I had an interview yesterday. I'm waiting to hear back from the panel with a yea or nay and I find myself in a odd, tense-yet-relieved limbo. This is the sixth interview I've had in just under a month, and I've been flung up and down a cruel rollercoaster of hope and rejection. The days after the interviews are a strange mixture of relief that the interrogation is over, and a series of mind games I play with myself that go something like this:
"I won't get this job. I wasn't enthusiastic enough before the panel, plus the way I answered THAT question really wasn't great..."
"...but - but - my presentation went really well, I practised hard for that and the panel seemed very engaged..."
"No, I definitely don't have it because I had a brain freeze and left an awkward silence in the room for forty seconds. That made us all uncomfortable."
"And yet... and yet... there was the encouraging, friendly smile I shared with one of the panel members right at the end when it seemed like she liked me..."
This post-mortem goes on. For hours. Days. And yet, this time is also a mini-break for me because I think, if I AM offered this job I won't have to go through the whole tedious application process again - how wonderful that will be - so I'll give myself today and tomorrow off and just enjoy not having an interview looming over me.
Then the email arrives, and I know that for the short time I leave it unopened I can think of myself as employed: I don't have the position and yet I have the position. Schrödinger’s job. But I have to open the email because I'm too curious and I don't have enough self-control to leave it unopened for long. And then the job application process starts over.
Maybe this one will be different.
"I won't get this job. I wasn't enthusiastic enough before the panel, plus the way I answered THAT question really wasn't great..."
"...but - but - my presentation went really well, I practised hard for that and the panel seemed very engaged..."
"No, I definitely don't have it because I had a brain freeze and left an awkward silence in the room for forty seconds. That made us all uncomfortable."
"And yet... and yet... there was the encouraging, friendly smile I shared with one of the panel members right at the end when it seemed like she liked me..."
This post-mortem goes on. For hours. Days. And yet, this time is also a mini-break for me because I think, if I AM offered this job I won't have to go through the whole tedious application process again - how wonderful that will be - so I'll give myself today and tomorrow off and just enjoy not having an interview looming over me.
Then the email arrives, and I know that for the short time I leave it unopened I can think of myself as employed: I don't have the position and yet I have the position. Schrödinger’s job. But I have to open the email because I'm too curious and I don't have enough self-control to leave it unopened for long. And then the job application process starts over.
Maybe this one will be different.
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