hey, that's my bike

Lobby of the Comcast Building, where I will not be working.


A picture of the Comcast Building, from the outside.

Now that both of my job interviews are over, I can discuss the humiliation in one post together, rather than spreading out over multiple days. Yesterday I interviewed at Campbell's Soup in beautiful Camden, NJ. My day started out excellently when I overslept and then got lost trying to find the office. Camden is scary. Seriously. My theory on Camden, and the whole state of New Jersey in general, is that the only reason people live there is because they're from Philly and they can't figure out how to get home. It is a mess of entrance and exit ramps designed to confuse, aggravate, and scare people. As if the lack of human presence and the abudant amount of crack houses and lots of junked cars isn't scary enough. Anyway, I somehow managed to find the office. I was led through a labyrinth of pressure controlled hallways (who would have thought soup was such a big deal?) to a office which is the home of the packaging department. The engineers that interviewed me were very nice and talked a lot. They didn't ask me many questions, maybe three, which made it hard for me to elaborate on much. They were very old school and its hard to relate to people who are much older, experienced, and smarter. I don't have a good feeling about it.

This morning I took the bus down the Comcast center, which is close by, and pretty much the opposite of Camden with its futuristic Lucite security turnstyle things and plasma screen TVs in the elevator. The job was for a PA for a TV channel for 2-5 year old kids. And of course against my better judgment, I wore a suit. I didn't want to, but I keep reading all about how suits are the standard and its always better to be overdressed. As soon as the girl at the office greeted me wearing jeans, knee high furry boots, a t-shirt, and a weird sweater, I knew that I was probably going to lose the job on first impression alone. I sat down at a table and heard the guy I was supposed to interview with (I recognized his voice from the phone) introducing another guy interviewing for the same position to people around the office. He was wearing jeans. The guy I interviewed with kept down playing the job and saying the my work was too intricate for what they are trying to do there. He didn't ask me any questions that really related to the job or the information in the job posting. He kept making it seem like nothing I did would translate into the PA job, but I never had an opportunity to talk about my other talents that would apply. Then he asked me, "why TV?" and I once again felt like Winona Ryder in Reality Bites. Specifically the part where she is interviewing at the newspaper and the lady asks her why she wants to switch from TV to print journalism. I was there for about twelve minutes. It was pretty obvious that the first guy already had the job and they only interviewed me because they had to. Whatever, the first guy must have production experience, an art degree, AND a master's in elementary education, if that's even possible.

That was my fifth interview and I have no other prospects.

When I got home today, the only things missing were my psychic friend and many chain smoked cigarettes. But, unlike Winona, I would work at the Gap folding T-Shirts. I just don't think they will hire me.