Worst. Interview. EVER.

Let me take you back in time, to March of 2009...when I had, hands down, the worst interview of my life...

warning...epilepsy..

PART 1: Context

Some context: I had returned from a 3 month-long trip to Europe about 3 months earlier, only to find the world economy had shit itself, and my bank account was empty. Cue working for little-to-no money  in retail!

Dance puppets! Dance through your tears of regret and minimum wage!

I was ready to take anything in my field...ANYTHING... and so my friend told me of her family friend who was looking for an assistant to upload videos to YouTube. Yes, that was the job.


And my god...I wanted it.

PART 1: The Interview.

The day started off pretty fucking horribly. A boy I had grown up with had died in a car accident, and so I got up, showered, dressed, felt like shit, and went to the funeral of a 23 year old.

I returned home, and had 15 minutes to eat, cry, and change into new clothes for my interview. I chose to wear my fabulous blue plaid boots, because I needed to add something crazy & fun into my day.

Pretty amazing, amiright?

So I find my way to a very large, very cool, very expensive house in south Parkdale (I am talking lake view, beach front here folks...).

"Hmmm..." I think to myself. "This experimental filmmaker must be really amazing to have had enough success to buy this house!" *pause for laughs...ahem...*



I enter and am met by a the filmmaker, we sit and go over my resume. All seems normal. Except there is a big fluffy grey cat, who keeps jumping up on the table...and they keep throwing it off the table...

she hates cats...and therefore probably eats babies...

The conversation turns away from my (super-impressive) resume, and to the obligatory "Whaddaya wanna be when you grow up?" question. And all I can think is: in 5 years, I'd like to see myself not dead in a car wreck... But I serve up my standard "well, gee, in 5 years I'd like to be working on my own films, and in a perfect world doing something independent that is critically and financially successful...."




SHE LAUGHS AT ME.

"That does not happen, and it will not happen for you."

...

"Bish, you will notice I prefaced with 'in a perfect world'..." meaning that in this world not only am I a critical & financially successful independent filmmaker, I also look like Christina Hendricks and live on the starship Enterprise."

She invites me to follow her into the basement... It's now an hour into this interview to upload videos to YouTube once a week, so, naturally, I agree.

Here I am shown one of her experimental films...

...and asked for my feedback. Specifically in how I would tag it for YouTube searches. Oh, have I heard of tags? Do I understand them?

...Um, YES. I am the Queen of the Internet and sleep in a bed made of cats and double rainbows...what I'm saying is, I understand how to tag videos on YouTube. It is a skill set I share with most 8 year olds, thanks for checking. I also wash & feed myself. Sigh.

I am quizzed in the ways to access, on both Windows and Mac OS, and I list various web browsers, internet access options, etc ... but I can't help but notice the critical glances at my awesome shoes throughout the conversation...

Your happy shoes make me laugh at you, tiny human...!

She asks me how I would guarantee the number of files in a folder...I say that the way to guarantee it would actually be to count the files...Then rolls her eyes at me and points to the file count at the bottom of the folder window. THAT IS NOT A GUARANTEE. THAT IS RELYING ON A COMPUTER.

There are a number of questions about uploading files to YouTube (so easy a child could do it...literally), and I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of getting a job "in the industry", however peripherally it may be.

In between the cat jumping on the computer desk, and being thrown to the floor, I glance at my watch and see that I have been in the interview for over 3hrs. My exhausted brain jumps for joy and shouts "YOU ARE GOING TO GET THIS JOB! NO ONE WOULD INTERVIEW YOU FOR ALMOST FOUR HOURS UNLESS THEY WERE GOING TO HIRE YOU!!!!"

Oh brain. Sweet, innocent, naive brain...


After nearly four hours, I return home, full of hope. The fifteen days later  (are you fucking kidding me?) I get an email:

Unfortunately I have decided to hire someone else for the position. Although I felt that you were a very strong candidate with regards to your technical skills, I  felt that I needed someone with more film/video art knowledge.

After removing my head from my desk, I calculated how much money I had lost by not going into my retail job in the course of my 4 hr interview to upload videos to YouTube...$44, less deductions.

I reflected on the fact that I honestly did not know what was more depressing... Losing $44, or not having enough "film/video art knowledge" to be qualified to upload to YouTube...


Well, dream a little dream I suppose: