The alluring yet implacable nature of job interviews quickly becomes blasé if one endures too many. Let’s face it—jobs interviews are difficult! Some are nerve-racking while others prove downright terrifying. In all honesty though, I do quite well under pressure (assuming I thoroughly prepare for each interview), and I truly do love the challenge.
A one-hour interview where an interviewee must prove him/herself to be versatile, confident, skillful, yet not too cocky can drive one bonkers. This is why a two-hour nap must strictly follow any interview (assuming one makes it out alive), because that nap’s well deserved! I recently took a four-hour nap after an audacious interview where I was questioned in a roundtable discussion by five, yes, FIVE ladies all at once. It was quite the interview orgy. Like any good orgy though, when this cornucopia of bodies huddles into one small space, problems arise at unexpected times…problems completely out of my control.
Everything was going charmingly well in this roundtable interview determining my fate with the company. We were discussing—as opposed to me answering monotonous questions. My questioners were five middle-aged women, which was great, because somehow I’m quite the Casanova with older women. Things did get briefly awkward when one woman critically commented that I “like to talk using my hands a lot,” which slightly perturbed the interview’s pacing and instantly heightened my self-consciousness. Other than that, laughs were had and I was proving to be quite the factotum in their eyes. We were conversing as best friends who’ve known each other for years—and I was the leader of this cool middle-aged female posse. I was about to suggest we relocate to an elegant restaurant to continue our conversation, but something horrible happened: someone farted.
This was the worst possible turn the events. Someone parped, and the only one I knew free of any guilt was me—trust me, I didn’t fart in the middle of a job interview! Not only did the horrid smell indicate a definite splurge of flatulent gas in the air, but the crime was also committed silently. Now let’s be honest: all farts should utilize at least two out of the five senses, preferably sound and smell (I do not advocate tasting, seeing, or touching anything that perturbs from one’s nether regions), and I know for a fact that in that tiny, poorly-ventilated conference room, that unpleasantly muted smell did not verbalize while entering our once-sterile air. Remember that I was the only male in the room, so if gender roles proved any genuineness, the four innocent non-farting women no doubt thought I was the one shooting air biscuits during my own interview. It gets worse! The horrid smell wouldn’t leave the room!
The invisible gas caused one woman's eyes to start watering. This wasn't going to end well. I continued answering questions as I stared at their I-know-someone-just-farted-but-I’m-a-professional-and-must-keep-a-straight-face faces, and all of their glaring signaled to me that I was the culprit. Should I say something to defend my innocence or would any comment heighten the awkwardness? No respectable manager would hire someone who causes this kind of mischief in the office, and I wasn’t willing to take the heat for this troubling endeavor while some guilty old woman in the room continued to rip herself a new asshole.
I wanted a woman to excuse herself from the room—that would give us a culprit, but that didn’t happen. I was beginning to feel dirty--every time my mouth opened the invisible gas hit my tongue and my throat tingled. Maybe none of these women possessed the guilty butt cheeks--maybe it was a ghost! Maybe it was like one of those scenes in A Christmas Carol when Scrooge revisits important moments of his life, but in my life, this interview was an important moment. My old cranky self and a ghost were invisibly watching the interview in the corner of the room, but unfortunately the ghost possessed a nasty/silent habit that disrupted our once-wonderful conversation.
Perhaps it wasn't a ghost, and one of the women embarrassingly just let one go. Maybe she has a problem; if so, the other women in the office are no doubt used to it by now, and I probably shouldn't be so inconsiderate. Maybe that day was Nachos and Cheese Party Day in the office, and my poorly timed after-lunch interview aligned with her ass's Nacho Cheese Redux Party. In the end, I left the interview hoping that the women would reflect on the interview experience with their minds and not their noses. I left blissful that I survived the nerve-racking situation. On the other hand, another mystery woman left the interview simply happy that her undergarments survived (or DID they?).
