since everyone's been posting graduation photos and sharing stories about new jobs and/or prospects and interviews, I was wondering: Can anyone describe a time they went for a job they didn't get..and they actually know WHY they didn't get it?
I've got a classic:
It was 1980 something, and I had a wonderful opportunity for a position in a councilman's office at City Hall in Philly. He was a Rizzo-loving Republican, but I wanted to put a foot in the door--and wound up putting it in my mouth.
It all started with that damn cowlick--the unruly tuft of Brillo in the middle of my forehead that I've discussed in posts quite often.
I had a few minutes to spare before entering the marbled structure of City Hall when a moment of blindness cost me my future in politics--probably.
So I'm walking up Broad Street when I pass a mirror in a storefront window. I see a well dressed millennial with a decent resume--but I see that damn cowlick. The storefront mirror was in a wig shop. I enter the shop with a calling. Every mannequin looked like Tina Turner--or Ike Turner.
THIS registered.
.my blindness and panic weren't that bad yet..but that cowlick..oh that damn taunting cowlick...
I find a wig for ten dollars. It was a color I've never seen before--a red or an orange. A sicking "redorange" that if it were a bodily fluid coming out of you, your doctor would send you to the ER. The bottom flipped up, the bangs hid the cowlick but looked they were made out of plastic. The "saleslady" told me I looked adorable. (How much commission would she get on a ten dollar sale anyway?)
I look at the mirror and I don't see reality. I see a covered cowlick and that's it.
I enter City Hall, and I'm tugging that the ends of the wig just to make sure there is nothing astray. I stop in the ladies' room for one more look, and I'm liking what I am seeing. (I think this is technically body dysmorphia but there wasn't a label like that in the 80's)
And I'm off to meet Frank Rizzo's BFF, whom I met a few weeks earlier via my part time job at Channel 17, where I made an impression because I had NORMAL hair and a normal brain.
He is staring at me--my head particularly--the entire time. I am thinking that I should have gone red way earlier..that it was making all the difference in the world.
I leave City Hall full of confidence and conceit--that job was mine.
That future was mine.
That wig was mine.
I get on the bus, heading for home. My friend Andi's brother Rob is on that bus. He recognizes me, and he is smiling. I am impressing Rob..I must look amazing. Rob had that kind of smile you plaster on to prevent yourself from bursting into gales of laughter.
I arrive home. My Mom screams. My brothers are in a state of bewilderment.
My mother is the first to speak. "OMG Karen..please tell me you..did NOT..wear that..on the interview with the Councilman."
"Wear WHAT?? This business attire? Yeah, maybe it's a little tight but you're the one cooking high carb meals every night and.."
"Not the suit..look what's on your head!!"
So I did. I went to the bathroom mirror and saw what my Mom and brothers saw. What Rob saw on the bus. What Frank Rizzo's closest advisor saw.
And then I saw the toilet..knowing I just flushed my career down it.
President Levson-Amster....I lost by a hair...
