A Tragedy of Errors - Part 1

Dressing up in formals is not something you would enjoy if you are not used to it and that is one of the primary reasons I wanted to get selected for this job. It was the fear of having to dress formally for another interview sometime later that motivated me to get through this interview more than anything else.

Going by history, it was extremely difficult to get an interview call for this job, but once you get the call it means you will get the job. It was a library job, so the questions were kind of predictable and one does not have to be an expert in anything to get the job.

I have always been a very cool and composed guy, even under extreme pressure. This was my forte at least until this interview happened. I was so relaxed about this whole interview that I showed up 5 minutes late. If you really cared about getting a job and for some reason are late for the interview, you at least apologize and come up with a good reason or a punch line like Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happiness“.

But me being Mr. Cool, I did not think it was that big a deal. So I go up to this lady sitting in the front desk and talk to her coolly “I have an appointment with Ms. Mickey”.

The Lady: “Oh! I thought you won’t show up and by the way, I am not Mickey, I am Mckenny”.

Me: Already wondering what shirt to wear for my next interview, nice to meet you Ms. Mckenny.

Ms. Mckenny: Please take a seat.

And we got started. She started explaining what was expected from me. This went on for about a minute and then she was talking about how fascinating the library was. And I could no longer hold my disease like phenomenon which I call the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Every student in my opinion has this problem. It is a result of being institutionalized by the class room lectures. I cannot listen to any body for more than two minutes continuously. Well, like I said the class rooms trained me that way.

So now my goal was to remember to nod my head in approval every 15 seconds. Unfortunately for me the combination of this rocking motion of the head and her voice which resembled the PDF book reader was too tempting to resist a yawn. She stopped mid sentence and looked at me astonished and it was only then I realized I had been yawning.

The best way to save my day was to intelligently complete the sentence she had stopped. But remember ADD, it did not let me do that. I was not following what she was saying and I just sat there looking at her as if yawning was just normal and I waited for her to continue. But, by now she had lost her patience, so much for the talk about how patient she was expecting me to be when dealing with customers, just a while before.

To say the least, I was impressed by the way she composed herself quickly. She just told me that the interview was over very politely. And I left with a grin on my face as if I had become the chief librarian, but inside I knew I had lost and that is why I did not care to ask her when I would know the result of the interview. And thus, I achieved the honor of becoming the first guy to fail the library interview.