I thought I'd share something I wrote when I got the job that was most...um...unlike me. It was like stepping into this skin that was too small, and squeeze as I might, suck in my gut as I tried, I couldn't fit. Why am I sharing this in a blog dedicated to joy?
Because I just re-read it and it's funny. Also, because I recently interviewed someone on the phone who only knew me in my brief stint as a PR. He couldn't figure out how I'd been demoted to hack. And he asked in hushed tones if everything was OK and if I was being "adequately compensated". Like dude, are you serious?
I told him rather shortly that he had known me during what I consider an aberration in my life. I was born a journalist. I will die a journalist. It's not that it's what I had to do. It's that it's what I get to do.
Subtle difference there, bucko!
And also because I'd like to acknowledge those hidden parts of my life. The parts I keep under wraps for shame. Ha ha. Nothing to be ashamed of. We make mistakes to make mistakes - and then we know better.
The name is Jenn. I do PR. Funny thing is, this is the last place I thought I’d ever end up. You know how you sometimes meet people who are so belligerent that you cross the street to avoid them? That’s me. Or at least, that was.
Since then, they have been trying very hard to initiate me into this glossy, manicured world where I’m supposed to please a lot of people. Some of whom I don’t even like. A little trouble there; when I don’t like someone, the man on the 12th floor in a coma knows about it. But anyways, here’s how I got to this pretty pass.
Picture this: It’s been a year and I’ve been out of a job. The freelance thing is not happening. Every newspaper immediately discounts me, assuming I’ll be too expensive because of my years of experience and newly-minted fancy liberal arts degree that doesn’t really teach me to do anything useful. I’m running out of options here.
A friend calls. A company is looking for someone to do their PR.
I gasp inaudibly. Rubbing my last two pennies together in my pocket (I have taken to seeing how long the coins will hold out) I say incredulously: “Me? PR?”
“Look, just go for the interview. I mean, what do you have to lose?”
She’s right of course. Nothing. Except my soul. But then, a soul doesn’t put food on the table. Or buy you Vahlrona chocolate to make the perfect triple chocolate muffin.
So I rock up for the interview at Starbucks, as bright and bushy-tailed as three hours of sleep and a dozen cups of coffee can make me, and face my two new potential employers. We survey each other with the slight suspicion you accord to strangers who could possibly run away with your mobile phone if you were to leave it on the table (although they had more to fear on that score than me) and sat down.
I order another coffee and lean back. After all, even if they don’t like me, it’s OK. I am no frigging PR. One gives me the practiced spiel about the company. I lean forward, interested despite myself.
“You’re talking Prahalad?”
“Um, yeah, no, I mean, who?”
“Just this writer who seems to have encapsulated your entire business philosophy beautifully. I think his books are Wharton Business School or something.”
Why did I have to come off sounding like I just went to Harvard or something? I had just picked up the book at MPH, sank into one of those squashy sofas and beguiled the wanton hours reading business case studies. This is what you do when time hangs heavy and you have no idea what to do next.
Anyway, this interviewer asks me about Prahalad and I proceed to give him a brief run-down of what the book covered. My one and only talent is reading voraciously and remembering nearly everything I read. Which doesn’t exactly qualify me for this job. But seems to impress these guys nonetheless.
There’s an awkward pause during which we all sip our respective beverages and look around. People are started to trickle in and there is an animated buzz at other tables.
Then, the inevitable question: “So tell us about yourself.”
OK, here’s where I do the hard sell and really impress these guys. Here’s where I go for broke. Here’s where I shine. Here’s where I…:“I don’t like stupid people. I don’t suffer fools gladly.”
The voluble interviewer looks a little stunned: “Well, we can’t all be smart. You’d have to learn to get along with people. What about your interests?”
“I like poetry. Frankly I’m more literary than corporate. I can write business, I just don’t like business,” I am pleased with my neat turn of phrase and smile complacently. (Part of me wonders why I am doing my best to screw up this interview. Maybe because it goes against my religion to do PR and be forced to be nice to people I don’t respect. But then, I need the job)
“Well, we all need outside interests,” says the benign one with a slight twinkle. Was he laughing at me?
We talked a little about my experience. Yeah, I could write. But could I do all that other stuff? I didn’t know.
Then it came to money. They had been looking (and willing to pay for) someone with half my experience. I admire people who can get down to brass tacks without flinching. I always feel a sinking in the pit of my stomach when we come around to figures.
Anyway, they named a sum. I upped it. They said, we’ll think about it. (Think about it? They were not seriously going to offer me the job after that interview were they? I wouldn’t if I were them)
Ten minutes later, my very basic Motorola (the cheapest phone I could get on a student budget in Australia) beeps.
“Can you start tomorrow?”
You can say it knocked the wind out of my sails. These guys were cool! I was grateful. I was alarmed. Heck, I was so freaked out, I started to hyperventilate. Right there, in the supermarket.
And that was how I went from bumming to PR in the space of an hour.
My friends fell over themselves laughing. You could say I was not famous for tact or diplomacy. (Come to think of it, I still am not) An ex-boss who came over to talk to me at a restaurant, asked: “So where are you again? And what do you do for this company?”
“Would you believe, I’m their PR?”
“No, seriously Jenn, what do you do?”
A colleague who had gotten to know me pretty well in the few weeks I’d been there butted in at this point: “She bullies the CEO and COO.”
My ex-boss nodded: “Yes, that sounds like her.” And he left satisfied.
God was once more in His heaven. And all was right with the world.
I thoroughly enjoyed your little snippet! It must be a great feeling to know one's true calling in life. I get much the same reaction when people learn that I was a soldier for several years, complete and utter disbelief. And given the stereotypes involved, I'll take that compliment without a second thought. :-)
ReplyDeleteSo I need to hear more about this soldier gig. Seriously!
ReplyDeleteI was 18 and working a series of dead-end jobs in Austin, Texas and cohabiting with my childhood friend from an earlier life in Port Arthur. We were barely covering expenses, and not generating the income necessary to attend our local community college without also resorting to student loans (I have a serious aversion to debt). At the time, you probably would have described me as being at the intersection of 80s hacker culture and punk rock. I wore my head shaved on three sides, with a long curly mane of blond hair on top: anti-establishment sheepdog seeks college tuition, and access to better computers! So, my friend comes home one evening and announces that he's found a way for us to go to college without incurring massive amounts of personal debt. I raise an eyebrow and ask him how, exactly, he plans to accomplish all this--thinking sure, it's possible, if we become drug dealers, counterfeiters, or start selling our organs. He said, "Let's join the Army and link arms with Uncle Sam for a few years! We'll have plenty of money for college, and it couldn't possibly be worse than what we're currently doing..." (hardy har, har) And so, after two rum-soaked weeks of consideration, we signed our lives away to Sam, intent on becoming Russian linguists... (though we'd later renegotiate the contracts and end up as infantry, since the college bonuses were significantly better and that was, ostensibly, the whole reason for this venture). The rest of the story will have to wait for later...
ReplyDeleteI'll wait. This is fascinating! Finally!
ReplyDeleteAlmost ready for the second installment, but I am in the final stages of negotiating a housing deal and may not be free till tomorrow. Any and all prayers welcome, as the option period expires at midnight (appropriately). ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou got it. Praying for you. And me. And my country. And my friends who are being brutalised in the capital where they were marching peacefully to call for a free and fair elections.
ReplyDeleteSo how'd it go? You got the house?
ReplyDeleteGoodness, I hope your friends are okay--there has been little coverage of the event in the US, but the pictures I've seen online are just incredible (recites the mantra of compassion, just in case). So, 50,000+ without violence, despite the open hostility of security forces and polarizing rhetoric of counter-demonstrators. I'd certainly call that a minor miracle if ever there was one! Very, very impressive.
ReplyDeleteThe House: almost there! The maintenance addendum has been signed and passed to the seller, and they have until Monday to propose a counter-offer (although my repair requests and estimates are all well-documented, it is still possible that the seller may try to squirm their way out of responsibility for certain key maintenance issues, e.g. roof repair, and it will then be my job to carefully steer them back towards the center). I think the odds of getting the sale on decent terms are pretty good, since the house is part of an estate and has been on the market for over a year (the former owner was a sweet, old spinster who taught at the secondary level her entire life, but never had any children of her own). I believe the seller is her nephew, and is himself retired. Gosh, I am so ready for these negotiations to be over with already...
Part II:
So, my roommate and I eventually headed down to San Antonio to sit for the Army's giant battery of strange aptitude tests. Neither one of us ever had especially high marks in school (we spent all of our spare time either bathed on the glow of a CRT, or hunting for vulnerable bits of telephone infrastructure), but we tended to be phenomenally lucky in scoring well on tests, and the Army's exams would be no exception. We both scored well enough to gain admittance to the Defense Language Institute, and move one step closer to our goal of being Russian linguists... or so we thought. As we sought to clarify the terms of our respective contracts, it turns out that when the Army hires you as a potential linguistics candidate, you get absolutely no say in the exact language to be studied--it all depends on the strategic needs of the service at that particular point in time, so you might end up studying Chinese, one of the many dialects of Arabic, or French instead. Furthermore, the service was not offering thousands of dollars in additional college benefits to linguists; if you wanted that golden parachute, you had to volunteer for combat arms (infantry, field artillery, tank crew member) for four interminable years... and so we did. After training, my friend ended up with a choice duty assignment in Berlin, Germany (prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall) as part of an excellent light infantry brigade; he got to speak to real Russians on a daily basis, and spent his entire 4-year tour in Berlin while advancing to the rank of sergeant. I, on the other hand, got sent to the damn gulag--a remote wasteland and permanent gunnery range in the southwest corner of Germany near the French border, named Baumholder. Mine is a tale of woe and misery... (to be continued)
Yeah, if you're on twitter you can follow bersih2 to see the stories. One guy actually had a heart attack and died from the tear gas attacks and one of my colleagues wrote a first person account - of being bombarded with tear gas (by the third attack he nearly passed out - burning in the oesophagus and all.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise you spent all that time in Germany - so you have a European cast to you then?
How come you wanted to learn Russian? Was it so you could read Tolstoy's original War and Peace, rather than the one mediated by the translators?
Buying houses are like pulling teeth...a little at a time...and the suddenly it's out. Press on, my friend...you'll get there.
Cool, will definitely check that out. Yeah, I've been hit with tear gas before and it feels like a quadruple dose of the worst horseradish you've ever eaten--the immediate sensation of stinging nettles in your eyes, nose and throat for up to 30 minutes. Awful stuff.
ReplyDeleteLol--quite possible, since I don't have an accent that is immediately recognizable to anyone stateside. However, I refuse to wear socks with open sandals! I may be of German extraction, but that's a line I refuse to cross, heh... :-)
Feel free to laugh at me, but when I was a young boy the Russians were a constant source of fascination; the strange cyrillic writing, the bizarre political philosophy, their motivations utterly inscrutable--it was like studying aliens. Was everything done on behalf of the state, or was it all just one giant, suprememly cynical joke? Even with classic Russian folks tales, it was not at all unusual for the protagonist to seemingly die at random and for the story to end on a sidenote, loose ends dangling (unlike the fairy tales I was used to, that usually had some positive take away message; lol, with the Russian stories it was more like, "Life is inherently random an cruel, hence the need for vodka; in the end, we all face death totally and completely alone. The End. Now go to bed, my little turnip.")
Good night! ;-)
there is drunk texting and drunk calling and now we have drunk replying to comments, my little turnip. I think I like being called my little turnip and I think Arnold likes being called my little turnip and I agree with you about the random cruelty of Russian stories except perhaps this play I read by Gogol which was laugh out loud, spit out your coffee funny. Don't remember what it was called though. I just remember having to read it for the theory and practise of comedy. Oh I feel a poem coming on...the sad vodka-soaked kind....
ReplyDelete(laughing) Well, my little turnip, could it have been Diary of a Madman? Maybe we should invent a search engine called Gogol, that only indexes the absurd, the bizarre and the hilariously funny? :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's called "The Government Inspector". Read it if you get the chance. There is the nihilistic element (I think you can't get away from that in Russian literature except perhaps for Tolstoy's inspirational short stories like Ivan the Fool and suchlike)but it's really really funny. It takes the piss and doesn't stop taking the piss until the last word.
ReplyDeleteI love people who take hypocrisy for granted and don't pretend anything else.
It's so honest, somehow.
I will give it a read, then--thank you!
ReplyDelete