Augustine,
I know you know this because we spoke on the phone today, but for posterity's sake...I found out today that I didn't get a job that I applied for. A job that I was more than qualified for (my previous position, just on a different team), where I knew the hiring manager very well--she's a long-time friend as well as a colleague.
What hurt the most is how personal the feedback felt--though I know it was given with the very best of intentions. I spoke too fast. I needed to pause longer for questions [though...I did]. Though this wasn't mentioned, I think that I really would've been better to have more explicit visual aids--they weren't required but I think it would have have helped. I found this out an hour and a half before another interview for a distinct position on the same broader team. The position that felt like more of a stretch for me, that I figured I would be less qualified for. Now all I can think about is how badly I feel like I flubbed that interview too.
I'm too much. My thinking is...jumpy. It's connected, but I don't always spell out all the pieces every time my brain makes connections because it moves too fast for me sometimes. I love context so sometimes I want to give that background for an example and I feel like that makes me long-winded. Or rambly. And this time I felt like I was so vague in some of my responses so as to not be helpful. I feel. sunk.
I know that I need to move past this. That whatever happens, today's interview is in the past. Me not getting the first job I applied to is also in the past. It can't be undone or redone or fixed. But I'm prone to ruminating.
Why wasn't I enough? Why does my mind work like this? Why is it that I know the importance of thinking before speaking and collecting my thoughts so that I can seem poised but as soon as I'm asked a question I panic or get so excited that I can't stop? My mind can't stop, it never seems to stop. Isn't this a strength as well as a weakness? My mind can dart quickly and make connections where they might not occur to other people. I can flit through a problem and visualize all of the different pieces, playing it through. Why couldn't they see that? Why can't I explain that better? Why can't I rein myself in? What if I fail here too? What if I don't feel and I occasionally have to work with team members who...it feels like judged me. Didn't want me for something that just...I don't know. It could be a big deal, maybe they just didn't understand me at all, couldn't see the ideas through my words. But I didn't think I was so bad as to be incomprehensible. Maybe I'm losing self-awareness. I need to do better. I need to consider this feedback and grow from it. I don't feel ready to do that yet. But maybe tomorrow I will.
I could write for longer. Sometime I should, maybe it would help. I should write until my fingertips have poured out all of the thoughts in my head (Would there be an end? Or would I just end up going in circles?). And then I should pare it back. But honestly...in writing I'm given the gift of time. I've wrangled all my thought sheep before leading them out of the pen--it takes me awhile to do it, but I do that before I ever start typing. Spoken words are different. Even if I take a pause as soon as my mouth opens I end up at the mercy of the connections that my brain makes, thoughts that trace and trip through my lips.
Today, I feel sad. I still did the interview anyways and I tried my best even if I feel badly about it now. Tomorrow, I will focus on my thesis. I will pour myself into something else, something that feels positive instead of soul-crushing, even if it also feels a little bit daunting. Maybe the day after I will begin to figure out a way to make myself fit. To figure out how I'm going to pare and prune the thought trees that spring up at the easiest spark. To focus. To make myself fit in the ways that I need to in order to feel better about myself in front of others. I will practice and practice and practice until I can fake it. And I will keep the soft, rambly, connected core of myself and protect it. I will cherish it and hide it, keeping it only for the people whom I can entrust it to. Maybe it doesn't fit, maybe this is one way that I am not enough in this moment at this time. But I can save that part of my heart for a team that I've built trust with, who will see beyond the weaknesses and to the strengths embedded within.
+Athena
It's been over a year since I wrote this. In the time inbetween, I found out that I didn't get the second job I applied to [though I am not positive of this, I am convinced that I was right, that I did flub the second interview because I was so...thrown].
ReplyDeleteI ended up back at the institution, but in a different department. And it took almost six months.
Ironically my colleague and friend ended up applying for and getting a different job, and we had the farewell today. I'm very happy for them, truly. But in the farewell today I was just reminded of it all...I saw people from the teams I interviewed with--knowing they rejected me. I heard positive things from the new team members [who didn't know that I had applied. That their joy in joining the team was a reminder of my sorrow, my rejection.]
While I have in theory moved past this, while I love my new team, while I love my current project--despite the chaos. There is a part of me that knows that I've only moved past this because I can't really deal with it. That I don't see any way of dealing with it, because I know in my head that the rejection wasn't personal, that it was a job and I didn't prove myself to be the best candidate--and that happens sometimes. And that's on me. But in my heart it still feels raw and gaping sometimes, this thing that is unfair to speak about, that is just emotion and not reason. But it still is.
[And so I write here instead.]