SPOILER ALERT: I'm in a mood

Just warning you, before you read any further, I’m feeling feisty. Even though this is my “therapy” blog, I rarely get on a soapbox, and, well, dammit, I think it’s time I used this here blog as a journal rather than merely a chronicle. Here’s your last chance to turn around so as to avoid a HEAVY DOSE OF RAW NEGATIVITY.

It’s 10 a.m. and I’m sitting at The Bean Factory. I’ve been here for about an hour and a half, and except for the twenty minutes during which I checked my e-mail, I’m merely killing time until I have lunch with John. The regulars are driving me mad. They do truly behave as if the coffehouse is their office or, better, their clubhouse. Today it’s three guys, late forties, and they’re loud. Oh, they’re working, but it’s the occasional outburst that gets under my skin like chiggers. Mind you I’ve never had chiggers, but I’ve read plenty of vivid descriptions that made me itch along with the sufferer. Okay, I know the coffeehouse isn’t study hall, but people, nobody gives a damn about your nonsequiturs. Also, there’s the jamoch who took a newspaper into the bathroom for twenty minutes.

Soccer stuff
I spent almost the entire day yesterday running around doing soccer stuff. I know I should be glad that, since I'm not strapped to an office 9-5, I have plenty of time to devote to my team manager responsibilities. But, I'm so pissed at the disorganized club and the dipshits that run it. I have completely run out of patience. The club has built a fantastic program that recruits and gives financial assistance to immigrant players. However, the program's success has overrun the club's ability to handle all the kids who want to play. Plus, there are the inevitable challenges with language and cultural.

Don't get me started on this. I'm attempting to be charitable but my support staff has dropped the ball. We had a late addition to our team and I'm scrambling, through language and cultural challenges and administrative snafus, to get him a uniform and a player pass so he can play on our team, even though he's not on our roster.

Job search
The underlying cause of my malcontent.

Yesterday I had a phone interview for an editor’s position that looked great on paper. I expected this screening to be a little more along these lines: tell me about yourself, why are you interested in our company, and so on. Instead, the interviewer jumped right to the second date kind of questions—how do you go about planning your editorial schedule? What kind of writing style do you have?

These questions seem standard and non-threatening as I type them now. I can answer them, but I was caught off-guard by the timing. They’re questions I thought I’d answer in a face-to-face interview. Also, the questions were super broad, and in retrospect, I should have asked the interviewer to focus them somehow. Even after I carefully crafted an answer, the interviewer never asked a follow-up question.

All of this was telling. The interviewer was the managing editor to whom I’d be reporting, and she spoke fast, rushing to get through the few questions she had for me before “opening it up” to any questions I might have. Granted she came late to the meeting, but clearly didn’t take a minute to collect her thoughts or her breath. She was young, a tad scattered but attempting to sound professional and organized.

Then, the warning bells started screaming in my head. The ME reeked so much of AV: just enough experience and polish to be catapulted into a position beyond her confidence level. Yes, I know it would be wrong to go down this road again for a cool job. If I’ve learned nothing else in life, I have learned that taking a job for which you are overqualified is stoopid. Boredom and resentment set in very quickly.

This was the deal-sealer, though. When she said, and I quote, “Maybe you sent an e-mail and I didn’t get it, but before we go any further, what are your salary requirements?” First I have to say that I did respond to the e-mail, and when I hadn’t heard back from her, I assumed I was within the range. So I restated my terms, confidently. I’m glad we were on the phone so the ME couldn’t see my crestfallen look when she said, “That’s what I thought, with your experience, but we’re capping at [an undisclosed amount significantly under my asking price].” With that, the conversation was over. The ME saw no need to consider me further.

So the interview sucked, and I’m not quite to an “oh, well” stage. I’ve been obsessed with it, replaying the tapes, since then. I know I ought to move on, but there are clearly some larger issues at play.

Stay tuned—existential posts in the works.