The Unbearable Heaviness of Waiting

The Unbearable Heaviness of Waiting - I'm not a particularly analytical person, normally.

In most cases, I'm a far-right-brain, "goal" person. I focus on the big picture, and have a pretty high threshold for "the small stuff" ("Is it potentially lethal"? usually covers it).

Not with job interviews, though. There, I make Steven Hawking look like a sk8rboi, when it comes to analysis.

In short - I worry myself sick until I know better. And I don't mean "worry sick" in the rhetorical sense; many mornings I literally wake up with the dry heaves, until I get the word, "yay", "nay" or "...we'd like to see you next week..."

I had an interview yesterday - a first face-to-face meeting with a hiring manager and four of his team members.

I think it went well - I'm generally a good interview. But I don't know how it came across, and it drives me nuts. It's not all related to the intense difficulty of this particular seven-month job-hunting ordeal; even before, I drove myself and those around me crazy with my endless, recursive self-doubt and over-analysys, especially after important interviews.

What makes it worse? I'm usually wrong.

I've had three interviews in the past six months that I thought I'd knocked out of the park - but I didn't get to the final round. I've had one where I was told I was definitely a shoe-in - but the position never got funded, and the interviewer lost interest. I had one that I thought I completely cratered - but I made it to the "Final Three" (before the company lost a major client, and its nerve). And the biggest example of all - a day where I interviewed with four people, and thought one - the manager - hated me. And it turned out he was the one who recommended hiring me, after all was said and done.

So this is one area where my perceptions betray me more often than not.

Gaaah . I need a job.

Oh, wait - we knew that, didn't we?