Worst. Job. Interview. Ever.

I had an interview this afternoon for a tech support position at a call center in Palatine. Stephanie's uncle works there and referred me, putting in a good word with his boss. I figured I would show up, they would ask me a little bit about my experience, I would tell them, and they would hire me on the spot because I knew an employee. I couldn't have been more wrong.

If I had had a nightmare about a job interview in Hell, it could not have gone any worse than the one I had this afternoon.

There were two people conducting the interview: A kind-looking Asian fellow named Ted and some fat lady whose name I can't remember. I think it was Winnie or something fat-sounding. Anyway, Ted was handling the technical questions, while Winnie handled the situational, customer-service-related questions. Since the job is tech support at a call center, the job required technical understanding as well as good customer service skills. They took turns asking me several questions at a time.

I think I handled Winnie's questions pretty well. "Describe a situation in which a customer was unhappy, and how you handled it". No problem. Nailed it. However, every few questions Ted piped up with his own questions.

It wasn't that the questions were hard. Here are some examples: "Define, in your own words, what the Windows registry is". "Define TCP/IP". "If ipconfig reported the IP address as 192.0.0.0, what would this tell you?" This, for anyone who fixes computers, is like asking someone who's been a fine-dining server all his/her life where the salad fork goes. Basic shit. Fundamental. I knew all the answers. Anyone would have. The problem was, I COMPLETELY BLANKED. ON ALL OF THEM. The first one was the registry. All I had to say was "The Windows registry stores user preferences, license information and hardware/software settings for the operating system". That's it. One sentence and I'm golden. Instead it went something like this:

Uh...

Man, I know what it DOES, but, um........

AT LEAST a MINUTE of dead silence while I sweated and stared hard at the table....

Uh...

Pass.

The exact same thing happened for TCP/IP.

It was completely miserable.

Every time Winnie would finisher her few questions I would say, "Oh, no! Not Ted again!" And they both laughed because they knew, like I did, that I had NO business being in that room.

Halfway through the interview everyone in the room knew that I completely blew it and it was hopeless, but they both still had questions left on their papers that they had to ask. It was humiliating for all of us.

At the end, after I had completely wrecked myself and wanted to jump out the window, they asked if I had any questions. I figured I'd go for broke and let it all hang out. I said this:

"I know that you're interviewing many people for this position, and I know that just about everyone you've talked to or will talk to has more work experience and knowledge than me. I feel like what I lack in experience I make up for in learnability and trainability. There were a couple of things in the phone interview I blew as well, but as soon as I hung up I looked them up and learned from them. I know I blew everything that Ted asked me, but if you called me in two hours I'd be perfect for the position! Anyway, I know I didn't get a chance to show the intangibles I bring to the table, but I feel like I am better than I showed you today. Hard to be worse!"

I wanted to end on a laugh, and I did. But yeah, I've never done worse at anything than I did today. It completely invalidated all the stuff I thought I knew and made me feel like I've never used a computer before in my life, much less was I qualified to walk people through fixing them. I now have no idea what to do with my life, besides maybe learn how to fix computers. I am a total failure.

Statistics

Number of diapers changed: 4
Number of times hand peed on: 1
Number of changing table pads sullied: 2
Number of times projectile vomited on: 1
Number of baths given: 1
Number of hours I have been awake and interacting with the tiny human: 2.5

JUMBOTRON

Sweet jumping christ.

Bazooka Poop

For those of you who don't know, I have two cats. One cat is perfect, because she knows where the litterboxes (we have three) are. The other one has no clue. She seemingly pees in there, because we don't find stuff stinking of cat pee, but she just can't be bothered to poop in there. Ever.

Ordinarily, we base our decision on whether or not to let the cats sleep with us on what time Lucha (outside-the-box-pooper) does her outside-the-box business. She pooped on the living room rug fairly late at night, so we decided to let them into the bedroom when we went to bed (around 3:30am).

Approximately 3 hours later I awoke to Lucha scratching at the comforter. Instantly I was fully awake, snatched her up and tossed her out of the room. Kayako, who had been sleeping peacefully, was an unfortunate casualty of this, as I had to give her the boot as well to shut the door. I went back to bed, figuring I would just pick up the poop when I woke up, wherever it happened to be.

A few minutes later the smell wafted under the bedroom door. It was no ordinary cat-poop smell. This smell had legs. I got up to clean it up, and was greeted to three rooms of brown horror. There were at least 25 spots of foul everywhere. She managed to get it on two televisions, my subwoofer, four walls, the laptop, the coffee table, the dining room table, the rug, and this incredible three-foot-radius circle of poo-spots on the side of the shower. I have no idea how she accomplished this, but I really should have taken pictures.

Lucha was furiously licking herself, and I noticed she still had a decent amount of nasty on her big furry tail, so I got some wet paper towel and went over to help her clean up. Unfortunately, she decided she wanted to be a do-it-herselfer, and proceeded to run from me, dragging skid marks around the room some more.

I have not slept since the three hours I got pre-horrorshow. I fear my house will never smell like anything but the worst cat ass in history ever again. They haven't created an Oust that will oust this odor.

My Life As A 28-Year Old Intern

- i am older than all of the junior staff members.

- i was discussing fashion with my 20-year old co-intern, when she disdainfully described a dress she tried on as 'something a 30-year old would wear'.

- my peers are the five people who bought lindsay lohan's record.

- 24 to 28 is the perfect age to get married. anything beyond that and you'll be dead before your kids get to college.

- the intern in the cubicle next to mine was born in 1988. i got my period in 1988.

Lookin' Goooooooood

As if it is not already awkward and embarrassing enough to walk out of the public bathroom at work with your shirt accidentally tucked partway into the waistband of your pants... please picture that scene occurring whilst wearing maternity pants with a waistband made of flesh-tone elasticy stuff that is pulled all the way up to just under your boobs.

I am the prettiest girl in Chicago.

Cankle Mania 2008!

Nothing makes a lady look or feel quite so glamorous and lovely as a sweet pair of cankles.

I know that it's summer, it's humid and hot, and things can get a little bloaty anyway - then you throw in some pregnant, and there you have it - a perfect cankle-growing environment. Totally expected, totally normal, but holy sweet mother of christ, this is beyond ridiculous.

My calf/ankle/foot/cankle region has begun to resemble Jabba the Hut, were he to be found reclining on a bed of canned ham. Too much more of this shit, and I'm going to start finding people to feed to the rancor monster. And it's only June.

August is going to be fantastic.