Tales from the Shark Tank

To the bewilderment of the recruiter, the job for which I interviewed will not be mine. The company has asked to see other candidates. Given the enthusiasm with which we parted company, I am a bit surprised, but only a bit. As previously observed, they didn’t seem to know what to do with me and hadn’t figured out the job description of the position for which they were trying to hire someone yesterday. And being new to this type of work, I couldn’t tell them what the job description should be. I suspect it’s a case of “we’ll know it when we see it” and they didn’t see it. Whether they would know it or not is of course a different question entirely.

The other jobs the recruiter has do not have my name on them, in my estimation. Or as I put it to her – “if I’m going to throw my hat in, it would be better if I didn’t throw a baseball cap into a rodeo ring. No point applying if I know up front I don’t have that skillset.” She agreed, and sounded much relieved by my attitude.

So we’ll see. I’m trying to get some feed back on where the problem was. I’m also trying to put together something resembling a portfolio in a little less haste than the last time. And in the meantime, it’s not like I’m sitting on my hands. For someone who doesn’t have a day job, I manage to stay mighty busy. So while I’m a bit disappointed, I’m not particularly upset. There will be another time. And when it’s meant to, it’ll work out.

I’ve just had an adventure I am glad to know I can deal with, and hope never, ever to deal with again. I took my car in today for an alignment. It turned out not to need that, but only tire rotation. Ok. It was thumping a bit when I picked it up, but inquiry was met with the assurance that it was just the different wear pattern on the tires. I know a lot about cars mechanically (useful for the recent Quest to replace the Saturn of Doom), but not a lot about tires, and that made sense. Too bad it was wrong. I went back to the lab to work on the grant proposal with a drop-dead line of April 1, a matter of about half a mile tops. Then when my watch beeped at me, I started for home to meet the bus.

I got about another half mile before the thumping suddenly began to resemble a Kodo Drummer’s rehearsal. It was followed by a thud that jerked the car. I looked in my side mirror just in time to see an entire tire spinning off into the median. I didn’t have a flat, because quite abruptly, I didn’t have a tire at all. None the less, Dragon Frankie kept on flying. She was even willing to be steered. I hit the horn, looked at the tilt of the left shoulder and thought about the tilt of a car unbalanced at the left front corner, and headed directly for the right shoulder, thanking every power in the universe that there was very little traffic and that what there was stayed out of my way. Then I pulled out my phone and called the mechanic, who came for me post haste and must have asked 15 times in the 5 minute drive home if I was all right.

And you know, I really am. I’m a little strung out, but that’s going away fairly quickly. No one got hurt, no one got hit, and cars can be fixed. I made it home before the bus arrived. Joseph wasn’t with me to be scared or to distract me from managing a safe landing. There was even a guy kind enough to stop with a notion of putting my spare tire on for me so I could at least get somewhere, bless him. The mechanic pulled up just after he did, so he went on, but he was well and truly ready to try to put the spare tire on the van. I have empirical proof that my reflexes are still good, that I will not panic in a crisis and that what I refer to as my internal computer is one hot pilot.

Now, if y’all will excuse me, I believe I hear some yeast and flour calling my name. Could it be I’ve a bit of tension to work off, y’think?

Update: I think the mechanic is actually more horrified than I am by the debacle. I’ll have my car back in the morning. It will have new front rotors (I killed the old one on the left by driving on it, but he wants to be sure they wear evenly), a full set of new tires, (two I would understand, on the matching principal, but four?) a new wheel, and if the fender can’t be fixed (and I’m not clear on how it got bent, but it did), he’ll send it to the body shop and give me a loaner car while it’s being fixed. Anything he can do, he’s doing. He’s even doing things I wouldn’t have thought of. I will admit my tone was a bit sharpish when first I called for rescue, but this is above and beyond even my expectations.

Given the noises the company seeking a writer was making when they interviewed me, I called the recruiter yesterday around the end of the day and said to her voice mail: “I’m assuming their decision is no. When can we go over the other prospects you had that you thought had my name on them?” She called back, and in turn got my voice mail, informing me that this wasn’t over at all, and that the two people who need to make a decision weren’t in the office at the same time on Friday. Monday, she said, would be better. So all right. Patience is a virtue, and I shall cultivate it. You’d think, after a year, that I wouldn’t cavil over a day or two. But with employment close enough to taste, all such cultivated virtue seems to have been torn up by the roots.

I do have some concerns about this job anyway. They’ve never had a writer. They aren’t sure what the job description is. And while on the one hand this lets me make of it what I think it should be, on the other, it will be a case of the blind leading the blind. What is there that I don’t know to tell them? And do they realize, for example, that they need to provide me with the content of the proposals I am to write? I’m not sure they do. I can’t sit down at my keyboard and create a document out of thin air; I don’t command that kind of magic. It remains to be seen if they expect a wordsmith or a mage.

Right at the end of the business day, I finally heard from the recruiter. Her client wants more of a professional writing sample. Between hard drive crash and proprietary material, I don’t have much of a professional portfolio. But I redacted the heck out of something, so much so that the topic is left unspecified, and fired it off. The next step is to find the seminar materials I’ve written for CLE presentations over the years, photocopy them, and run them over. Meanwhile, I get to stay on hold. And I really hate hold music.

I don’t often comment on the books I read. Not that they aren’t legion, but other people are so much better at writing reviews than I that I leave it to them.

But I have been reading Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel. If you want something that will make you laugh yourself silly, I recommend this one highly. To say that it’s bizarre is to indulge in deadpan understatement. One of the characters is a fruit bat named Roberto who wears sunglasses. Really.

Interview is over. The company is interviewing one other candidate tomorrow, so I don’t have a definite answer. On the other hand, the interviewer asked me for references and told me she would might be calling them as soon as this afternoon, and asked if I would be available to come in for a bit before I start formally to meet people. I spent a lot of the interview giving her ideas on how to use the skills I bring in my magic bag of a brain. “I hadn’t thought of that – that would be really great” is a nice thing to hear in an interview. So is “if you need a flexible schedule, we can work with that – we care that the work gets done, not so much when”.

And the people I saw, and the ones I met, I like. I can work with these folks, I think. No one seemed horribly stressed, no one was looking over his or her shoulder. Everyone was busy, but it was still relatively laid back. All in all, it looks like an environment I can work well in. I’m thinking it would be a good match on both sides. They really do need a wordsmith, that much is clear. And my interviewer, at least, was pleased at the idea that I go write for fun at the end of the day; that it is a large part of how my mind plays as well as works. So I don’t have an offer in hand, but if I’m lucky I will soon. And much as I’ve enjoyed the time spent being Joseph’s Mommy first and foremost, it will be good to be working again.