Mucking up a Job Interview Doesn't Help

I've had dreams like this before, nightmares set in an interview-slash-interrogation room, bright, exposing lights that set you up in a bad way. I forgot to wash my hair, it's ratted on top of my head and I'm still wearing my slippers. Damn. How did this happen? Wasn't I prepared? Every question is inaudible, and after a couple stammers, I start rambling about something, anything, until I can get the hell out of there.

My job interview this week was something like that.

I admit, I was completely unprepared, but I didn't realize it until after the interview. I could have read more about the company or understood their content better. I should have asked every single friend I knew there EXACTLY what they were going to ask.

....Or maybe I should look further back, to my childhood, when I began my destructive, procrastinating habits; or look to my gene pool for an overdeveloped sense of self-importance....

I haven't applied for a job in ages, probably three years, but that's not the matter. I just strolled right in (washed hair and pressed clothes) with what limited background I had in this line of work and left it all, once again, on my "personality" to cover up any rough spots. This plan has succeeded countless times before. But they had my number. They were more studious than I. They talk faster and don't care about personality or sensibilities. They are aliens from a completely different universe in my field--BROADCAST NEWS.

Back when I left a nature-friendly news show, I swore I'd never go into traditional news. I argued that news lacked perspective, it lacked--by definition--an opinion, which I have a lot of. How would that make me any different from a word processor?

A hint of that may have followed me into the interview. Could they smell me hating on their trade? The interviewer was an older, very smartly dressed man and his speech was as tidy and succinct as his slick, gray blazer. He was my nemesis and smartly dressed. I was thoroughly intimidated.

The problem was the translation--My version of being an evolved cultural literate who might consider a news job, translated to an idiot who can't read. I read "From Beirut to Jerusalem," what more is there? In all fairness, just so you know what I was up against, I was asked to discuss American-Iranian politics. All I could think of was my favorite Iranian film, Children of Heaven, and then I regurgitated some outdated headlines I had read in the Times and something idiotic about democracy.

I take this all as a good sign that news is not for me. I want to make films, so what does daily news have anything to do with that? In my complicated way, I saw the chance as a great segway, to be exposed to an exciting new perspective and more international culture. I could write and be paid for a steady 2-3 days a week. I would challenge myself and enjoy the daily turnover rate as a balance to the long months and years that can go into a film.

After the harrowing interview, despite (or exactly because of) my feelings of inferiority, I wanted the job even more. I just needed a couple more days of reading and a few ready examples of films I've analyzed that lend to this sort of news, and it would have been in the bag. If I had really, truly wanted it, or deserved it, I realize now that I could have been ready.