How To Not Get Hired For A Job.

There are many ways to not get hired for a job. Someone may be a better candidate, you might not have the right training or enough experience. It could be because you're not the right fit for the job, or because your interview will be used as the example for the WORST. INTERVIEW. EVER. for years to come.

This is one of those stories.

How to NOT get the job you've applied for:

When contacted for an interview, respond that you are only available at specific times on certain days. Really show that you're not at all flexible, nor do you really care about when is convenient for anyone else except you.

When a time for an interview is (finally) agreed upon, email back and ask to change that time.

Next - show up for the interview. At the original time when you were supposed to meet - but you asked to change. Don't get out of your car even when I'm walking around doing things around you. Don't smile or make eye contact. Sit on your phone texting and smoking in your car while I greet another interviewee.

After I've taken that interviewee to fill out the pre-interview form, take your time getting out of your car. Meander over half heartedly while I'm starting to interview someone else. Look at the signs posted asking you to have a seat and fill out the pre-interview form. Before you do this you should press your face to the glass on the windows and stare in the windows as I'm interviewing someone else.

As I come to get you for your interview, hold your hand up for me to wait for you as you finish reading the page in your book. Don't worry, I have lots of time and nothing else to do today, please, finish your page and let me know when you're ready.

When I say 'Goodmorning, how're you?' reply with a curt 'Hi' and follow it up with a longer answer of 'Fine.' Don't ask how I am, smile, make eye contact or try to shake my hand when I invite you in. Instead, clutch your travel mug and look at the chair in front of you like you've never seen it before. Really glare at it. Or don't. You seem to be staring at it intently like you don't know what to do in a situation where chairs are present, but I can't really judge what your eyes are saying because you're still wearing your oversized sunglasses. Inside.

When I ask you to tell me about yourself, instead of telling me what you're doing, what you want to do or what you enjoy - tell me that you just want a job to make lots of money before you start your a real adult job. Really make me feel like you couldn't care less about the job I have open.

When I ask you about your availability - make sure to really stress that you don't want to work weekends, even though I've mentioned numerous times that they're our busiest time. Also make sure to point out the numerous times when you're going to be a scheduling nightmare because you *need* days off before you're even hired.

If I ask you if you have experience with certain things and ask you to talk about it, or tell me where you've had experience with it - stare at me with your mouth open at the audacity to ask about these things. Then, take your resume from my hand and go through it, looking at various jobs and saying "Yeah, I have cash register experience from working at.... Subway. And when I was working...at....uhhh....McDonalds" Really show that you can't even remember where you've worked before. Makes me really confident that you're not on the ball at all.

When I ask you to tell me three things I can always expect from you - tell me that you'll be on time, you'll only call in sick when you're actually sick and that you wouldn't show up to work hungover or something like that. Make sure I know that you're already thinking about calling in sick and getting drunk before work. Also - I wasn't sure - but does being REALLY hungover count as being "actually" sick?

Next - when you're invited to share some example from your own experiences, be able to come up with nothing. Even though I've given you almost 15 minutes to fill out the pre-interview form (which you have indeed filled out!) with the EXACT SAME QUESTION I just asked you on it. Have absolutely no answer until I point out that maybe you've written something down on your pre-interview form that could be used as an example.

Finally - go completely off topic from a question I have asked you and tell me that "the customer is right 95% of the time but sometimes they're bitches so you have to tell it to them like it is" while my jaw DROPS TO THE FLOOR.

Add all of these things, mix together and you have the perfect candidate for someone who I would never ever in a million years hire - which begs the question - why the HELL did you come to the interview in the first place?!

On the other hand - If you were looking to not get hired and be the worst interview I've ever had? CONGRATS! You ARE the winner - and let me tell you - I've had some doozies - but no one QUITE as *special* as you.

PS - The reasons I'm not hiring you should be pretty obvious, but I have a funny feeling that you're not going to *get* it - so just know this: It's not me...It's DEFINITELY you.

Balance Shmalance. Or Something Like That.

When I was little I hated the seesaw. Like, actually really really hated it. Swings? Sure. Slides? Sign. Me. Up. Seesaws? Hell-to-the-no. Let's just not go there. The back and forth. The up and down. The constant flipping back and forth between one extreme to another but not always knowing when one was happen, or when someone could keep you trapped in the air? UGH. So not my deal. I constantly felt like I was holding on for dear life, like I was about to be catapulted into the air or smashed into the ground - so many things throwing me off kilter - so not cool.

I've spent a lot of my life looking for balance between things, searching for it high and low. I've had dreams about it, imagined it and pondered it until I'm blue in the face. I've spent years trying to get to that place where I am balanced - so balanced that I forget about trying to find balance...and it has happened for a few brief glimmers in time. When things fall into place and a good rhythm happens - but then (usually sooner rather then later) something gets thrown off - someone leans left, pushes a little too hard or jumps off - and suddenly you're left holding the bag - realizing that you've completely lost the balance you so desperately craved - so desperately needed.

I don't know why I've always been so obsessed with balance, I guess I've just always thought that it was something important, that we all need. Balance between friends and family. Balance between work and time off. Balance between this and that...and on and on.

Alas - it's one of those things that usually alludes me...and if I do manage to achieve some semblance of balance...I start to notice it and try to capture it...and that's when all of the bricks of balance crumble.

Turns out a life built with balance likes to self destruct when acknowledged.

Or maybe that's just MY life.

ANYWAY.

Things have been way out of balance lately. Work is work..and certain bits are wearing at me. Family is exhausting me on so many levels. My personal life and/or friendships are virtually non-existent...and my love life? Ha. That's beyond laughable..to the point of being pathetic.

I feel completely and totally thrown off balance..in a horrible way...but the thing is...every time I try to pull myself up and back to a state where I can find some sort of balance..something throws me off again.  A bad day, a big fight, disappointing news - so many things that pull me down out of my zone of happiness and throw me off balance.

Which is making me wonder if the balance I crave is at all attainable, or just a pipe dream. Makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong, what I can change - what I can fix.

I'm starting to think that maybe it's not the balance that's off - but instead...maybe it's my way of looking at things that's skewed. I've lived my entire life craving balance - this insatiable need to find common ground between things, to make them work together so that everything is even, so that everything flows smoothly and there is a calmness about everything. I've found myself in varying states of euphoria or depression when things don't work out the way my mind has decided they should go; when things are wonderful, when things are horrible, when things are anything but smooth and easy.

Which is why I've come to wonder if maybe I need to change my idea of balance. Maybe instead of thinking that I need to have this perfectly 'balanced' life where things are just peaceful and easy and wonderful because there aren't too many extremes - maybe I just need to learn how to take the highs and the lows, instead of just finding the route that causes the least extremes in either direction. Realizing that each day may bring bad things, sad things, things that hurt my heart and my soul - but knowing that there are also things each day that bring a smile to my face, things that fill my heart with joy and happiness, things that light up my life - even if they're just little things.

Maybe I just need to learn how to not be afraid of the extremes - as long as neither one is too long, or too deep - as long as there is an equal extreme on the other side - doesn't that mean it balances each other out? Doesn't that mean that in some weird way, I am getting the balance I've wanted all along? Even if it's not exactly the way I dreamed about it happening? Even if the method is a little different than I wanted, even if it's not the most enjoyable or the most comfortable *all* of the time - it can still be fun, there are still good things, and those down moments? They make me appreciate the up ones so much more. They make me want to work towards pushing myself up and out of the depths of the bad parts of days, into the sunlight and happiness that I know exists.

Half of me wants to just accept this, realizes that it's rational. That it makes sense. There can not always be all good things, just like there cannot always be all bad things. We flip flop between the two, doing our best to make the best out of both extremes. We take solace in the days where things go smoothly, nothing goes too awry and we can just...be...but know that the days when the happiness or sadness overcome us..those days have their places too. I'm starting to realize that some days it's okay to flip between the two extremes, with some middle ground thrown in for good measure. That it's okay to embrace my emotions instead of being upset with them - knowing that they all have their place in this crazy game of life...even when you want to resist it and find something where there are no extremes and life just flows easily back and forth, back and forth..

Basically...I need to get off my swing and learn to like the seesaw...don't I?

Dammit.