Encinitas is on the west side
I’m about to leave on a job interview. This interview was set up by the CEO of a non-profit agency down near the San Diego airport. The interview will be in a town called San Marcos, exactly 10 miles inland north and east of Encinitas. I’m to be interviewed by a young married couple – it’s pretty much about them – and both sets of their parents. Six people, in someone’s living room. People I’ve never met, in a living room in which I’ve never been, in a town I don’t know.
I confess to being a little scared. Better pronounced skay-erd. Just a little. I’m also reminded of multiple conversations I’ve had with my best pal and long-time wicked smart mentor Gavin in Oakland, it’s always me saying to him how life provides us over and over with opportunities for guerrilla theater. Colorful, in-your-face guerrilla theater opportunities. Like this one. See, the goal of guerrilla theater is to go way out of your way making a point, you give exaggeration a big new name, and if you do it right it’s cool and hip and maybe causes a chuckle or two and generally lightens things up. Even with serious things.
In this case, my goal as a life-long member of the guerrilla theater troupe of national bozos will be to demonstrate flamboyantly and with wicked pizzazz that hiring me is the exact right move – none finer. During the interview I promise to be courteous and pleasant, polite and humble, a darling of the “Isn’t he sweet” society. Just do it kind of loudly. Honestly, faithful readers of this Blog, I don’t have anything else left. I don’t. And it will go how it goes. Perhaps one parent doesn’t like me and the other five do and I get the job. Or three parents don’t and the kids and one of the moms do and I don’t get the job. (You know how that goes.) Or maybe nobody likes me and I do not get the job.
Either way, the next day, tomorrow, Tuesday, it’s likely I’m going to get a call from the CEO – her name’s Beth – and she’s going to say you’re in like Flynn, when can you begin? Or she’s going to say hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no moe no moe…Or something in between. And I’ll have I job, and I don’t when I’m typing this. Or I won’t and things will have remained the same, other than a few members of the planet being entertained with another episode of “Guerrillas in our Midst”.
But, wait, think about this. In a few hours I will have had my second job interview here in greater San Diego in just over three weeks. Freakin’ amazing. I can already hear Guinness calling – “Most failed job interviews by a 72 year-old gypsy having recently moved 1000 miles with a broken heart.”
So. No matter what. It’s like the song goes – “Something’s coming, something good.”
Good fortune in your job quest. Personal care of some kind?
I’ve always worked in InHuman Services myself and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The interview process was never real comfortable for me. The only thing that helped my anxiety and ineptitude with this acivity was to ‘forget about it’ and not prepare except for bringing any paperwork that was required.
But what I did for each interview is something I relate for your amusement not advice but maybe proscription. ‘Dont attempt to do this yourself at home!’
I would always look the interviewer straight in the eyes (when they want you to tell them about yourself in relation to doing the work) and say ” Look, this is an excercise in mutual deception. I’m going to tell you how great I am at this and you’re going tell me how great the job is. You are never going to know how good I am till I do the job and I’ll never know what the job is really like till I do it.”
That kind of Street Theater changes the whole conversation immediately. It works like a truth serum. We all get together right down here! I would easily be able to ascertain their integrity and decide if that’s the kind of place for me. I got the jobs. They got someone who worked in a therapuedic fashion. Even though I don’t spell well.
This not a professional way to conduct ones self in this type of situation. Then again I didn’t conduct myself professionally on the job. It was constant Street Theater. The result being I was successful with the people that the ‘Professionals’ gave up on. I got Rep with the State bureaucracies. A hard ass who didn’t care about the job, only the Individual. Always person centered.
So, umm, do I get the job or what?
Far out prescription. Dig it. Thanks Dave. (Psst – I got the job.)
Good fortune in your job quest. Personal care of some kind?
I’ve always worked in InHuman Services myself and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The interview process was never real comfortable for me. The only thing that helped my anxiety and ineptitude with this acivity was to ‘forget about it’ and not prepare except for bringing any paperwork that was required.
But what I did for each interview is something I relate for your amusement not advice but maybe proscription. ‘Dont attempt to do this yourself at home!’
I would always look the interviewer straight in the eyes (when they want you to tell them about yourself in relation to doing the work) and say ” Look, this is an excercise in mutual deception. I’m going to tell you how great I am at this and you’re going tell me how great the job is. You are never going to know how good I am till I do the job and I’ll never know what the job is really like till I do it.”
That kind of Street Theater changes the whole conversation immediately. It works like a truth serum. We all get together right down here! I would easily be able to ascertain their integrity and decide if that’s the kind of place for me. I got the jobs. They got someone who worked in a therapuedic fashion. Even though I don’t spell well.
This not a professional way to conduct ones self in this type of situation. Then again I didn’t conduct myself professionally on the job. It was constant Street Theater. The result being I was successful with the people that the ‘Professionals’ gave up on. I got Rep with the State bureaucracies. A hard ass who didn’t care about the job, only the Individual.
So, umm, do I get the job or what?