Yesterday morning, Daisy was supposed to have a third interview with a company she'd applied to work at. She'd had two other ones before -- one phone interview and one in-person interview -- and this third one was supposed to be another phone interview. Why? Don't ask me; I personally think that's a bit of overkill.
Anyway, the phone interview was supposed to be at 8AM. 8AM came and went, and there was no call. "Maybe I thought they said 8, but they really said 9," Daisy said. So she waited up some more. 9AM came and went, and still no call.
"Are you sure they were supposed to call you, instead of you calling them?" I asked. She nodded.
So there was no third interview with these people. After 9AM, she silenced her phone and went to bed -- she had to, as last night was her first night back to work for the week, and that meant she had to sleep through the day. Either they forgot to call/schedule it, or they otherwise no longer cared about her as a viable candidate. I do think it was rather shitty, though, to leave Daisy hanging without telling her anything. That's poor form. She hadn't missed any calls when she woke up, either, which meant that they hadn't attempted to call all day.
This doesn't really matter now, though.
Last night, after waiting for almost three months to find out, Daisy was finally officially promoted by her company to the position she's been doing on an interim basis since long before we were married. The promotion carries a higher salary on the upside, yes, but also has the drawback of her being "on call" 24/7, even when she's off work and/or on vacation. They'll issue her a special cell phone that she'll need to keep on and charged at all times, apparently. When will she get this cell phone? She doesn't know, and she's so not going to bring it up with them until she has to, for obvious reasons.
Other than that, though? Well, she's still doing the same job she's been doing, so nothing else has really changed (or will change). She just gets paid a bit more for it now than she did before. Of course, we're both happy about this, at least to a certain extent, especially since I am still currently unemployed.
I got my literature in the mail yesterday for my interview at the university next week. Inside the envelope was a bunch of info about the university itself as well as a parking pass, instructional letter, and itinerary for the interview itself -- consisting of meeting times, discussion times, presentation/Q&A times, and my dismissal-from-campus time. I read through it briefly, the entire time thinking, again, this is a lot of burned calories and effort for a temporary position, it really is.
"So you got your promotion tonight," I said to Daisy. "Has there been any mention whatsoever of why they haven't called me back after two interviews there?"
As you may recall, and as I've written about here before, ever since my interviews with Daisy's company, nobody has gotten back to me about anything. Either they completely dropped the ball on me, they hired a bunch of other people without telling me or Daisy that the positions have been filled, or they (for some reason) thought I was too stupid to do the job...the latter of which I don't assume to be the case, since I have two degrees and gave what, in my mind, was a damn decent interview. No, it wasn't the best interview in the world, but it was still good. It's not like I did or said anything that would've fucked up my chances.
"No, I didn't have the chance to ask yet," she said.
I also have the advantage of having gone to the company July 4th party with Daisy last week, so I got to meet several other workers and two other managers/supervisors Daisy works with. It's not like they don't know who I am, but it's also not them who do the hiring.
"If they did call you and want to offer you the job, would you rather work at [her company] or at [the university]?"
"Psh," I said. "There with you. No question. The university job entails going to other schools and colleges and talking to people, being the face of undergraduate admissions, which means I actually have to be active and go out and drive around and put on a fake smile and all that. I want an office job where I sit at a desk in front of a computer for my shift, take a smoke break when I want or need to, and then come home when it's done."
Plus, and I'll remind you readers this for posterity's sake -- the university position is temporary, and I'm not going to take a temp job over a sure thing. If there's one thing I do know about Daisy's company, it's that as long as you can do the work, don't make waves, and don't break the rules...it's stable, steady employment in an industry that's not going away anytime soon, employment with a company that's been growing exponentially since the late 80s. If the university were offering me a teaching position with full benefits and/or the possibility of tenure, it would be different. It's not.
So, with six days before this huge presentation/interview thing, I'm actually sort of hoping that someone else calls me back and offers me a job somewhere, or at least offers me an interview that would lead to a job, just so I have an excuse not to make up this mock presentation and go through with this interview for a job that I really don't want to do -- especially now that I see what it entails a little more clearly. I just don't think I'm the right person for this position, honestly, and now it feels like I'm so far in that I should just bite the bullet and grit my teeth through this interview even though I don't want to.
It's not just now that I've felt like this, either. I've been feeling more and more like this for the past week or so, and it's just...well, frustrating. Even if I were to get the job, and even if I were to actually like the job, it ends in a few months (since it's a temp position) and I'm stuck where I am now once more. I'm not sure I should sacrifice other opportunities of continuing work to jump on a temporary position even if it's offered to me -- especially if between now and the interview I get some calls and requests for other interviews/positions. So I'm sort of stuck, torn on what to do even now.
Still, here's the thing -- no matter what happens, no matter whether this big important interview goes good or bad -- if I have to do it, it's still only two hours out of my life. It's a drop in the bucket of time spent, so to speak. Who knows whether they'll want me or not, and who knows how many other candidates they have that they're interviewing in the same way.
"You mean you didn't ask how many other people they're interviewing?" Daisy asked me over the weekend.
"...no, I didn't," I said. "I figured that would've been in slightly bad taste."
"Why?" she asked, with a surprised look on her face.
"Well, I mean...who asks that?"
"A lot of people."
I've never asked that question about any job I've interviewed for. Ever. Again, I consider it poor etiquette at best, and bad taste at worst, to ask how many other people are fighting for the job. Maybe that's just me, but it's just not something that crosses my mind when I'm in an interview.
But one thing did cross my mind after this discussion... what if I'm literally the only one?
I mean, that's possible at least. I doubt it, but it's possible. Then I began to think about all of the pomp-and-circumstance of the interview process again. Would they do that if they had a bunch of candidates lined up? Would they set up two-hour interviews with parking passes, literature, itineraries, and presentations for ten candidates? Five? Three, even?
I don't know. The university up here operates a hell of a lot differently than the ones I've worked for in the past. Who knows, frankly, how they do things, or how they make their decisions and do their screening processes? I certainly don't. I only know that Daisy went to and graduated from there, and that I have one friend working there in a different department. But that's it. I'm in a whole different ballpark up here when it comes to this place. Ahem, so to speak.
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