At long last, I was given an interview for the position I’ve been working on for several months. As luck would have it, I was suffering from salmonella poisoning contracted on a trip to Yosemite. In addition, the day dawned (so to speak) in blizzard conditions.
What the hell, I thought, after waiting this long, I’m not about to postpone things. Let’s see, how’s the old fever holding up…ah, 101…I can handle that, right?
Dosing up on Imodium to forestall any abrubt departures from the interview, I dressed my best and departed in the storm. Arriving five minutes early, I figured I was ahead of the game. Unfortunately, all the visitor parking was full of the cars of employees who didn’t feel like hiking in a snow storm to the front door. I parked a few hundred yards away, grabbed the umbrella and shoed manfully to the building.
Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror in the elevator revealed a slightly disheveled middle-aged man with an alarming greenish tint to his complexion. “Lighting”, I grumbled. “Fuckin’ trick mirrors.”
Finally ensconced in the office of my prospective employer, I was happy not to be feeling any of the intestinal rumblings that forecast an explosive event. Over the previous three days, I had amused myself by shitting through a screen door from ten feet away and then priding myself on the fact that I didn’t soil any of the screen wires.
The CEO was pleasant, although she seemed to be eyeing me somewhat warily, I thought. I explained that I hadn’t been feeling up to snuff. I heard a chair scrape as the other interviewer pushed back a few extra inches to gain some distance advantage.
She launched into some corporate philosophy and structure and general discussion, then dropped the first bomb: “So, given the matrix I’ve just outlined for you, how would you go about leveraging yourself into said matrix and capitalizing on the existing infrastructure?”
I felt like Ralphy with Santa: “Football? What’s a football?”
“Er…could you rephrase that for me somewhat?” (Oh crap, I sound like some sort of gameshow contestant…FUCK!).
“Surrrreee…can you explain to us how you would inject your personna vis-a-vis the construction entity in conjunction with the plutonium half-life of a Vegan janderwock?”
My blood pressure instantly elevated and a sweat broke out on my forehead as I realized that I had NO idea what the hell she was saying to me.
“Can I buy a vowel, please?” I joked weakly.
I then began mumbling something about teamwork and management, thoroughly making a muck of the whole thing.
Mercifully, she moved on to more mundane questions on which I could wax elephants (yes, I know that’s not correct, it’s just one of my favorite malapropisms).
After an hour and a half, I was allowed to escape back into the relatively comforting arms of howling wind and blowing snow and icy roads, to return to my abode in time to leap up the stairs to the bathroom, where I could resume my misery.
I honestly don’t know how I fared. Not well, I fear. Luckily, I have a job, but this would be a significant salary increase. I should hear next week. ::sigh::
I’m still there eight years later and head of my department. I think interviews are less about your answers and more about your personality. Best wishes on your prospective employment.