Mine for the Taking

My alarm woke me at 6am and groggily, I tried to remember why I was awake that early. Then I recalled I had an interview – my first interview in three months – at 9:30am. It was with one of the most prestigious advertising firms in The City, and I had done very little in the way of preparation. Three months ago I had spent weeks preparing for consulting interviews, and hadn’t expected that I would end up without a single job offer and forced to apply to anything else I could get my hands on. Although, working for this advertising firm would nonetheless be very agreeable with me: it was well-known, in the heart of The City, and most importantly, paid. I sat down in front of the glowing computer screen, still downloading How I Met Your Mother Seasons 3 and 4, and pulled up the company website. I made mental notes as I clicked through their site, then reviewed the job posting and my cover letter. I knew nothing about the advertising industry, and there was no such thing as third-year advertising courses in The Business School. I could only hope to win them over with my charm and wit. I quickly showered, attempted to straighten my hair, printed out my resume, and stuffed a full outfit into my purse. I was to meet WAF and OBF after the interview and I did not want to go to lunch in my business formal clothes.

I was ten minutes early for my interview and took the time to examine my surroundings. Their office was in a building situated literally at the heart of The City. They had one floor on the building, and the entire place looked like a post-modern art gallery. The walls were white, with sheer metallic light fixtures hanging from an exposed cement ceiling. Low white couches lined the windows, across from wooden chairs. Dispersed among the walls were framed print advertisements – a portfolio of their work. Far to the left, there appeared to be a bar area, with high swivel chairs and a single beer on tap.

Fifteen minutes later, a tall, thin girl with wavy highlighted hair came to greet me and escorted me to The Meeting Room. They only had one. It was encased in glass, with six black, leather swivel chairs around an oval table. “My colleague will be with us shortly,” Thin Girl said with a smile, flashing her perfectly aligned teeth. Sure enough, a man in his mid-twenties with short brown hair and large round eyes joined us moments later in The Meeting Room. Thin Girl and Round Eyes introduced themselves and gave me their name cards. Then they began the questions.
“What is the best advertisement you’ve seen?” Today? This week? Ever?
“What is the worst advertisement you’ve seen?” Uh… I don’t know. Maybe some viral videos on Youtube?
“Tell us something interesting about yourself.” One time, I was obsessed with pad thai, and went to every thai restaurant in The City and tried their pad thai.
“If you were to create an advertising campaign for the restaurant with the best pad thai, how would you do it?” My mind went blank. What’s an advertising campaign?
“I would change their signage,” I finally blurted out. I remember they had really ugly signage. “And they were named ‘Thai Spring Rolls’ but their spring rolls really weren’t that great. I would change it to something about pad thai… like Awesome Pad Thai or something.” Thin Girl and Round Eyes exchanged looks.
Near the end of the interview, I asked them what I would have to do in the Account Management position.
“Oh, didn’t you hear? It’s actually the Interactive and Digital Media position now.”
I blinked.
“I’m sorry no one told you, we thought you knew.”
“So, what will I be doing?”
“You’d be working on projects for social media, viral videos, those sorts of things…” My earlier comment about hating Youtube viral videos flashed in my mind. Fuck.

In other words, the interview did not go well. Clearly, I was unprepared. I had not thought up any answers actually related to advertising, such as best and worst advertisements, or how to run an advertising campaign (or what running an “advertising campaign” even means). Aside from the fact that I made them chuckle a few times (maybe out of pity), it was disastrous. Did I really talk about my pad thai obsession for ten minutes? I wondered incredulously as I took the elevator down to ground level. Awesome Pad Thai? That is a horrible name! What was I thinking? I left the building. How could I not come up with an example for “worst advertisement”? I could have picked anything! Axe! Commercials that offend women! Come on! I found a washroom and ducked inside to change out of my interview clothes. And when they asked about the brand with the most loyalty, why did I pick Coke? Right after, they countered my example with Pepsi. I mean, I was totally asking for that! My feet marched me out of the building and to the nearest convenience store. I bought a pack of cigarettes. In the aftermath of my horrendous interview, I needed to make my brain stop working. And oxygen deprivation seemed like a good idea.

I am probably never going back in that building again, I thought, as I stepped back onto the pavement and gazed at the majestic building I had just exited.

My feet carried me forward. Before I knew it, I was back at my high school, which was only two blocks away. By then, I was feeling slightly less panicked, although now I was washed with a sinking feeling of despair. This had been my chance to get a job in The City, and I blew it. If I can’t find another job in a week, I may have to go back to University Town for the rest of the summer.

I called WAF and OBF to check when they were coming down to meet me for lunch. OBF didn’t pick up, but WAF picked up and listened to me as I related to her my disastrous interview. She promised to come down as soon as possible, but I still had an hour and a half to kill (I had woken her up and she lives far uptown). I went into the library and looked through two yearbooks that had been published after my year. Even though I didn’t know most of the people in the photos, it made me nostalgic. I yearned for simpler times, when life wasn’t this complicated and the world seemed like it was mine for the taking.

With an hour left to kill, I went to see my old yearbook advisor (and English teacher). We chatted for half an hour. She was very impressed to hear I had just had an interview with The Advertising Firm. I was surprised she’d heard of them – but then again, given my interview, clearly I was the clueless one. Seeing how excited she was that one of her students may be working for The Advertising Firm, I refrained from telling her how badly the interview had gone and instead gave a tight-lipped smile.

Finally, I headed to Jack Astor’s, where WAF said she’d meet me. I got us a spot on the patio and chain-smoked while I waited. Across the patio, a middle-aged man who was thinning on top gave me a crooked smile. I turned away, pretending not to have noticed. When I looked back, he was still smiling at me. Crooked Smile was with two buddies, looked to be in his late thirties, and was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. It didn’t seem like he worked nearby, as we were on the edge of the financial district and he was definitely not dressed like a banker. I kicked myself for not having brought my sunglasses, if not for the sun on the patio then at least to avoid the leer of the middle-aged perv.

WAF finally arrived, none too soon, and I managed to ignore the stranger sitting across the patio while I recounted the interview to her. She then updated me on her (very dramatic) love life, starting with breaking up with her abusive boyfriend, and then having an affair with a taken drug dealer (not necessarily in that order). Throughout our animated discussion, I noticed Crooked Smile was still throwing me appreciative glances. I decided not to mention him to WAF, because I knew WAF would jump at the opportunity to strike up a conversation with an older man who might buy us drinks. She seems to have a preference for sketchy situations. I, on the other hand, was not that comfortable with meeting thirty-going-on-forty year-old men who leer at young women on patios and who-knows-where-else.

Eventually, OBF joined us on the patio as well, and I filled her in on my morning.
“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as you think,” she said, after she heard my story.
I blinked twice. “Did you not hear my pad thai story? My ‘I don’t like viral videos’ schpiel? Oh wait, that’s what they’re hiring!”
“But that’s not your fault! If anything, they should have made sure you knew about the change.”
“Even without that comment, it was a horrible interview. I really should have prepared more.”
I paused to let it sink in.
“Fuck!” I shouted, slamming my fist down on the table. “Why am I such an idiot? It just kills me that I babbled in there like an idiot when I actually could be the best candidate for this job! It kills me! And it’s all my fault. You know? It’s my fault. The same thing happened this term, when I decided not to study for my finals. At all. If I fuck those up, it’ll be my fault too.”
I knew I was whining but I couldn’t stop.
“It’s so hard to maintain motivation when effort and result don’t correlate. Sometimes, I really try but I don’t get rewarded, and sometimes I don’t try at all and things just fall into my lap. It doesn’t make sense! I’ve always accepted the fact that life’s not fair, but I still hate it. It’s not fair that there are people dumber than me, who try less hard than me, in these amazing summer internships, while I remain unemployed. It’s not fair that there are people with these amazing connections in the biggest banks, the most prestigious consulting firms, and the most well-known accounting companies, while my parents struggle to wrap their heads around the idea of investment banking. It’s not fair.”
WAF and OBF nodded silently.
“And I know that even those people have their hardships, and I’m just whining from my side of the fence, but why does everything have to be so hard? I am tired of everything being so hard, you know? I am tired of working hard in school when it doesn’t even pay off; I am tired of doing all those extra-curriculars when no one gives a shit and still compares me to people who have no part-time job and no other commitments; and I am tired of prepping for interviews that don’t even go anywhere!”
There was nothing for my friends to say except to offer their condolences. I took another drag on my cigarette. Even though it was a beautiful day and I was sitting on a patio above The City drinking cocktails with two close friends, I felt miserable.

After a few drinks and a few more cigarettes (on their part – I had stopped drinking and smoking when I started getting a headache), we left the patio and started shopping. There was a Forever21 nearby that was teeming with other 20-year-olds dying to update their closet for the summer, and we left WAF in the long line-up for the change room, because OBF and I had tickets to The Clothing Show.

OBF was surprisingly tipsy after her beers, and she said so as she swayed next to me in the streetcar line-up.
“I’m sorry I said that thing about you and MFL earlier.”
“Hm?” I looked at her, trying not to smile as I watched her sway.
“You know, about how I want you and MFL to get back together. I take that back. I want you to do whatever makes you happiest.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.
“Although,” she continued, “my boyfriend really wants you to.” OBF‘s boyfriend was friends with both of us, but he was better friends with MFL than me. He was very nerdy, and I was surprised to hear that he had an opinion about MFL and I. But then, it seems that all of our friends do, so maybe I should stop feeling surprised by now.
“He is a real champion of you two. He’s certain you’ll get back together some day. In fact, he said at our wedding,” I raised an eyebrow at this, but she ignored me, “you would be a bridesmaid and MFL would be a groomsmen and then you two would have to walk down the aisle together.”
I was in momentary shock. OBF‘s boyfriend, the biggest nerd I have ever known (and I have known a lot of pretty big nerds), had actually come up with a scheme to reunite MFL and I?
As if reading my mind (or maybe my expression gave it away), OBF responded, “Yes, he schemed.” She giggled. “Can you believe it? He schemed!”
Instead of responding to this scheme, because I honestly did not know how to, I interrogated her on their wedding plans. Although they did not plan to get married until years down the road, it seemed like they had all the details already worked out. I was impressed.

When I got home, I decided not to tell my parents how badly the interview went, but they must have sensed my lack of enthusiasm. My dad immediately began to lecture me about how I did not prepare enough, and had my head up in the clouds all the time instead of putting my mind to what really matters, and how I didn’t seem to try hard enough for these interviews. As he lectured, I stayed quiet. I wanted to argue back, but in a lot of ways, he was right. Although it wasn’t fair that he was lecturing me on not “caring enough” given how hard I’ve worked to try and secure interviews for myself (I have sent out more cover letters and resumes in the last four months than I thought I would ever have to send out in an entire lifetime), it was true that I could have prepared more for this interview. On some level, I had to recognize that I had decided not to put my effort into preparing this interview. Why? I was afraid. I was afraid that I would put all that effort in and get shot down again. Because that’s what happened with consulting. And when it comes down to it, I just don’t think I can handle another blow like that. As it turns out, I’m great at going after opportunities and putting myself out there, but terrible at handling rejection.
Ten minutes after the lecture, I checked my mailbox and there was an email from The Advertising Firm in my inbox. I figured it was a polite “Thank you for coming in” type email, since they had told me they would be interviewing until the end of next week so it would take at least a week for them to get back to me about a second interview with the Director.
As I read the email, my eyes widened.
“We would like to bring you back for a 2nd round interview to chat with our Director of Digital and Interactive…”
I got a second interview! I got a second interview! I was relieved but also confused. This only further proved my point: nothing makes sense. Effort and result seem inversely related.
I quickly ran to tell my parents. “They said they wouldn’t let me know until next week, but I guess I made an impression on them!”
My mother, as usual, rained on my optimism. “Or their director just happens to be in on Monday and he’s meeting everyone that passed this week’s interviews.” But I was used to her discouraging remarks and brushed it off. “Even so, I made it from this week at least.”

Should I be prepared this time? I’m almost afraid I’ll ruin the balance of this seemingly perfect inverse relationship.