The Interview

Hmm.. Blue or red perhaps, I thought as I held up two ties against my collar in front of the mirror. I settled on one which was a fairly conservative mix of both against a white shirt and a navy 3 piece suit. I had done my prep and was relaxed and ready to go. I was now in a pragmatic frame of mind regarding interviews. Experience had taught me not to get ahead of myself.

Things were different a month earlier. Then I had had three interviews in one week and I’d submitted an application for a job which was the permanent version of a role I did as a contractor two years earlier. The job was mine surely. I knew a lot of the people there and I knew the processes and everything that it involved. It must just be a shoe-in mustn’t it? I was feeling optimistic that one of the interviews was bound to come through and go my way. So much so in fact that I had decided to buy some new shirts and was making plans for when I started one of the roles. I’m cringing even as I type at the naivety of it. One by one the phone calls came in. “I’m sorry, but they thought you lacked experience of x and y”, “They liked you but they really want someone who’s a certified practitioner of blah”, “They thought you lacked knowledge of certain particular stuff”. I couldn’t believe it, as I walked in the rain and ended the third call. I was almost home and would check my emails and boil a kettle. I consoled myself that at least I still had the shoe-in role which would be just a matter of getting through the interview. This would be quite straight forward, I thought seeing as I’d already done the job.

I made a cup of tea and logged into my email. A response came in regarding my application just as I was scrolling through the latest updates from job sites. “Thank you for your recent application. Unfortunately on this occasion blah blah...”. The possibility of not even being called for an interview hadn’t entered my mind. I was devastated and furious and slightly numb at the unfairness of it. I paced the lounge and berated myself for being so stupidly over optimistic and complacent. I started to feel sorry for myself, before literally slapping myself across the face and going for a run. However low I felt, I was not going to cry – I had done that on red letter day.

Red letter day was a month or so before and came in the form of a tax demand. At that time I was nervous of hearing the clatter of the letter box in case it was someone demanding money. I opened the envelope to discover the letter with ‘DEMAND’ in red and 10 days to pay it. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the money. I was frightened and panicked and couldn’t think straight. In my mind I would lose my house and be declared bankrupt. I visited a friend to talk and ended up blubbing on her shoulder.

Going back to the interview though, I was feeling relaxed as I headed out of the tube station and walked towards the shiny new offices ahead of me. The recruitment agent phoned me just before I entered the building to make sure everything was ok and that I knew where the place was – apparently someone had got lost the day before. I reassured her that I was fine and she told me she’d phone the moment she had feedback. I finished the call and went in.

An hour later I was sitting on a tube train on my way home. I was reasonably content with how I performed. I didn’t think there was anything I could or would have answered differently or any alternative questions I would have asked. It felt as if it could have gone either way and I didn’t have a clue as to which way that was. If I didn’t get it then I would take it on the chin and move on. One thing this whole period had given me is a thicker skin. Tomorrow would be another day.

I stood on the platform waiting for a tube connection as my phone rang. A train pulled into the station as I answered. People got on board and the train pulled out again, leaving me alone on the platform as I ended the call. I took a deep breath and looked at my phone and sobbed.

They loved me and wanted me to start on Monday.