I think I dodged a bullet.

I went on a job interview last week. I was really excited about it because it was my dream job (if I HAVE to work, that is) but I had some reservations because it was a global role for a company that is significantly larger than the huge company I already work for. If I had my druthers, I'd prefer something smaller (more direct impact) and domestic (YOU try scheduling conference calls with France and Singapore), but I'd also prefer to quit contracting (the benefits and the uncertainty suck) so if I got it I'd be thrilled for the opportunity.

My friend Dave, a man I respect very much and who is crazy smart in the world of the biz-nass, told me that when I look at a job description, I should totally have 1/3 of the required skills, be able to pretty much figure out 1/3 of the required skills, and that the last 1/3 should be stuff I'd have to stretch in order to figure out. I'm sure recruiters and hiring managers of the world might disagree, but Dave was looking at it from the personal and career development perspectives and I'm on board with that, so the 1/3 of this particular job that would have been a stretch didn't scare me.

I had three phone interviews with remote team members and nailed them all and then I had three in-person interviews last week. I was feeling very confident about the first two and everyone told me GLOWING things about the Director (to whom this position reports) and I was excited to knock her socks off during my third in-person interview.

Except then I fell flat on my face.

We didn't have a great rapport, which was a huge red flag because I can talk to just about anyone, but to make things worse, she asked me questions that, in retrospect, were kind of unfair. More specifically, I think they were trick questions. What I should have done was answered them in a "Defining exactly what an engaged employee looks like is very specific to the project, the organization, the company..." kind of way instead of trying to figure out what I thought an engaged employee at this particular company might look like because there's a 0% chance that I'd be able to guess.d

Blah blah blah, but I missed the boat on this question. I should have explained how I'd propose we go about defining it instead of trying to define it on the fly.

And boy howdy, I could tell the moment I screwed it up and my immediate instinct was to just get up and leave right then and there, but maybe I could salvage it? Except in order to salvage it, I needed to have a rapport with this lady and I just really DID NOT.

I left the interview totally knowing I wasn't going to get this job and I was really bummed about it for like 15 minutes and wishing I could have a do-over. Ultimately, I managed to talk myself into being okay with it and when I got my rejection e-mail yesterday I just deleted it and was appreciative that I had already mourned and recovered.

Kind of like when you're already OVER a man and by the time he finally gets around to saying "I'm just not that into you" you're like "Yeah, whatever Molasses...I cared a week ago but today I think you probably shouldn't let the door hit you on the ass."

Bonus Story:

One of the chicks who interviewed me told me that she just moved to San Francisco from Oregon and:

1. She just bought an apartment in The Infinity and told me that they've only sold like 20 units so far so she has the entire 31st floor to herself. She asked my opinion on buying a couch and dining table for her balcony and is the fall in SF really as nice as people say because at this point, she can't imagine having dinner parties out there with the weather as it has been? I suggested that she bite the bullet and go for it because even if she just has cocktail hour outside, it'll be worth it and if it's too cold, the dinners themselves could be held inside. Plus, just for kicks, why not buy a heat lamp too?

She thought I was very smart. Obvs, duh.

2. Her Oregon friends said that she couldn't wear her leather coat here and I was like "Uhh, I don't think the hippies are really going to give you trouble for a leather coat" and then she was like "Well, what if it has a fur collar and fur cuffs?" I didn't know what to tell her about that but lucky for me, she switched the subject to announce that "You know, living in California is like living in a foreign country, what with all that SPANISH that people are speaking." And then she rolled her eyes to accentuate her point.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

Wow.

Instead of telling her that YOU DO REALIZE THAT CALIFORNIA IS NEXT TO MEXICO AND, IN FACT, USED TO BE PART OF MEXICO, RIGHT? I was like "Well I'm a native so I guess I don't notice it, hey, I really like your necklace."

This woman was in HR, by the way.

In Summary:

1. I learned a lesson.

2. I'm pleased with how I processed it all.

3. I'm glad I don't have to work with the lady who clearly has an opinion on living so close to the Mexican border.

1. I get to babysit my SWEET, WONDERFUL nephew on Monday night. GRANDMA, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!!!

2. I'm between projects at work and my main accomplishment of the day was clearing 200+ unread items from my Serious Eats queue. As a result, I bring you the #1 thing I never thought I'd eat, but that has now been cemented into the OH HELLLL NO category:

On second thought, I'm not going to post the picture here directly but instead, I'm going to make you click for it. Chicken feet always seemed horrifying, but reading about how you have to clip their toenails before you cook them really brought the horror to a whole new level.

3. Another gem from my day-o-blog-reading:



If that's not full of WTF, I don't know what is.

4. In other news:

A. We celebrated my brothers' 30th birthday on Saturday. I got Ben a gift card to his favorite frozen yogurt place (he has one, apparently) because Sarah said he'd LOVE it and I was like "Ehhhh...it's frozen yogurt...is this really 30TH BIRTHDAY WOO HOO??" Except whoa -- Sarah was right -- he just about did backflips.

You learn something new every day.

B. The guy on the other side of the cube wall could stop grunting any time now and I'd be happy.

C. I listed my apartment for rent on Craigslist and I have two people coming to look at it tomorrow night. Luckily, I don't HAVE TO get a renter RIGHT THIS MINUTE because I'm going to move this month one way or another, but I'm hoping that one of these two chicks wants it so I can wash my hands of this process.

One of them wants to move in 8/15 which puts me in a bit of a time crunch because, if you've noticed, there's only one weekend between now and 8/15 and I'll have to move on 8/14 which, CONVENIENTLY, is my birthday. No big whoop or anything except I somehow got the whole family to agree to come to SF for dinner on my birthday (a feat, let me tell you).

So we'll see. I'm working on being patient about it all, but trying to keep the place in relative order until someone commits to renting it is making me crazy because there's so much to do and I have to sit on my hands to keep from packing more boxes and creating more mess.

Still waiting to win the lottery or marry well...

Elizabeth - Thanks for this. Appreciate your follow-up here.

Do Pete and Bob have visibility to this? Want to be sure all is in alignment from a comms perspective.

Thanks much!

This is the kind of e-mail I get all day long that makes me want to reach through my computer and choke the sender.

Visibility
Alignment
Thanks much
Lack of the word "I"

If she had thrown in a "reach out" or "ping" or "engagement model" I for sure would have thrown my computer through the window.

I have a whole lot to say about a whole lot of nothing.

1. From Fail Blog:


Like a bidet, I imagine.

2. There are five apartments on each floor of my building and each floor shares a washer and dryer. Until recently, I'd never had much of a problem doing my laundry whenever the heck I felt like it because I don't think 303 or 301 EVER did laundry, 304 was never home and 305 is a late night laundry guy. So that left 302 (me) plenty of prime time laundry doing.

BUT THEN 303 sold his apartment and the new owner, GASP, does laundry on a regular basis so I had to compete with him, but fine, no problem, whatever.

AND THEN 304 rented her place out to a 20-something couple and not two days later I found a pair of underwears in my laundry that did not belong to me and I JUST KNEW that these new people would ALSO want to get on my laundry game.

DAMN THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR PERSONAL HYGIENE!!!!!!!!!!

3. But okay, speaking of finding those underpants in my laundry -- I was transferring stuff from the washer to the dryer and I saw what looked like a hot pink rubber glove or something sticking to one of my dresses. My mind processed this information slowly and I couldn't figure out what the heck I'd left in my pocket because this tiny, flimsy chunk of pink something-or-other was very confusing. It took me a second to realize that it was the new chick's underwear that was SO FREAKING SMALL and made of NOTHING that it's really no wonder they were forgotten.

I didn't want to embarrass her by knocking on her door and going "OH HAI, WANT YOUR CHONIES BACK??" and I didn't want to just leave them out for her to find because if the shoe was on the other foot I'd be horrrrrified to think that maybe 301 had been the one to find them and I'd have to throw them away because the thought of him touching my underpants would ruin them forever, so I just tossed them down the garbage chute.

The kicker is that when I finally figured out what they were I surprised myself with my old lady "THIS IS UNDERWEAR?? THIS IS WHAT THE KIDS ARE WEARING THESE DAYS?? THIS IS THE TINIEST, LEAST FUNCTIONAL UNDERWEAR I'VE EVER SEEN!" reaction.

32 going on 72, I tell you.

4. I think we've already established that I'm working on eating my way through the list of 100 Things to Try in SF Before You Die, right? Because I am. I've made some decent progress over the past few months and I'll save my reviews and blah blah blah for another post but I will say that I decided to earn #8: A morning bun from Tartine, by walking my ass 1.4 miles to get it:


My walk was not without incident though:

This is an example of why WE DO NOT RUN FOR BUSSES! Or in this case, a light. I was in a hurry because I had to work my second job (btw, I have a second job) and I didn't want to miss the light so I ran and my phone jumped out of my pocket. Oops. I've seen worse cases of iPhone injuries though so I know it'll be fine and I already kinda like that the back of my phone is all worn looking because I refuse to get a case for it, so another war wound will just add character. Besides, that morning bun was totally worth it.

5. The two greatest fortunes I've ever had:



6. So you know how Mother's Cookies went bankrupt or something and everyone cried little tears because they thought they'd eaten their last circus animals? And then how some other company bought Mothers' recipes? And how they sucked because the circus animals were bigger and creamier and tasted kinda lemony? Because all that is true. Here are the wanna-be circus animals:


WELL YOU'LL NEVER GUESS what I saw at Lucky's last night!! The original Mother's circus animals! I didn't think to take a picture before I threw the bag away (so I wouldn't keep eating them -- blasphemy, I know) but it said something like "The originals are back!" And I'm happy to tell you, Internet, that the new-new ones have the correct size, flavor and texture:



I called my dad to give him the good news and he was like "I was already having a great day so this just makes it even better!" He's a man who knows the importance of tradition. And now that I know they're back, I can go back to buying one bag every five years or so.

Dilbert

Things That Bug Me:

1. "The net-net is this..."

My brother loves to say "The fact of the matter is..." but I like my brother so it doesn't bug me so much as distract me from what the fact of the matter actually is. The guy in the cube next to me likes to say "The net-net is this" 75,489 times per conversation.

2. "I'm out of pocket."

This doesn't bother me when it's used CORRECTLY, as in, "I had to pay for that myself," but OH MY GOD people around this company REGULARLY use it to mean "unavailable." Like, "Are you going to be out of pocket during your vacation?"

THIS IS WRONG.

Urban Dictionary agrees with me:

Paid from personal funds. Somehow over the past half year or so, "out of pocket" has become a new business catchphrase meaning "unreachable, out of communication", which is incorrect.

If anyone at work talked to me, I might whisper about this stuff with him/her, but since I'm a leper, I am resorting to telling the internet.

1. The women in this joint are serious farters. In the bathroom, I mean. I haven't detected anything outside of the bathroom, but EVERY DAMN TIME I'm in there with someone else there's some FORCEFUL farting going on. And they don't even wait for me to leave before they exit the stall.

I don't get:

A. Why the hell they have such gassy asses in the first place.

B. Why they're so proud of it. If I let a loud one slip I'd totallllly hide out until I my co-pee'rs were gone. (And yes, gentlemen...I know that it's a bathroom and that farting is normal bathroom activity, but just as there is special bathroom etiquette for men that I don't understand, you don't understand the special bathroom etiquette that ladies tend to follow.)

2. The HR lady is a piece of work with her wigs and her accessories and oh mah gah I can't even BEGIN to do her justice, but if you recall, she's also the one who overuses and mispronounces the word "actually." It's in every damn sentence that comes out of her mouth, axtsilly. Anyhooters, when she sends e-mails that start out "Dear Employee's" it makes me nuts and axtsilly, I can't be bothered to fill out the form she's asking me to fill out.

3. I was outside on the balcony and I noticed a pile of fingernail clippings. YOU KNOW how I feel about clipping your fingernails at work (THAT IS A HOME ACTIVITY!), but LEAVING THAT SHIT ON THE BALCONY LIKE THE FINGERNAIL FAIRY IS GOING TO COME CLEAN IT UP!!??!

No.

Unless maybe birds use them for their nests like they use hair. Except that I noticed the fingernails earlier this week and they're still there so the bird excuse, if true, does not hold water.

I'm blaming the meloncholy on hormones.

I went to an all-hands meeting on Tuesday where the focus was kind of conflicted:

The company has BAJILLIONS of dollars in cash and t's a very safe place to be right now.

but also:

There is to be absolutley NO travel and NO catering and NO hiring.

And they just announced a mandatory furlough between Christmas and New Years. If I was eligible for vacation right now, that would be fine...but I think I might have to take it unpaid. TBD.

And then this whole time of me picking my nose all day long my boss has been all "Don't worry...we absolutely need you. Just be patient, keep yourself occupied...nobody has raised any questions about what you're doing. Don't stress."

And then yesterday my boss tells me that the days of this department operating at will and at any cost are over and that he wants to find a way for me to get involved sooner rather than later so nobody questions my value.

Crap.

And all this NPR-listening I've been doing lately makes me think that OMG THE SKY IS FALLING I WILL BE DESTITUTE AND WE'LL ALL BE FIGHTING FOR SPAM AND BROWN BANANAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I can keep my job, I will get great experience (eventually) and a great paycheck and everything will be okay.

If I lose my job, I don't know what to do. Jobs that can sustain my mortgage are difficult to get, as proven by the length of my retirement. I'm thinking that I might rent my place out, move in with my parents and maybe get a job in a different field. Or a low-level job in this field. I like what I do and I don't want to give up, but I've been treading water for MONTHS now and it's exhausting.

I want to find a rich husband. More than ever. He can go to work and do whatever it is he does and I'll supervise the cleaning lady, run his errands and cook his meals. I'm completely serious.

I still don't regret taking the severance and leaving PG&E and I'm still excited about whatever new things are coming my way, but the past few days have made me wish I was still there because it is familiar and comfortable and the people there were my family.

Nobody here knows that I'm awesome and I haven't had the opportuntiy to show them yet.

And I swear to you, whenever I see a blue PG&E truck, my heart jumps a little bit.

My Job is a mixed bag.

Things I Love About My Job:

1. The fact that my boss thought it was HILARIOUS when I told him that the only thing on my calendar today was the application of lip gloss. He has since referenced the lip gloss a few more times. Like, "I know you have lip gloss to apply tomorrow, but could you also do blah blah blah?"

2. I can get a delicious tuna melt in the cafeteria for $2.95. If that's not a value, I don't know what is.

Things That Make Me Nervous About My Job:

1. Sometimes my job sounds like something I can totally do and sometimes my boss uses words like "strategist" to describe my role and I'm like Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit.

2. I have to be on teleconferences, which is like this fancy video conference where it looks like the other people in the meeting are sitting across the table from you but in reality, they're in Toyko or London or whatever. My main problem with this? I don't have time to lose 100 pounds between now and the first meeting on December 2nd.

Things That I Hate About My Job:

1. The fact that the guy in the cube right next to mine makes little grunty coughs ALL DAY LONG. This means that, in addition to my HATRED for him and his cough, I have to plug my earphones in whenever I am at my desk and then the hot married guy walks by and doesn't talk to me because he thinks I'm hard at work and don't want to be distracted. But whatever, right? I mean, he's SOMEONE ELSE'S HUSBAND and I shouldn't give a crap.

Plus, who ever thought I'd be attracted to a young Jack Nicholson??? I'm going with Sassy Sarah's theory that he's just warming me up for when I find a non-gay, non-married hot guy to make eyes at.