I've had a lot of awkward phone conversations. Some would say it's what I do best. Generally my most awkward of conversations via the telephone are with attractive girls or the poison control center, but today it was with a person that I hoped to one day call my boss.
The job seemed perfect for me. The title was "Creative Services" and the job description required a candidate who could " write, shoot and edit video" with "knowledge of Photoshop and non-linear editing" being a "definite plus". All things which I do quite well (if I do blog so myself.) At the interview, he told me that the job would require me to make three or four commercials a week for different clients. I would be involved in all aspects of the production. This job miraculously ties together all of my skills and interests into one perfect package. Of course I would find a way to screw it up.
The interview went fairly well, I think. It had more good interview signs than bad ones. I thought that between my resume and my passable interview, I was on the fence. He could choose to hire me or he could not depending on my competition. I wanted him put me in the definitely hire pile, so today I did the follow up phone call.
I am not a phone call guy. I don't chat. Thank God there is texting and Facebook because I would have an even smaller social life than I do. Because I know of this weakness, I decided to write myself a script to try to recite it to him over the phone. I would use my acting skills to make it appear that I was speaking from the heart. Let's just say it didn't go that well.
My first call led me straight to the answering machine. I, in my incredible stupidity, decided to not leave a message. I wanted real human interaction because I was going to knock his socks off with my fantastically scripted yet heartfelt masterpiece of a follow up phone call.
I waited ten minutes and called again. I expected it to be the answering machine again and was startled to hear a human being. How dare he not answer and then answer! It almost gave me a heart attack.
When I recovered, I already knew I was off to a bad start. My voice was lower than normal and somehow my air passage had gotten smaller. It was like asking the prettiest girl to go get ice cream with me. I had flashbacks of Rocky Road and sitting on the bench oblivious to the glob of hot fudge there, then continuing the date with a brown streak connecting my two butt checks together on my light colored jeans. Not an ideal situation to have in my head.
I tried to get back on track. I was not expecting too many interruptions. I had a couple places where I asked him a question. Here again the savage beast attacked me at a point when I hadn't expected it. In my script I was supposed to say "I know you were doing your last interview today and I just wanted to tell you that I’m very excited about this job." It seemed simple enough but then he interrupted me right after I said "last interview today" to tell me that he actually had a few more this week. This interruption caused me to panic. I was suddenly in the middle of a sentence and had nowhere to go. Acting quickly, in shear terror, I said the thing that came into my head first. "Oh." This only bought me a moment to collect my thoughts. I quickly changed my sentence to "Well, I know you are finishing up interviews this week" but then when I got to "I'm very excited about the job" I don't think I sold it. The stress and pressure and the idea of more competition left me a nervous shaking rat-boy with no confidence and sweat slowly gathering on his pointed nose.
To finish up I basically rushed through the rest. I think I failed on excitement, sincerity, professionalism, and just saying words. There was one point where I was in the middle of a word and it just didn't finish itself. I had to use my hand to physically force air out of my diaphragm and quietly end the sentence. Then I used a nearby chip bag to make it appear that the call was breaking up.
I thanked him, said goodbye, and immediately hit the showers. If I get this job it would be a miracle. I'll find out on Friday.
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