Anatomy of an Interview

(updated with handshake story link)
Around 2pm yesterday I headed for the closet and pulled out my white shirt. Reached for the ironing board and the iron. Domsqyuishy was laying in his play pen wide awake. “Ok buddy, Daddy’s got to get ready for tomorrow” and with little to do I might as well iron my shirt that didn’t need ironing. I got my green Izod tie, belt, blue knee socks and belt after I completed the ironing.

Every time I iron my shirts I always think back to my boot camp days in Great Lakes, Il.   As I iron my shirt I always remember scratching for some cash in the barracks. I was asked by a guy if I would iron his shirt, he didn’t want to.  I did mine well and that’s how things work in the military.  You see, ironing shirts back then and for the Navy is/was a pain in the ass.  You aren’t just ironing cotton that fucking wrinkles the second you take it out of the dryer, in boot camp you were ironing out wrinkles from shirts that never were completely dried when they were taken out of the industrial sized dryers.  Once removed they are thrown into bags and sat there for hours until they are lugged over to the barracks where you have to sift through mounds of clean clothes to find your stuff.  Once you found your stuff it was like trying to iron out the creases in a balled piece of printer paper.  The fabric was awful and you didn’t just iron the the wrinkles, you had to put 5 creases on the shirt. 2 over the front, directly down the middle of the pockets and 3 on your back. One down the center and 2 center to the left and right of the center crease.

The shirts had the shit starched out of them. You’d go threw a quarter of a can to get it right, but you didn’t just use the heavy starch. You also used speed stick. That’s right, byyyyyyy Mennon! For whatever reason the speed stick would make razor sharp creases. The idea was to make the creases so sharp that when you tucked your shirt in it looked like a piece of thick paper with a fold in it. It was not easy to do and it came at a price.   You had to look perfection for inspection and not having creases in your dungarees was not an option.  You even had to have them in your pants.  It was awful and ridiculous and soooo typical of the military. 

I charged $5 a shirt and remember sitting in the “break” area of the barracks ironing a few guys shirts.  A bunch of the guys were sitting in various chairs drinking their one soda they were allowed.  Assuming the coke machine had been filled and wasn’t empty, which about half the time itI needed money, I always needed money back then. Bootcamp was close to being over and having some extra cash for spending on dinner and some food in Chicago when my girlfriend visited was badly needed.

So there I stood, ironing shirts on Sunday for the guys. $5 a pop. I don’t remember how many I did, but I did a few and had enough for some dogs at the Cubs game, that just actually happened to be playing the Phillies. Hell of a coincidence, but that’s my life…

So, I laid it all on the ironing board, shirt, tie, socks, blue suit and my belt. Now there was nothing left to do, but wait. And wait I did. Time passes quickly though with a 5 month old. Before I knew it, it was 9pm and I was off to bed. Only problem was the stress of trying not to think about my interview created a headache. More specifically a headache directly behind my right eye.  It felt like a spoon was wedging itself between my eyeball and socket and working itself back and forth much like an axeman would wiggle his axe to free it from the stump he was chopping down.

I took some OTC sinus medication and luckily after about a half hour of wriggling through the pain passed out and didn’t wake up until around 6am. My wife was kind enough to wake up and feed baby sqyuishy at 4am. Something I have been doing since I am now Mr. Mom.

I had about 6 hours to kill and did so by filling out some paperwork that the job required of me. As the time crept closer I could feel my insides start to get anxious. I don’t know how other people handle anxiety, but anxiety is my middle name. 95% of my day is spent worrying about something. I wear anxiety like an old shoe. When something really requires me to be more anxious, my concentration tanks and I have the attention span of a 3 year old.

I was bouncing from one thing to the next. Trying to remain calm. The past week has seen me get more and more anxious. I know that sometimes I will reach for a beer or a drink, but I managed to only drink on Friday and not have anything any other day since I found out I had this interview. Probably because i couldn’t afford to buy beer and the other reason is because of late when I drink I sleep even worse than normal. Even after just one drink.

I ate my breakfast, putzed around on the computer, filled out the last of the paperwork and printed out the job requirements. I had been perusing a couple of Access books the past couple of days to familiarize myself with the terminology again. It has been 2 plus months since I’ve had any technical dialogue and when you don’t lose it you lose it.

My biggest hurdle for this position was selling myself even though I don’t have health care experience. I’m confident, but not too confident. I was trying to psyche myself up, but at the same time not be to confident. No one likes cocky (except the Mrs.) towing that line at the interview with knowing you know the job but are over qualified is something you have to watch out for.

I printed out everything I needed, sealed the pre-made “thank you” letters and put the stamp on them. I headed up stairs to take my shower. I put the clothes on and was 90 minutes out from my interview and trying to remain calm. The interview started at 12:30, so I decided to eat my lunch at 11:15. Dumb decision based on how I eat. Luckily I managed to not spill anything on my shirt and tie and making my lunch killed about 15 minutes (including the eating of it). Let the dogs out, kennel Lulu and kiss the wife and baby sqyuishy goodbye.

At this point, I can’t even imagine how much energy my brain has expelled. It has been going about 100mph for the past 24 hours and now as the interview gets closer is going about 150mph. I’m trying to watch my speed on 95. I’m about 45 minutes from my interview now, and about 10 minutes from my destination. My head and eyes are pounding. I’m gripping the wheel like it is my first day of driving and I can already fell myself sweating under my arms. The pounding on my temples tells me I am getting too anxious and need to breathe. I pull into the parking lot a full 20 minutes early to the 15 minutes early I always show up for an interview.

Now it is time to review the job, review the paper work and write down any questions I have. Question that are pointless to me because I already know the answers. But they love questions. So I write them down. It allows me to focus and it numbs the pressure that is building between my eyes and forehead.

I throw open the door, and heave myself out of the car. I place my paperwork on the roof of the car, toss my jacket around and put my arms in the sleeves. Deep breath, button the top button of the jacket and one foot in front of the other. Turn to lock the door, psyche myself down, and walk towards the door. I’m 20 minutes early and by the time I get to HR I’m sitting and waiting a perfect 15 minutes early.

I try not to sit in the chair and stair at everyone, while at the same time trying to look relaxed and professional at the same time. In my suit I of course stand out as a person being interviewed. It is around lunch time so there is heavy traffic in and out. I’m trying to not make eye contact with everyone, but everyone that is coming through the door could be the person fucking interviewing me so I have to look at them to see if they are going to be the person interview…

“Donviti?”

Hopping up out of my chair, I throw out my hand that I have been nervously keeping spread open on my folder so I don’t get a gross clammy sweating hand.

“Yes”
“Did I say your name right”

(Make eye contact! Make eye contact! I chant to myself over and over) “Yes, perfect”

“I recruit for the IT department so I see a lot of crazy names and I always worry about saying names wrong”

(smile, but don’t smile fake, it was sort of funny, act like you know what he means by “I.T.” guys) “I know, but my name only has a couple of syllables” (saying while smiling and looking for eye contact and acceptance that we are both talking about the Indians from the Western part of the country that have like 30 some odd letters in just their first names) (fyi, not kidding they really do)

he smiles and laughs a little. The joke landed.

Sitting in the interview room the first question was, “So tell me about a time you were challenged in your job and what you did to overcome it?”

WTF!!!!!!!! PANIC!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!????? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

“Hmmm, well” I say, as I try not to let him see he just landed a blow to my sternum that took the air out of me. I’m totally reeling. The nanoseconds feel like seconds that feel like minutes that feel like I have to answer something but not too cheesy and rehearsed.

FUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKk. I have no idea what to answer. Doesn’t this fucking guy know I have been at home wiping shit off my sons ass for the past 8 weeks. That has been my biggest fucking challenge. How do I get the shit that has caked in between his thigh and scrotum out without causing diaper rash.

wTf!!!!! How is this the first fucking question? How in the…who the hell asks that question first?

Think man, think!

After stalling with a couple of typical, “Hmmm, good question. I wasn’t expecting that one first” pausing that felt like way too long. (can I say working with fucking idiots that don’t know what they fucking want,then when you give it to them because they didn’t know what they wanted, now they see what they asked for and because they don’t know how to articulate what they wanted because they don’t really know what they wanted they try to make you feel like you are the fucking idiot b/c you are ranked lower than them? How do I get that into a nice neat, interview friendly answer in oh the next 2 seconds!)

after a half hour of explaining what I do and did and why my prior experience qualifies me, I have to go do it all over again to the Director and his managerette. Tony walks me over to the elevator which of course takes too long and now awkward conversation has to occur of which I have to laugh and smile and act professional but not to the point where I’m nervous as shit and telling him through my body language that I need this fucking job.

Short of wanting to throw myself on my needs and beg for this job I shake hands with Tony. Introduce myself, make eye contact and give a firm, yet not to powerful handshake. If any of you know anything and have been reading me for a while, you should familiarize yourselves with the “handshake” story. I went in strong and I think it was a solid, manly, confident handshake.

But who the fuck knows. After the goddamn drubbing I got from some chick at Timothy’s I am forever scarred mentally with worrying I have a girly handshake. Thanks bitch! (click the link to read the handshake story)

I have to banter with the director while the woman doing the hiring is taking her sweet ass time getting there. I make good eye contact, sit up straight and make sure to not prattle on about anything specifically. We discuss the job and he seems passive enough and I can’t tell if he is the guy doing the hiring or if he is just there to make sure the person being hired doesn’t sound alarm bells.

In she walks, in a hurried manner. She is wearing a light blue pant suit that is just a little bit too tight in the hip area. She isn’t wearing a very professional button down blouse that is a little too tight because when she bought the shirt with the outfit it was obviously a few years ago and she hasn’t ever been told it no longer fits her. She is taller than I expected at about 5’9″ and has a darker slightly Asian look with a more brown skin complexion. So, when this eddie enters the room and hurriedly shuts the door I think to myself, ” Great. She has a ton of work, isn’t on time for an interview and appears to be in a hurry. Awesome. She is in desperate need of someone and either has too much to handle, can’t handle the work load or a combination of the 2 which my guess is what it is.”

She definitely commands the room and seems to ALMOST know what she is doing and what she wants. I already am pretty sure given a few months I can run circles around her and be doing her job or vying for something similar in no time. This is both good and bad, because she is in over her head technically. I can already tell that using Access is not the way to go and they should be a SAS shop or something closer at least to SQL or perhaps Crystal. So, already I know that any learning on the job I am going to do is going to be my me. There isn’t going to be someone there that I can lean on for technical tutelage. Not good, not good, not good. Part of learning this business is having a mentor that you can glean little tricks of trade. I’m still green when it comes to some of this stuff and well, oh well, I need the fucking job so I will be doing a lot more OJT than I had hoped for.

The questions get fired at me. At one point the director asks me a question about my methodology creating reports/databases/automating. It confused the hell out of me and I didn’t understand the question. I tried to answer it, looked at him. Sort of cocked my head, looked at her, looked at him again and said, “Does that sort of answer the question”

I could tell by his body language he isn’t a technical guy at all, but he is skeptical that because I don’t have health care experience. Since I don’t have the health care experience he wants to make sure that I know what I’m doing technically.

In she jumps. Asks me the question better and then says, “I know what he was trying to ask, I just asked it better”

And the bomb goes Boom! Man, who says that during an interview. She like, completely undermined him. That wasn’t the last time either. Ok, I guess I know who is hiring me.

As the interview was winding down, he had my resume in front of him and you could tell, just tell that she had her mind made up, but he was skeptical that I didn’t have the background in health care. He wanted to ask another question regarding my previous employer and she turned to him and said sort of under her breath, “he was only there for 6 weeks”

DAMN! About half way into the interview I felt I had the job. I just got the feeling like you do at poker that you have the person beat. You read them, you know you are smarter. You know, you just know. The problem is,that as soon as you know that, it can change in an instant. They can want to hire you and feel they are going to hire you, then get a feeling and change their minds on anything that doesn’t sit well with them. You can say and do anything that sends off a signal.

So, there I’m sitting with the nuts. I have this interview. I making good eye contact. I’m giving good answers. I’m dancing around my work history. Letting them know that I learn fast. That I have the basic foundations of being a good analyst and once I learn the data, it’s over.

“Alright, well thanks for your time. Do you have any other questions?”

“Just for my own edification. Uh about how people are you interviewing?”

“ALOT!” Pause, looks to Tony, “How many would you say?”

He has no idea and I can tell that his authority is minimum.

“I’d day we interview about 15 people”

holy shit, 15 different people? I’m stunned but not at the same time. Who the hell are they interviewing. Why am I here. I have no health care experience. That feeling that I have iced the interviewed withered in the sun. I have no idea now. I thought I had the nuts, now I have no idea. 15 people?

“but that is for 2 jobs”

There it was, she caveated it. She qualified the statement. I was back on. At no point did either one of them give me an inkling that I was the guy. That they brought me in after the phone interview to make sure that their hunch was correct. That even after knowing I didn’t have the health care experience I was a good fit.

“Have a nice day”