I Am So Popular: I Yam What I Yam

Anyway, that opening replicant questioning scene reminds me of one of the goofiest job interviews I ever had. It was 1998 and the high-tech boom was at full volume and it seemed like so many jobs were opening up that one merely needed a hint of a pulse to get hired. Which is how I came to work as the world’s oldest paid intern at Vignette, despite the fact that, I kid you not, when that software company took me on I did not know how to affix attachments to email. But it was at a different company, pre-Vignette, that some higher-up, a man with a scar across his face that was so big it was beyond distraction, asked me during an interview, in all seriousness, “Which character on Star Trek are you most like?”

I was so thrown by this—I didn’t even watch TV and if I did I certainly wouldn’t watch Star Trek—that without thinking twice, I turned the tables on him. “Which character on the Brady Bunch are you most like?” I asked, referring back to the last show besides BH 90210 that I’d watched with any consistency. I did not get that job, which might’ve been related to my inability to speak Vulcan or perhaps my insinuation that the interviewer was like Marcia Marcia Marcia. More likely it was connected to the fact that two days after the interview, before I heard back from HR, I started sleeping with another one of the guys who’d interviewed me. (Aside: within a month he started cheating on me and when I finally got it together enough to kick his sorry ass out, I did start watching TV to distract myself. One night, my roommate had Star Trek on and I realized the Cheater had lifted every line he ever said from me straight from that stupid show.)

Going into interviews under any circumstances is bound to provoke anxiety. And this anxiety is proportional to how badly you need the job. You wind up giving off a vibe of desperation, which defeats the purpose of trying to appear worthy of employment. You also wind up applying for jobs you don’t want, and this, too, comes across loud and clear. I remember when I first got to Austin and the little bit of money I had was just about gone with no source of more in sight. I so didn’t want yet another restaurant gig but that seemed about the only option. So I’d go around to restaurants between 2 and 4, traditional best times to apply, which just so happened to coincide with Happy Hour. I’d sit at the bar and fill out the application and get drunk. Surely my subconscious was at work here, as I shot myself in the foot, demonstrating as I slumped over my third or fourth drink just what a good candidate I was not.

But my interview this past week was different. I don’t want to say I don’t need work because that’s inaccurate. But I’ve been a freelancer for over twenty years now and I know that, if this position doesn’t come through, something else will. Because it has to. That might sound cocky or absurd, but it is my reality. There is work out there. I will find it. Plus I already have the benefit of some pretty surefire B Plans already in place. So the nervousness I felt in the hours before I answered my questioners was not at all rooted in desperation, but more a matter of pride and competition. I happen to know that you can count the number of other candidates up for this job on the good fingers of Django Reinhardt’s left hand. Which means, even if I come in last place, technically I still get the bronze. Not too shoddy if you consider that the original field numbered 200.

But I don’t want the fucking bronze. I want the goddamned gold, people, do you hear me? It is the sort of job I’ve been dreaming of for nearly twenty years. I wasn’t bullshitting when I told my interviewers I was the best candidate. I am. But I can’t control whether or not they’ll wind up agreeing with this assessment. And so, in my eagerness, I actually prepared for this one. I made lists and sought my young, hot domestic partner’s insights. I meditated before the interview. And I told myself that the best offense is the Popeye strategy, whereby I must acknowledge I Yam What I Yam and I mustn’t give answers that are offered in ass-kissing mode.

It was actually a very smart interview. Star Trek never came up. And I was not asked, as applicants sometimes are, “What is your greatest weakness?” (I was once advised to answer this question with, “Well, you know, sometimes I just can’t help myself—I go crazy and bake homemade cookies for the WHOLE OFFICE!”) I did get asked to give an example, from the past year, of a difficult editor I’ve worked with. In hindsight, that might’ve been my favorite question.

Because Popeye piped right up on that one, and said that to give an example of a pain-in-the-ass editor I’d have to go back some time ago—many years in fact. This might not have been the most helpful answer as far as getting my foot in the door. But it did get me thinking. Even though I still have to hustle for work, I can measure progress by realizing that, unlike the old days, I don’t take shit work anymore. I might take dry assignments to overhaul the websites of companies that make silicone widget covers for naked mole rats or to write copy for Allen Wrench Magazine from time to time. But even these assignments must come with the promise that I will get some freedom in my writing and a paycheck that will cover both my mortgage and as much No-Doz as I need to get through the job. Such a far cry from that time, early in my career, when an editor demanded that I make a story she assigned me on children and depression “more upbeat.”

The national unemployment rate for August rolled in at 9.7%. Here in Austin it was 7.3% as of July. This doesn’t even count all the people who have given up trying to find a job because they just can’t. Can. Not. For far too many folks, there is nothing out there, not even jobs they once thought beneath them. It’s genuinely scary and not metaphorical but quite literal when these folks refer to cupboards that are growing barer and foreclosures that are growing nearer. They don’t have the luxury of unleashing their inner-Popeye the rare days an interview materializes. And that sick feeling of knowing they are up against 5,000 others for a single slot is only compounded by the knowledge that this is not at all a job they really want to do. And so morale lowers exponentially.

Though ready with the answer, I wasn’t asked in my interview to name my superhero powers, as we focused instead on more human traits like attitude and efficiency. Had I been quizzed on the matter though, I would have admitted—hopefully with a perfect balance of strength and gentleness—that I am able to lie about in bed and solve the world’s problems with my stunning visionary capacity. On the other hand, it’s probably a good thing the topic didn’t arise, as I have to admit that for once, Popeye and I are totally stumped. I cannot see when or how this unemployment thing is going to straighten out, and my heart hurts for all the seekers out there looking for something… anything at all.

Spike Gillespie wants to hear your kookiest interview story. She’s hosting a benefit at BookPeople this Sunday from 11am til 1pm. No minimum donation, free food, and funny healthcare horror stories aplenty from the cast of the Dick Monologues, with music by Southpaw Jones. Spike blogs at www.spikeg.com. Sign up for her October writing workshop by emailing spikegillespie@gmail.com.