The Way It Really Is

Today, this very afternoon, will be my first job interview in seven years. This unnerves me, not because I don't know my stuff, but because it also means that the last time I interviewed, I was still in my thirties. I still thought of people as a whole in a positive way; I had not yet retreated into my hermitage.

Now, I feel wary, watchful. I am suspicious of first impressions and and I expect others to feel the same. Yet, I was raised to be at my best at first impressions, to be charming and polite, smiling and enthusiastic. Though I have learned to accept people for who they are and to choose to associate or not associate with whom I please, I still have that inner uncertainty, the knowledge that if I portray myself on first meeting as I truly am, everyone will run away screaming.

There is evidence around me that I should not worry. The Gray remains my husband. Zach chooses to stay here. Friends come over or go out with me; I am invited to the homes of other people. Still, the inner self-vision of the Real Me says that if I put the Real Me in front of people as soon as I meet them, things would not end well.

I would walk into the interview expressionlessly, volumes of thoughts spilling into the space around my brain. I would take in the pattern of the carpet, the structure of the walls, the type of wood in the furniture, the curve of the chairs, the colors all around. I would meet people but not remember names, referring to them in my head as the red silk blouse, blonde or the burgundy polo, bald with glasses. When asked a question I would spout off the answer using lots of unneccesary words just because I like them. When presented with an objection to my answer I would simply shut up, not wishing to expend the energy required to sketch the symbolic tennis court on which their question was the serve and on which many volleys had been exchanged in my brain before I swung my answer back to their side with confidence that it was a winning stroke. They did not see or hear the volleys. How can I explain it to them? They will grow impatient. They will interrupt. I will look like a fool. So I will smile at them and say "I see your point".

I would look around and see the marketing department with their high heels and suits and over-perfumed chattiness and feel very small, me in my ten-year-old suit and no hairstyle to speak of. Their perkiness shines in sharp contrast to the dullness of my ever-dropping jawline and and graying temple.

I would see other engineers discussing the latest online gaming adventure and know that if I let on that I do not enjoy pretending to shoot and bomb and spill the blood of mock aliens or Marines, but that I prefer weaving and knitting and spinning and quilting, I would be devalued as a software developer. I would feel alienated and alone.

But that is not what I will do. I will, instead, become an Actor for the day, an actor who portrays a confident, happy, intelligent woman who has been recruited to interview for this position. They will see what they want to see, for I will understand what they want to see and provide it, interpreting the expressions and gestures, the glances at fellow interviewers, the constant assessment and judgment and, towards the end an acceptance or a rejection. Acceptance will not necessarily be an offer of employment but perhaps merely an indication that I am still in the running, but rejection will be a definite and final thing.

I will come home and change clothes and wipe the interview from my mind along with my makeup. When I receive a message telling me what I have already read on their faces, I will act professionally. If rejected, I will thank them for the opportunity to interview and will not dwell on it. Though I may not be worth anything to them, I am worth something to others. If accepted, I will continue acting my role until some day, when I am relaxed and familiar with the environment and they are clustered together apart from me discussing their interests while I am happily living inside my head, they will realize that I am, truly, mutually reclusive.

Posted by Sheila at January 18, 2006 10:12 AM Posted to | TrackBack