Another Reason Why I Suck At Job Interviews: Bad Introductions

I manage jobs the way a child handles a kite- it’s either gone in twenty minutes or it lasts forever. In fifteen years as a fulltime worker, I’ve had three jobs that lasted over four years each, two of which only ended when the company closed. I’ve had twelve jobs that lasted under an hour. My career expectancy rate mirrors the lifecycle of goldfish or Stephen Bochco shows- usually dead in minutes, but with an outside shot at greatness. If I still own a uniform by lunch, I’m ready to move for the job.

Why does my tenure often end so abruptly? Because I introduce myself like a John Ritter character, spilling coffee on computers (HTTC Consulting), telling an out-of-uniform manager to “get lost” (Hilton) and calling the owner’s alma mater a “Dennys with keyboards” (Frontier Fruit and Nut). Some entrances have even resulted in injury, like –in my worst example– Battery One Stop, where my manager’s opening tour was abruptly canceled after I licked a 30 volt battery. Wanna see your manager panic like a bomb threat was just received: electrocute yourself prior to sharing emergency contact info. You’ll never work another day with the company, but the employees would sooner forget a visit from Elvis than your ten minutes.

To recount how I licked a battery during an introduction, it is probably necessary to first explain why I licked a battery at all. As a child, my cousins and I always placed 9 volt batteries on our tongue –if they were included in a gift– because, when both terminals are placed squarely, they release a quick, silly charge. So, when my manager, Sue, opened a drawer of miscellaneous batteries while detailing the store’s inventory system, I grabbed a plain, boxy piece, and –before she could explain any thing– I said, “ever do this before” and licked it. Sue, who was not given time to answer that question, watched in stunned silence as my body was jolted like a “flat-liner” on ER. The battery, I learned, was not a 9 volt unit, but, rather, a 30 volt dynamo. I could run into a low ceiling at full speed and not equal the force it generated. I was jerked into a wall of watches, whose contents were falling like dominoes, as I rolled against the barrier, panting “are you kidding me?”. However, it sounded more like, “arrrr uuuuuu kddnnnn?” since I could not move or feel my tongue, which was, at this point, dangling from my mouth as I waived air on to it, as though I just bit into the world’s hottest slice of pizza.

Once I stopped twisting in surprise, I was fine, but still incapable of speaking clearly. As a philosophy major and software engineer, I’ve had to explain some rather difficult concepts, but nothing was more challenging than clarifying why I licked a battery, with only the use of my hands. Charades has no easy technique for sharing, “I was expecting a third of its actual energy”. Sue understood none of my motions and is, by this point, certain of only one thing: I clearly lied about being “a bona fide expert on batteries”. After all, ‘an expert’ probably learns, in a very early lesson, not to ‘tongue’ electrical currents. And no expert, regardless of the field, needs you to call his mom for a ride home. My mom knew that I would never become a doctor after failing highschool chemistry. She knew I’d probably never live to 30 after a stranger introduced herself on the phone because my mouth was still “a little swollen” from licking a commercial battery- during a job interview.

08/08/2006
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