I just woke up from this crazy dream.
I was in a strange city on my way, apparently, to a job interview. The first half of the dream, I was trying to navigate to the right building. For most of the later half, the right floor / room.
Finally, I make it to the waiting area, and they’ve been kind enough to lay out breakfast pastries for the candidates while we wait. It’s some vague, high-level VP internet advertising gig, but everyone interviews back-to-back like at a casting call.
We’re all trickling in, and the more outgoing & confident folks are chatting each other up. Networking, probably, since there’s a lot more people than position. The rest are either feeling as out-of-their-league as I am, or keeping their cards to their chest, trying to maintain some psychological advantage.
The conversation between extroverts escalates into a shit-talking match, and it dawns on me I’ve got absolutely no game here. A woman drops some of her stats which includes the list of languages she speaks and her score on a reading test I’ve never heard of and a number over 1000, which I can only assume is really good or impossible. B__ F__ is there (a very successful colleague I know mostly from a mailing list we’re both on). He confidently replies with a well-reasoned monologue about how any one of them could put together a banner campaign that met a series of metrics with buzzword acronyms I’d also never heard of, but what he brings to the table is … (this part of the dream is lost in a fog because what he said was so hard-core, I honestly didn’t comprehend a word of it.)
Right about then, it’s my turn. The others wish me luck, and clearly don’t mean it. I turn around before leaving the room, smile broadly, flip everyone off with both hands, and tell them they can suck it — this thing is mine. I’m met with a mix of groans, chuckles, and sighs of relief — one less competitor to worry about.
There are two interviewers around a conference table. We approach to do introductions and shake hands. That’s when I notice my mouth is so full of croissant that I can’t even swallow. I’m going to have to pull the whole bite out of my mouth (and find somewhere to deposit it) before I can even say hello. I apologize and they say it’s ok, but I know it’s only because I’ve just made their job that much easier. The douchebag with the clipboard writes something down. I think
he’s smirking.
Right then my phone rings and wakes me up, two minutes before my alarm was going off anyway.