Well maybe you should use this as an opportunity to give up then? Um, maybe you should move your stuff off the sugar bowl so that I can get some sugar? Another lady seems uncomfortably interested in whether I'm feeling okay. Are you alright? She asks about three times. I have no idea why she does this, I just said hello - that's what you're supposed to do right? And people wonder why I don't understand people.
I am disheartened when my International Posting Book goes wandering for a couple of weeks. When I get it back, the culprits have signed off loads of packages, so it's not as if I can't go and hassle them. I opt to write PLEASE DO NOT STEAL in big unfriendly red letters on the cover. Also the whole stealing my giant stapler thing, what is wrong with these people?
Anyway, I am forced to do an interview to keep my job - there was a lot of dithering about whether my predecessor would come back or not and it seems the University eventually paid her to stay away and as a result put the job on the market.
So I come into work in a suit, watch the other candidates wander in and out and wonder what questions I am supposed to ask at the end. I work through the laughable 20 minute Arrange these jobs in order of priority test and then sit outside the room for an hour. My Interviewers are my boss, her boss and some random from another Faculty. There is no token man. The whole experience feels unreal, as I stumble around the poorly conceived questions, knowing full well what kind of answers they are looking for. My voice adopts an uneasy monotone and I keep catching myself looking at the ceiling, which you are not supposed to do because it looks like you're lying.
These are always crazy situations, I did the same interview over a year ago, so I've been doing this job for a year and the other people who have applied think they're in with a chance? Even worse - I think I'M in with a chance? I spend the morning writing notes, trying to formalise some good reasons why I'm better than anybody else they could pick. What makes ME stand apart. I'm calm, sarcastic, efficient, great at organising people and running things. Nothing fell over in the last year. What kind of manager am I? How do I deal with difficult people? How do I deal with pressure? Do I spend all day on the internet? What makes a good team? Oh, just shoot me now.
So I say my bit, I don't ask them if they've heard about the bird and then I sit around for 2 hours while everybody else in the office tells me there's no chance that I haven't got it. But what if one of the others is really good? One of them is from downstairs, who I see every day and now we have this weird atmosphere of rivalry even though we rarely share more than a nod over the milk machine.
So they invite me into the little side room and tell me quietly that they think I'm too laid back and I can't get myself across very well in an interview. Then they say that despite all of this, they've decided to offer me the job anyway. Ha. Ha.
And now the woman from downstairs is giving me death eyes because she feels like all of her stress yesterday was a waste of time. But I suppose I don't really care, because now I actually have a proper job at last.
