Today I was scrambling to get it together for something I hadn't done in some time: a formal work interview. This may sound strange but after building up a small, effective infrastructure I have been managing on contracts now for some time. Occasionally, I'll receive one of those ubiquitous online job postings to my in-box. And today's locale? Downtown. Brick and greenery. A building no more than 10 years old, if memory serves. A very reputable business with ties locally, regionally and nationally, and I was nervous. Now, I am no shrinking violet. Socially, I can play table-top caps with the best of my group at the local pub. In work dealings I am always a professional provider of words, who takes pride in delivering an impeccable product, whether it is a user guide, magazine article, forecasting report, online content, SEO strategy, or an operations manual. Working well with people is kind of a necessity these days, and I think I manage relationships fairly well.
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| "Pick ME! I'm Different!" |
But heading downtown, I was nervous. Not because I doubted my abilities. Not because I'd been out of the game for too long - I hadn't. And not because the scope of the position was beyond me. On the contrary, it was right up my ally. I think I've been so long involved in short and medium term contracts - which, mind you, are acquired under a different set of rules from full-time positions - that I think I forgot about the pace, the hustle and bustle, and the flowing bodies along corridors and between the cubicles. The water cooler cavalcade would be new to me again. Finding a parking spot would be new again. Navigating the ever-present and multi-various personalities would be new again.
So I think this nervousness was also a bit of excitement. Like when you happen to be in your old university town and you decide to drive around the buildings, breathing in all that is new, yet feeling on the very hairs of your skin the absolute familiarity of it all. There is a wash of warmth. An understanding. And I realize I am not nervous, or in the steely grip of trepidation. I am excited by possibility, and of learning new things. I am excited by the gamble of being one of a small handful of potential candidates being considered for this interesting position. My ego tells me I'm the one, but who really knows. I won't find out for a over a week.
Change is good. It's exciting. It refreshes the long-stare perspective and lightens the step. And now, the interview is over and I am home waiting for my daughter to finish dance class, and for my partner to call me to pick her up, and all while I tic-a-tap, tic-a-tap the keyboard the last bits to a piece of a TOM manual I am working on for a local tech shack.
Maybe next week things will be different. Maybe they will remain as such. All we can really do is our best when trying to reshape, update or situate ourselves. Then we can slip into the current, close our eyes, and calmly anticipate where the invisible hand of fate may guide us this time.
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