Week 13

Job interviews and cliffhangers

Part 3 of this comic! We’re halfway through! I did 9 panels this week so I could end it on a CLIFFHANGER. If you’re just jumping in here you don’t need to go back as I’m including the whole thing each week and just extending the comic downwards and and in this chapter you find out why it has to be in this format!

I also included a literary allusion in one of these panels. First person to correctly identify the homage will win a prize. I will… do small digital doodle of you or your pet in the style I draw myself here! There!

This Week I Learned…

I had a job interview this week. It was HARD. It was my first in about 20 years. The last one I remember doing was at Just Music in Mosman Park and the interview included playing some licks on a red Fender Squier they used to test the amplifiers. I got the job but found out later that it was only because I had sideburns and the owner loved Elvis, and that had ultimately outweighed my poor guitar playing.

I didn’t have time to grow sideburns for this interview and I’m not sure it would have done much good. I didn’t even ask if they were Elvis fans. The interview was for a job in a local library. I don’t have a library degree, but this particular role didn’t demand it.

As my sister said, interviewing is like tap-dancing for an hour straight. I think I was doing quite well until about 45 minutes in. The question that broke me was something like: “Tell us about a time where you had to balance competing priorities.” In retrospect this is a relatively easy question. Every day we deal with competing priorities. I have a child and I work freelance. I have a relationship and I like to play squash. I love gelato and I have high cholesterol. I have competing priorities.

But for some reason, the words stacked up in my mind to mean something different. In the room I leaned back and stared at the ceiling for what felt like minutes. “Competing priorities… competing priorities,” going around and around in my head. Eventually I had to ask for an example. I felt like asking Eddie to phone a friend on a hundred-dollar question. “You know, like two people want something from you at the same time?” I slapped my forehead and came back to the room. “Oh! I thought you meant like moral priorities.”

For some reason I thought the question was “Tell us about a time you printed a news story based on a whistleblower’s leak and you were being threatened with prison time if you didn’t reveal their identity.” I thought the question was “Tell us about a time when your dog was killed and you knew you had to hunt down the bastards that did it, even if it meant forswearing the oath you made to your dying wife to never pick up a katana again.” I thought, for some reason, that they were asking about a time where I faced a literal trolley problem and I found a way to keep everyone alive because I’m very organised and adept at working individually or in a team.

You can fit a lot of blank thought into a long silence in a job interview. That’s really where you become aware of that higher order of consciousness. It’s like the inverse of meditation. That same voice is there, but instead of saying “don’t think about anything,” it’s saying “think about something, anything.” Like, send for help, guy. Don’t just stand there screaming at me.

Anyway, I answered the question, it was fine, we moved on. When I left, I was waiting at a tram stop when I got an email — a classic rejection letter:

Thank you for your application for Library Customer Service and Program Support Officer.

We have had an overwhelming response to this position and unfortunately, on this occasion, you will not be progressing to the next stage of the recruitment process.

I couldn’t believe how quickly they had rejected me. I was stunned. They must have sent that email the second I walked out the door. What had I said to be discounted so quickly? Was it when I said, “I hope I didn’t gasbag too much!”? Why did I say gasbag?!

Then I clocked the letterhead. It was a different library role, in a different council. And fair enough I didn’t progress. I am not a librarian.

I am a Libran though, which is why I can see both sides. Damn, I should have used that line in the interview! Ha ha ha, we would have laughed. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I’m still waiting to hear if I got the job. CLIFFHANGER