A Hopeless Conclusion

“So, what qualities do you possess that you feel would allow you to be successful as a Personal Banking Specialist?” the portly women asked as she gave me her no-nonsense, work face.

The truth was that I possessed none of the qualities that would be of any use at this awful job. The way I saw it, any of the positive qualities she was referring to would only hinder one’s performance in this position. She, on the other hand, had a much different opinion. If directly asked, she’d say she wanted “go-getters” and “self-starters” or whatever other crap they called them under this corporate umbrella. That was, of course, bullshit. What she wanted, or rather what she needed, were people in the middle of the pack. No one too bright, no one too ambitious. Just people who thought this was a great job. People who fit the mold of the over-achieving portion of the bottom of the heap. The best the below average had to offer. People tired of working at department stores who were excited to be offered dental insurance. On the surface, the job sounded somewhat favorable: Personal Banking Specialist, or a PBS” she informed me. The function of the PBS was to work at a branch location for the bank and perform various services for customers, ranging from dealing with problems or opening checking accounts to handling home equity lines of credit. PBSs weren’t tellers, but rather the other people who were usually seated at desks in the lobby of a traditional bank. To hear the portly women describe it, PBSs were the life blood of the entire corporation. She explained how PBSs needed to be able to multi-task and wear many different hats. They needed to be sales savvy one minute and compassionate and service oriented the next. She went on about some other details but I drifted after a few minutes and began to wonder how long she had been doing this. How long had she been hiring people for this job? Did she really believe all this crap? Had she always? Or, was she like me at some point, smiling during an interview while privately thinking “Oh.Dear.God”. Had she done this so many times that she eventually started to believed the words coming out of her own mouth? Was it similar to the way we can sometimes convince ourselves that “I wasn’t that drunk last night” or that “I didn’t say that loud enough for her to actually hear me” if only we replay the situation over in our minds enough times. Had this women finally drank the coolaide and bought in to the idea that this was a noble profession and the job we were performing mattered? Her next question interrupted my train of thought.

“In your past experience, tell me about a time when you have had to resolve a disagreement with a co-worker and how were you able to move forward from there in a positive manner?” she said with a ridiculous grin on her face as if she’d discovered she had me in a check-mate.

Her expression made me want to stand up, tip my coffee over on the table and just walk out of the room without saying a word. I didn’t want this job and my body language was dangerously close to revealing that fact. Yet, I needed it. At least I thought I needed it. The job search had taken its toll on me and I had admitted temporary defeat, and thus, had given into the idea of settling. I find “settling” to be one of the more underrated words in the English language in terms of descriptive power. It says so much in such a little way. Regardless of the subject, any time “settling” is implied, all those that hear it understand the message loud and clear: Not what I wanted. The more important the subject, the more likely we are to avoid using the actual word, yet that never really hides its existence. “They were out of the turkey, so I settled for the roasted chicken sandwich” won’t turn heads. However, when your 32-year old, single friend tells you he is excited about his third date with the unattractive girl he met online, you understand that he has recognized its time to settle.

And so here I was, settling. While it may sound smug for someone to say a job is beneath them, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. I was vastly over-qualified for this position simply based off the company’s own requirements. That’s what made this situation so tricky. I was obviously aware of this, as was my portly friend across the table. I was having to choke down my pride and do my best impersonation of someone who really wanted this job while she tried to judge how well I was pulling off the act. It was in many ways similar to the situation you see in bars around closing time. Intoxicated males circling whats left of the unclaimed, less-intoxicated females. Each male fending off question as to why, for the better portion of the night, he had ignored which ever less desirable female he was now engaging. The girl wants to be courted, although she understands that circumstances have been altered. She isn’t being chosen above the others on a level playing field, rather, she’s being chosen out of what’s left. While she is wise to this, it doesn’t turn her away completely. She just wants the male to try to convince her that isn’t the case. Give just enough effort so that she can suspend disbelief and retain as much pride as possible before going forward with what she would like to do anyway. That’s what was going on between me and my plump little friend. She knew what the economy had done to the job market and thus she knew why I was courting this position. It was 2am and she was the heavy girl at the bar, well aware of why I’d suddenly taken an interest in her. She wanted to move forward with my advances, but knowing she had the upper hand, she wanted me to work for it. She wanted to me to attempt to convince her that my motives were pure. Even though she would never believe it, she was enjoying her power position and was going to make me work.

In many respects, interviewing for a job you don’t want is far more difficult than interviewing for one you covet, as it is much easier to show and display genuine emotion than it is to falsely act like you care. I’ve now been in more interviews, or “meetings”, over the past seven months than I could accurately recall and in that time, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss a handful of positions I truly wanted. In most of these cases, I was under-qualified and probably didn’t deserve the particular position I was showcasing for, however, my emotion and energy gave me much more of a fighting chance than I should have naturally had. In the business world, “want to” is a valuable commodity. It’s hard to completely dismiss someone who is able to convey that he wants the job and is ready to fight for it. Likewise, nothing makes a hiring manager’s decision easier than when someone’s body language reveals he or she is less than excited about a possible position.

So with that in mind, I continued on, enthusiastically answering every generic question this generic women had: “In a team environment, what role do you feel you most naturally take on?”, “What do you feel is the key to connecting with and understanding a customer?”, “Give me some examples of how you have demonstrated your ability to multi-task.”…and on and on they went. For the most part, it was a simple fill-in the blank test in which you knew the questions before hand. Anyone who’d done a minimal amount of preparation should have had a canned answer for 90% of the things I was being asked. The last 30 or 40 minutes in that room were a blur. When we were through, I felt I’d done all that was necessary, but, couldn’t be sure. Somewhere around the midway point, the lying and faking diluted my perception and I could no longer gauge how “real” I was acting. For all I know, I might have been rolling my eyes by the end of it.

Two weeks later I received a call. Not from the company, but from the friend who’d helped me get the interview. He informed me that I would be getting an offer and could expect a call soon. I again pretended to be excited and over thanked him for all his help, then put the phone down and waited. When the call came an hour later, I couldn’t even bring myself to answer the phone and it went through to voicemail. After listening to the message, it still took me another 3 hours to return the call. I spent that time thinking about how pathetic my situation was. This wasn’t the ending I’d envisioned. This wasn’t the great break-through that would afford me the opportunity to explain to friends and family that “I’d been worried there for a while, but it has now all worked out in the end”. I’d day dreamed about how those conversation would go and the relief I would feel when this process was over, but, now it was clear those talks and emotions would have to wait. I’d have to tuck them away and bury them next to my pride as I began the new job I never wanted, the one I’d settled for.