I'm Your Man

"I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. There's a certain humor in realizing that. I can never figure out the kind of tie to put on in the morning. I don't have any strategy or plan to get through the day. It is literally a problem for me to decide which side of the bed to get out on. These are staggering problems. I remember talking to this Trappist monk in a monastery. He's been there twelve years. A pretty severe regime. I expressed my admiration for him and he said 'Leonard, I've been here twelve years and every morning, I have to decide whether I'm going to stay or not.' I knew exactly what he was talking about."

- Leonard Cohen

I interviewed last week for a new job. Not that I'm looking for a job — at all — as I'm generally quite content doing what I'm doing. Having built a decent client base, I'm now lucky enough to do work I enjoy from the comfort of my own home and get paid fairly for it. Pretty sweet business.

But this was a job I'd long dreamt of: designing for an international magazine in collaboration with its art director. The art director, whom I know, had brought the opening to my attention, which I took as a pretty solid foot in the door. It would be full time, meaning I'd have to give up my current clients to take it. A real life-changer, in other words, but it seemed too good an opportunity not to at least try for. Did I want my life changed? Maybe, maybe not. But I could put off making a decision about that until I was actually offered the job, should it come to that. And what could be a better state of mind going into a job interview than not caring whether you get it? Right?

There were, unfortunately, many hurdles before I could arrive at the real decision. I had to update my fancy, non-standard résumé; write a cover letter; put together an impressive portfolio; and spend money I didn't have on some wool pants at Club Monaco that are probably way too fancy to ever wear again. That all took a few days away from my work. And then the day before the interview I had to spend a few hours making sure I could talk about my portfolio in a way that made a story out of all the pieces, illustrating exactly how multitalented I am and why I'd be the best candidate for the job in question.

So, by the time I got to the actual interview the next day, I was well prepared, but also incredibly nervous. Weird how much I can still care what others think of me, even when I'm not sure I want what they have to offer. A friendly but very probing panel of four people had me recount my job history for them in the office of the magazine's editor-in-chief while they took notes. It turned out that they didn't want to look at my portfolio at all. Instead, they grilled me with questions about my professional and personal interests for an hour or so, often throwing things I'd said earlier back in my face if they detected inconsistencies in my alleged character. It was brutal — felt like a psychotherapy session on which I would be graded at the end.

Mostly, the questions kept coming back to why I wanted the job, what was going to excite me about it, how it fit in with my career plans. They knew I'd had some uncertainty about whether I should even apply for the position. They wanted evidence that it would keep me interested for awhile, that I wouldn't just find something new to become curious about in a couple of years.

I finally had to say, "Look, I'm not really what you'd call an ambitious person, and I don't like to think too much about what my future will be like. If I can work at a job where I like the people and the environment, and there's some degree of variety to what I do, I'm pretty good at being happy, whatever the actual job is. The only reason there's been any dilemma about this job is that I'm already happy where I am, and I'm also convinced that I'd be happy here. With no other factors pulling me one way or the other, I'm forced to turn the decision around into what I can give, rather than what I can get. I like you folks and the message of your magazine, and I think you're deserving of the services I have to offer, even if it means denying others those same service, so I'm here offering them to you if you want them."

I didn't get the job.

It kind of depressed me for a couple of days, I have to admit. I guess I'd gotten more excited about the prospect than I thought I had. But now I feel OK about it. My situation is exactly as it already was, and I'm glad that I don't have to give my clients — most of whom are pretty nice people — the old unjust heave-ho. I just sort of wish I'd never heard about the job in the first place, you know? I suppose it was a useful exercise to go through, although I really don't plan on applying for any other jobs, so an updated résumé and some tough interview experience are not completely useful to me. And I could've done without all that emotional drama, not to mention the wool pants.