I had a job interview yesterday. The only good thing about it was that I can tell myself this is the last one I’ll ever have to go through–not because I got the job but because at my age and with my resume, full-time employment opportunities are as rare as wise decisions were during most of my life, when I was compiling that resume (I have many years of expertise in the world of alcoholic character actors, and cult leaders, for example–not exactly marketable skills).
Oh my God. It was horrible, even though a rational person would probably say I did fine. And even when it was over, I had this mental slime residue I couldn’t get rid of–all the things I shouldn’t have said, or the things I should have said, or the part when my mouth went obviously dry during the teaching demo (let me demonstrate what a panic attack looks like), the part when I couldn’t download the file properly or even work the light switch, the fact that time ran out when I wasn’t even close to being done, the way I managed to put my boss on the spot, the way nothing I said even made sense.
Oh my God.
All of you people out there who promised to pray for me–WTF??!? Was the cell tower to God out of range? Because intermittently, I did seem to get hooked up to something that mattered–but then it was like, hello? Hello? Can you hear me now? How about if I move over here? It’s……not…….working…….Hello? God? Anybody?
Jesus! (He was asleep in the back of the boat, snoring.)
The worst part is this aftermath; it’s like compulsive instant replay of the move that lost the World Cup on a penalty kick: the goalee sees the ball coming a little too late, she jumps and reaches, but it sails over her head. Again and again.
Failure to perform.
Naturally, one obsesses: but is it always this excruciating? Do other people want to blow their brains out if only to shut them down? Or drink a fifth of whiskey? Or spend over two hours watching Snow White and the Huntsman? That was the method of oblivion I opted for, which turned out to be just a metaphorical replay of my interview, in which a perfectly good fairy tale devolved helplessly into a slow-motion fiasco: Really? Seriously? Fairies that look like Gollum, and a cartoon deer?
Even my escape was second-rate! A real writing teacher would have gone for the Jack, not a Skinny Girl margarita and a chick flick. So now I get a meta-level beat down from my crowd of inner critics, who, through long work in therapy, had been won over as fans or at least convinced to tone down the criticism, until this interview–I had won their respect, but then I disappointed them and now I…
Oh my God: shut UP!!!
It’s not even about whether I get the job. It’s all about punishing myself for not performing perfectly. I know I’m not the only one who does this, and I know I do it all the time–not just in high-stakes events like a job interview.
Reassurance is not a cure.
Success is not a cure.
Screaming, on the other hand, helped—and this was a revelation: on the way home from the movie, I realized I was alone in my closed-up car, winding through an unpopulated area at high speed, so I tried it. I believe it’s the first time in my life that I’ve actually screamed, so I had to experiment—but it didn’t take long for my first wimpy effort to accelerate into a throat-scarring banshee wail that sounded like an ice pick driven into my ear—followed by blissful, complete, mental silence.
Wow. I’m good at screaming. Maybe I could get hired somewhere to demonstrate this.
And now, with the whole thing receding into some reasonable mental space, no larger than it deserves, I’m thinking maybe those prayers worked after all: maybe what I needed was to give voice not to the perfect interview, but to a lifetime of perfect, desperate rage. I mean, think about it: sixty-five years old, and I had never screamed. Maybe God wanted to hear my voice, because I think it might have been loud enough to reach, wherever he is–loud enough to wake Jesus up in the back seat, because suddenly there was silence and the mental storm ceased, just like when those guys in the boat woke him up and he calmed the waters and asked them where their faith was.
Maybe some version of the next miracles he performed will also follow: freedom from the compulsion to cut oneself with stones, freedom from long and mysterious bleeding out, freedom from the lifetime nightmare of being misunderstood and misjudged, which is the trauma that seems to give rise to this whole thing. As in that last miracle—when Jesus woke up the little girl who was supposedly dead—the people who raised me thought I was dead, maybe because they had worked so hard to kill me, and in subsequent roles over the course of a lifetime I had been cast as the silent good girl, or the victim lying flayed open on the table in some real-life version of CSI.
But it turns out I was just asleep. The first thing I did when I woke up was to scream, like anyone would upon having her chest wall slit and peeled back to expose the heart to being measured, weighed, analyzed and rated. That’s what it felt like every time I was sent to a different home, a different family, when I was a child. My life was on the line if I failed to perform, and screaming was not an option.
Now, though, it’s apparently a whole new world—and in a weird synchronicity, I notice, today is also Independence Day where I live. God only knows what will come out of my mouth next.
Happy Independence Day, Barb!
There’s a reason “The Scream,” the painting by Munch, is so popular. Screaming is therapeutic and I’m so glad you finally let the wild woman roar!
As to the other stuff about the interview, sit down with a pile (I know you have one) of your student letters, the ones that say they would never have made it without you as their teacher. Sit down right now and read them, carry them around with you, remember their faces.
The faces of the interview committee? Forget them. This whole idea that you must “act” like you’re teaching one of your classes in front of them is absurd. Have they learned nothing from quantum physics? What they should do is ask to observe you in the real classroom, watch the expressions on the students’ faces, feel the connection between you and them and how you light up their lives after struggling so long, how you reach something deep within them and make that need for knowledge burn.
In the meantime, this angst you’re experiencing is so normal and for lack of a better word, therapeutic. Ask me about the time I was at a conference, slated to give the keynote address and my roommate would not shut up, kept me up until three in the morning, and then the next morning introduced me to an auditorium of national college presidents, vps, and marketing people as “Our new artsy craftsy strategic planner.” Sleep deprived, nervous as hell (I have no advanced degrees) at speaking to a room full of PHDs, I could hardly string words together. (I opted not to see the videotape of that one.) Or about the time in the middle of a job interview, one of the panelists corrected my use of the word “Irregardless,” making me feel like gum on his shoe. We all have our moments. We all feel we’ve failed due to the nasty little critters who sit on our shoulders and represent the old wounds, the false messages, the ones we carry around about perception and value and productivity and performance. (Gee, I remember someone pointing that out to to me once. Hmmm)
I do know one thing, it’s cruel they’re making you wait over a week for the results. And I know that nothing I write right now will rid you of that pain you’re feeling.
So I will end this lengthy comment with a simple, “I love you,” and “You are one of the best things that ever happened to LCC.” (And to me.)
Awww….what can I say but “I approve this comment!”
Thanks, sweetheart.
Oh Barbara, you have reminded me of every reason I hate interviews! I think the interviewers can sense it, you know, and instead of using it to help us, they use it for their own enjoyment. In one interview, I was asked had I applied merely because I wanted a job… I mean to say, that’s the whole point of applying for a job, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have applied had I not wanted it. After a few other smarmy questions from the equally smarmy panel of five, the interview came to a close. I didn’t care whether I got the job or not, I’ve never heard from the company since, and can not stand to see their chain of shops in the high street. Unlike you, I didn’t scream… I had to lie down in a darkened room clutching a piece of rose quartz crystal. That calmed me, but maybe screaming would have helped quicker.
Hope things turn out exactly as you want them to!
You made me laugh with that rose quartz crystal line! (Getting one of those is now high on my to-do list, if only because it will remind me that there are kindred spirits in the world!) But yes, definitely try screaming next time there’s an opportunity. I recommend against the scream-into-a-pillow method because repression is counterproductive, so that means that you might have to deliberately construct some version of the circumstance serendipity provided me, i.e. find some place to scream where nobody is going to hear you and call the cops.
Thanks so much for the kind words, and for helping me normalize this.
Well, it all made for a great piece of writing, Barbara. Thanks.
Thank you back! Nice to hear from you again. I’ve been out of the blogging loop for a while, trying to prepare for this job interview fiasco, but even so I noticed your absence. I saw a new post that reassured me you’re still around the other day, so I trust you’ve just been occupied with piano or something equally happy. I remember when my older son was learning violin, several years passed when he basically did nothing but play and read sheet music–we had to literally pry his fingers off the instrument to get him to eat!
Ah yes, the job interview. Nothing like laying one’s self on the table of potential-job dissection. Glad to hear it was at least cathartic, and as always, your writing just blows me away. Not sure whether to wish you good luck on the job, or hope that you don’t get it because it doesn’t sound like you and the interviewers were exactly into the same vibe, so how’s this: May your perfect desperate rage combust into perfect, burning joy.
Well that last, wonderful phrase was timely: I was just watching the fireworks, which I can see from my bedroom window. I will keep that suggestion in mind. Cara DiMarco has a chapter about delight in the new book she’s working on; she posed the question “when was the last time you felt delight?” and I had to think really, really hard. “Perfect, burning joy” will be even more of a stretch, but just the words themselves are an inspiration, and a reminder that such things are possible. Perfect, burning joy. Wow. I need to write that on the back of my hand!
May I join the many and thank you for such an honest description of what you felt. I strongly suspect that it is not that rare a feeling – it’s just something we don’t talk very often. I told my husband about your blog, and he didn’t need to confirm what I already knew: he too has felt that way. I can’t even go to a party full of strangers without spending the following night in the kind of anguish you describe.
But I think in some ways your response is one of a survivor. You have survived what sounds like a pretty tough childhood followed by a tough marriage. I doubt you could have done it without learning to value yourself, to stand up for yourself, and to worry when you aren’t good enough. Okay, it would be nice to be the kind of person who never worries about measuring up. But I think it’s preferable to the alternative.
On the one hand, one can say there is solace in lowered expectations of oneself. On the other, there is huge relief in someone who takes the big knocks and comes bouncing back. Albeit bruised. But not crying on somebody else’s shoulder that life has dealt you all the hard blows.
Apart from reading your superb description of the kind of thing I too have experienced, it is totally and utterly refreshing not to feel you are asking anyone to rush in and take care of you.
On the contrary.
As I say, you sound like a survivor to me.
What a lovely thing to say! And yes–though I’m not sure it’s entirely a good thing–people with a background of abandonment or neglect do tend to take care of themselves, if only from long habit. I remember when I had my appendix out at seven or eight years old, I woke up from the anesthetic and had to go to the bathroom, so I climbed over the bed rail. It never occurred to me to ask for help, and when the horrified nurse explained the call button to me, I was mystified enough that I still remember the incident. My impulse in writing about this interview was selfish: I just wanted to get it out of my head and keep it there–but I know that a lot of people suffer similarly and in similar venues (for example, in writing workshops). And a “party full of strangers”–yes, definitely! Or any party at all! Parties, to me, are like a watered-down version of the interview, with the small consolation that food and alcohol are available, and sometimes a patio or yard to which one can retreat into invisibility. So I basically never go, unless it’s unavoidable. At weddings, I leave after the ceremony; I assume no one will miss me at department gatherings; even at friends’ houses, a party sounds like an ordeal rather than a celebration. Maybe the resulting deprivation is why I’m drawn to the blogosphere party: it’s possible to attend in jammies and to risk authenticity in other ways, without even getting drunk—and even to make friends as a result. Thank you for attending!
You are describing my own responses so accurately it’s scary. On the last day I was on the university faculty, there was a party. I walked in the door, picked up a glass of wine, walked around the outside of the room, and back out the door. The sense of relief that I would never have to do that again as part of my professional role almost made up for my sense of loss that I was giving up teaching. Funny, isn’t it? I can give a lecture to hundreds of people, talk on television, lead a seminar, but don’t ask me to make small talk. I literally break out into a nervous sweat.
But I do want to suggest that your tough childhood did not necessarily turn you into a survivor. I suspect it’s the other way around – that you survived your tough childhood because you are a survivor. The kind of childhood experiences you seem to have had are not considered conducive to building a strong character. In fact, more often we use it as an explanation for why someone has become an abusive, insensitive, or overly-dependent adult themselves.
Many years ago I became fascinated with research exploring why some children do become survivors in the face of obstacles that destroy most others. First there are the genetic and epi-genetic factors. Mylenation today is becoming a significant factor in explaining why some of our genes are turned off and others turned on. This process can begin even when the child is still in utero, so in the past it has looked to be genetic rather than epi-genetic.
But the other factor that I find even more interesting is the research that suggests that “survivors” often had some adult in their lives who held out some hope, some vision, some door to some other life than the one the child was being subjected to. Sometimes this significant other was a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a teacher, even a neighbour. This relationship did not always last for years. It may have lasted for several weeks at a camp, or a single school year.
I do not claim to come from an abusive family. On the contrary. I was hugely privileged and loved. And yet I can still point to two people besides my parents who were vastly important in determining the path on which I ultimately embarked. If it is not intruding on private territory, I would be fascinated to know if there was somebody like that in your life.
Well at first I thought you were going to put me in the awkward spot of having to consider taking some kind of credit for this survivor thing–but then you gave me an out by suggesting it might be genetic, or due to someone else’s positive influence (thank you!). That would be what Alice Miller calls enlightened witness, and yes I’m a firm believer, even in the value of one encounter. Early on–this must have been sub-three years old–I remember my father’s parents not only tolerating but welcoming my presence, which was a novelty. My grandmother used to save old cereal boxes, cans, bottles and what not so that when I came over, I could make a pretend store under her kitchen table. I remember her smiling at that, and also walking me several blocks to the shoe repair shop where my grandfather worked so that he could open the cash register and let me take as many pennies as my little hand would hold, with which we would go buy chocolate malt balls on the way home. These small things were absolutely miraculous to me, and they are still fresh enough in memory to bring tears. There is one other man I remember from that time before things got really bad–our landlord, Mr. Klocker. I have only one image of him, but it’s numinous. I will try link here to the first three or four pages of my book, in which he makes his brief appearance.
I’ve just read it. It’s – what word shall I use? marvelous, fantastic, moving, incredible – all are wrong. It certainly makes me want to read the rest of it. I really had no idea you wrote so well.
Since it is public, I’d like to tell the story of your grandmother on my blog — with my assessment because I think it touches on something so intimately human (I’m not just a retired university professor: I’ve been an oldest sister since I was 19 months old). I will wait a few days though, just in case you’d rather I didn’t.
Wow. Thanks so very much for those very encouraging words. I think I may have to have them tattooed on the back of my hand so I can read them frequently.
Seriously, you’ve made me think again about how I can get finishing the book moved from my bucket list to my actual to-do list. And yes, feel free to use the grandmother story in any way you wish (and thanks for your question that prompted me to remember it).
Job interviews are just as bad as auditions. You never know if what you did was okay or not! I just loved the grandmother story. Lovely.
Thanks so much for stopping by, Susan. I hope this means the flu has eased off. (In Ted’s defense, I will note that dropping a ball on your head was probably the nicest thing he could think of in his what-would-make-ME-feel better caretaker repertoire.)
Hi Barbara, I never thought of it in his terms! I guess dropping a ball on his head would make him feel better!
But his method must have done the trick. Flu? All done and dusted!
Glad to hear it! I’m pretty sure Ted at least gave you a laugh, which is maybe even better medicine than chicken soup.