More Interviews

I'm girding myself for another job interview. It's going to be one of those where I will hold at least some of the cards.

Recently I found myself in one of those scenarios that you hear about, but always question its authenticity. You apply for a job and if you're lucky you get short-listed. Then, if your luck holds,you're called forward for an interview where you say some good things and some less good things and some things you later realize could not possibly have been manufactured by your brain and expelled by your mouth unless you were driven slightly mad by nerves.  Then, if you haven't messed up too much, you become the subject of a final paper sift in what used to be a smoke-filled room but is now a room of plastic cups of sparkling water and graze-boxes where a decision is made to go with the other guy. And then that's the end of that. Except on this occasion. it wasn't. So completely unexpectedly I've been contacted again and asked if I'm still interested. It really can happen. This means I'm a shoo-in right? Not necessarily.

I've been in the market now for over a year and I've learnt a few things: not necessarily just how to starve, freeze,walk everywhere and reacquaint myself with the shop damaged stall in Tesco. I have also learned that nothing should be taken for granted. The employers of this job might not have loved the other guy slightly more than me, placing a cigarette paper between two stellar possibilities and tossing a coin, knowing that whichever way it fell they would win, instead they might have loathed me. The final two might have been one no-hoper (me) which helped make the process of recruitment appear legal, and one star in the making, whose desk was already being sprinkled by the office angel, his inside leg measurements already sent off to the office chair makers and discreet inquiries already instigated about any lactose or sugar intolerances for the forthcoming edit to the brew-list. The appointment might have been a paen to the inevitable with me nothing more than ballast - a balance-weight, a nod to fairness: an alternative to an illegal anointment.  So, I expect an interview, yes. But that's the extent of my optimism.