right with the world -- until the bus showed up about a minute later and carried me off to botch that interview in a very real and very, very unfortunate way.
But while I may be a terrible interviewee, at least I'm not an entirely terrible person. Right? 😐