A friend once told me there is nothing more demoralising than not being offered a job you don’t want. “What do you mean I’m not good enough for your lousy job?”  I learned the truth of this after my job interview from heck.

     I wasn't really looking, but as someone once said, you should always be looking for your next job.  And I saw an ad from a small consulting company that could have been written with me in mind.  And the location was more attractive than my living situation in the big smoke.  But there were considerations of balancing two careers that created an ambivalence that must have come across. 

     I planned a couple of days off my current job and flew most of the way across the continent on a Saturday, following the suggestion of the prospective boss (PB), so I would have Sunday to check out the town before my Monday interview.

    The PB said they were having a company outing to a comedy club Saturday night and I should meet them there.  Cool, a somewhat relaxed company, but when I got there I realized that 1) it would not look good if I laughed uproariously at the wrong things and 2) it would not look good if I didn't look like I had a sense of humour, considering they considered a comedy night to be a good company bonding experience.  I think I made it through that ok, matching my laughing to PB’s reaction.

     I spent part of Sunday touring around with a realtor to get an idea of what the housing was like at the suggestion of PB. This was the main thing I got out of the experience except for a story to tell – it’s not only a good way to get an idea of the area but asking other PBs for help setting something up suggests you are serious about the move.

     Sunday night PB invited me to his house for supper – not the interview, he assured me, just a casual social get together.  I arrived on time and was ushered into the house where I sat on his sofa and accepted a beer.  PB went to attend to a slab of meat on the grill outside, leaving me in room with one of his parrots walking around eyeing the intruder. 

     Contrary to their reputation, this parrot wasn’t much of a conversationalist.  I stared at the parrot, it stared at me, and then it hopped up on the arm of the sofa next to me, hopped up onto my shoulder and started pecking at my glasses.   I was unsure how to respond to this so I reached up with a finger and started stroking its beak.

     When I reached this point, telling the story to a bird lover, she started nodding knowingly.  Apparently this act elicits some sort of birdy nurturing behaviour.  Sure enough the parrot seemed quite happy and started bobbing its head up and down then proceeded to regurgitate half-digested bird seed down the front of my shirt.  PB returned from outside, and viewing my slimed chest, said with a twinge of jealousy, “Oh he doesn’t usually like other people.”

     The rest of the interview was anticlimactic.  He got quite defensive when I asked who the “…and Associates” were in the company name.  Yeah, there weren’t any other partners; it was there mainly because it sounded good.  No, I wasn’t offered the position but a year later I did end up working with the person I would have been replacing.  A while after that I met PB again and, when he heard where I was working, he muttered something about how maybe he should have considered me more carefully.  I also listened to him tell another person that he expected a shake-out in the industry but he wasn’t worried, there would always be enough work for him, even if there wasn’t for his employees.  A few years later he declared bankruptcy and laid off most of the company.  I guess it worked out ok but he really should have at least offered me the job since his parrot was such a good judge of character.