A Job Interview

Dear Readers,

I just finished a really easy online creative writing class. I didn’t put a ton of effort into it, but I got an A. Woo-hoo! That’s the way I like my classes!

My last three blog posts, Nearly Everything About Dolphins, The Ethics of Spitting Sunflower Seeds, and Let Me Call Myself an Arizonan, were all done for that class.

Here’s one more assignment I did for the class.

I was supposed to write a “factual” account of something that happened to me recently, and then write a “truthful” account of the same event. We were supposed to think about the difference between a creative non-fiction story being “factually accurate” and “emotionally true.” I wrote about a quiff interview I had a few months ago when I was looking for a teaching job.

Enjoy.

Version 1, the factual version

A Job Interview

I finished reading poetry to the ENG 105 class I taught at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, got in my car, and then rushed down the I-17 to Phoenix. I had a job interview for a high school teaching position to get to.

When I got to Mountain View High School in Mesa, I parked in the faculty parking lot and asked a student in shorts and sandals where the office was, and he pointed. I thanked him and walked in the direction he had indicated.

I felt awkward dressed in my suit and tie, and it was hot outside. I went up some stairs, opened a door, and went over to a lady behind a counter. She told me to go to another lady behind another counter, who told me that the principal I was going to be interviewing with was running late, so it would be a few minutes. How about I sit down? she asked me in that secretary way to let me know that sitting down was the right thing to do.

I sat down and she asked me if I wanted some water. I said yes, and within a few moments, she came back with a red plastic cup filled with cold ice water. She smiled at me. She was very nice. I remained seated and enjoyed my drink. I wished I could stay there, in that chair, drinking my cup of water. I didn’t really want to get a job.

In a few minutes, the principal came out of his office, smiled, said my name, and we shook hands.

I followed him into his office with the red plastic cup still in my hands. Judging by the room’s décor, he had gone to Notre Dame. We had brief awkward small talk, and then he began reading me questions off of a paper he held in his lap. I would answer the questions, and he would write things down. This went on for at least a half an hour.

Between some of the questions, I said, “you have good water here,” and he smiled and asked me the next question.

I was afraid he didn’t like me.

After he finished asking me all of the questions on his paper, he asked me if I had any questions for him. I asked him how he thought the interview went. Before I asked it, I knew that was probably an annoying question, but it was an honest one. I had already had one job interview for a high school teaching position with Gilbert Public Schools, and I thought it went wonderfully. In fact, I thought it went so well that I was guaranteed a job. But Gilbert didn’t call me. Weeks went by. I called them, left messages, and they never returned my phone calls.

He hesitated, and then turned my question back on me. “How do you think it went?”

“I don’t know. But I think it went pretty well.” I said.

“Of course it wouldn’t be appropriate to tell you exactly what score you got on this screening interview. But I will give you one piece of advice. Don’t ever tell an interviewer that if a kid in your class was failing, you wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Most of the principals I know, if they would have heard you say that, they would have stood up, opened the door, patted you on the butt and said, ‘Better luck down the street.’”


Version 2, the truthful version.

A Job Interview

The nice lady behind the counter told me to go to another nice lady behind a different counter. The second nice lady told me to sit down and wait for the principal, who would be a few minutes late to our screening interview. The second nice lady also asked me if I wanted some water, and I said yes, partly to be polite, partly because I was actually thirsty, and partly because that was the first thing that happened to come out of my mouth.

I felt overdressed in my grey suit, black dress shoes, and red tie. I remembered the bit of advice my father gave me about job interviews. “Wear red,” he had said. “Red is a power color. Don’t wear brown. Wear brown and they’ll think you’re a bum. Wear red and they’ll most likely hire you.”

I didn’t want the job though. I didn’t want to be a high school English teacher. I really didn’t want to be anything. But I had graduated from college, and it was time for me to get a job.

I silently looked around at the people passing by.

They felt like strangers. Of course, they were strangers, but for some reason they felt even stranger than most strangers I had encountered. I somehow knew that this would be the only time in my life I would ever see these people. The two nice ladies behind two different counters. The students and teachers passing by. They were strangers. In a few hours I would be absent from their company, and we would only exist to each other in the dark corners of our minds.

The principal appeared, called my name, shook my hand, and led me into his office. I didn’t like him. But I still had the flimsy plastic cup of water in my hands, and that was nice.

He asked me a thousand questions, and I gave him a thousand answers, and at the end of it all I asked him how it went.

“How did what go?” he asked me.

“This interview.”

He hesitated, and then turned my question back on me. “How do you think it went?”

“I don’t know. But I think it went pretty well.” I said.

“Of course it wouldn’t be appropriate to tell you exactly what score you got on this screening interview. But I will give you one piece of advice. Don’t ever tell an interviewer that if a kid in your class was failing, you wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Most of the principals I know, if they would have heard you say that, they would have stood up, opened the door, patted you on the butt and said, ‘Better luck down the street.’”

I left and fell into a deep depression.