Rigamarole

The job search was not going well. As of March 25th I had applied for dozens of jobs and only scored two interviews. Since my radio is almost constantly tuned to NPR, I often listened to Nightly Business Report while cooking dinner, and rarely heard anything to make me more optimistic about my unemployment. I kept checking out McDonald's Web site, trying to talk myself into applying. I had even decided to lie about my education and experience, as I had been rejected numerous times for being overqualified.

On March 26th, I got two reasons to hope.

The first was a text message from VBG, who informed me that there was an opening where she worked. The second came a couples hours later, I got a call for a job interview at a local college. A couple hours after that I had landed an interview with Kay the next morning at VBG's place of employment. Things were looking not entirely sucky.

The interview with Kay was...odd. She asked one or two questions, read me the job description, and scheduled me to come back the next week for a follow-up with her boss, Jack. I was happy that someone was throwing me a bone and there were many reasons to take the job, but I felt a little apprehensive. Still, I would have loved to work there.

The night before my interview with the local college I got a call. It was not a good call. I was informed that one interviewer couldn't make it and they needed to reschedule, and could I come in two weeks from tomorrow? I let Elizabeth, the primary interviewer, know that I might be employed elsewhere in two weeks, so could we do a phone interview? Elizabeth said she'd get back to me. I felt sick to my stomach.

The next day I practically glued myself to my phone, waiting for Elizabeth to call and reschedule. She didn't call. I practiced for my follow-up with Kay and Jack like it was my only hope. It sort of was.

The next morning I was getting ready to see Kay and Jack, and trying to calm the fuck down. I brushed my teeth and visualized breezing through the interview. The phone rang, and I almost ignored it due to my mouthful of cavity-fighting bubbles. It was Elizabeth. I did my best not to get toothpaste all over the phone. She asked me to come in that afternoon. I agreed happily.

My interview with Kay and Jack was incredibly short. I was asked one question and told I was overqualified. He promised to call me if they couldn't find anyone else. I wished again I had been accepted to grad school.

Elizabeth was very nice and organized. She had a page and half of questions to ask me and put her boss on speakerphone. I thought my answers were pretty good, but I kept trying to make eye contact with the telephone. I had been preparing hardcore for this for days, one of the questions I had been pondering that day. I didn't quite rock their socks off, but they did schedule me for follow-up testing the next day.

I took a personality test and an Excel test. I thought I'd mastered spreadsheets, but there were questions about commands I didn't know Excel could even do. I figured out a few of them by staring at the buttons, but in the end only scored a 77%. Afterwards I met Elizabeth's supervisor Theresa and her supervisor Susan. Susan took me on a tour and asked me about my background, even though she'd already seen my resume. She told me it wasn't an interview, but I wasn't too sure. We had some things in common, and she was rather encouraging. After three interviews in two days I felt wiped out, and spent the rest of the day cleaning house and making an amazing homemade pizza for dinner. You totally should have been there.

I had a crappy night of sleep filled with nightmares and woke up late. Instead of getting out of bed I laid there wondering what my chances of employment were.

Ten minutes later Elizabeth called.

I start this afternoon.