The Interview: A Tragedy
For what started out as a very normal, prospective morning, the day I went to interview at the National History Museum was one that will forever be burned into my brain. A core memory, if you will. It has dawned on me, a week since this day what a strange series of events occurred all in a neat and succinct one by one order. As I left my house that morning I was wished “good luck!” from my loving housemates, and I was on my way feeling a little nervous and a little excited (as we all do on interview day). Alas it was here, outside of the safety of my house that the trouble began.
It all started with a fire. Not one directly relating to me, one that had happened many hours prior to my sunny morning but one that was, indeed, still affecting the arrival of the train that I needed to catch. So, on this busy platform I waited, full of anxious and agitated people like myself, I began to very studiously watch the clock. Although I had planned to arrive a full 15 minutes early, this calm pocket of time was quickly vanishing. Should I email? I wondered to myself after it was clear I would not be arriving “a good 10 minutes early” as stated in the email, or should I push through and cross both my fingers and my toes. After a cramp in my left foot developed, I decided to be overly forthright and write an email, acknowledging my expected tardiness and the beyond reasonable excuse for it. “This is an automated email, please do not respond.” Helpful.
So here I am waiting for my train, now not only nervous about the interview but also slightly sweaty— I begin to imagine the disapproving “tsks” of the people waiting. As, finally, a train does slowly roll into the station, it becomes very apparent that I am going to have to kick and fuss my way into the carriage. “Excuse me folks, I am running late for an interview, please politely fuck off and allow me the space I need, Regards, Mia.” I pushed, shimmied, and maybe shoved my way onto the carriage with a sigh of relief as the doors did not slam shut on my, too close to the door, body. Of course, as I get off the pulsing carriage at my stop, I am reminded of the delicious 8 minute walk through the rain I still need to get through and Christ, I only have 4. Marching like a mad man through London doesn’t actually attract as much attention as you might think. Funnily enough most of London walk like this without the pressure of running late for a job interview that you very much need to do well in.
And as I arrive (quite chuffed with my 11:33 arrival), I am greeted by a cross and rather stout lady with a walkie talkie who seems neither impressed nor bothered by my presence at all. In fact, she just ignores me hovering over her desk like an irritating fly. Great—so now it’s going to look like I was later that I was because this lady, for some unknown reason, doesn’t care to help me. “Excuse me,” I stutter “I’m here for an interview, my name’s Mia. I was meant to see someone called Kate?”
“You’re late,” she says without bothering to look up. I bend my knees in acknowledgement of the obvious. “The whole group just left through that door, try and find them,” she continues. “Okay, great thank you so much,” I say much too kindly and enter through the door she pointed to.
The door I walked through was the entrance to the museum, which was full of people. I stood there for 10 seconds before realising there was no hope at this and returned, tail between my legs, into the room with the scary lady and her equally scary walkie talkie. The look this woman gave me as she saw me re-enter the door, sent a shiver down my spine. Truly, she looked so outraged at my reappearance I was tempted to just continue back out onto the street. “Why are you back?” she asked in a tone that seemed unfairly accusatory. “I couldn’t find them, is there someone you could phone?...please?” Standing there in a tiny room, pleading with security about an interview and feeling rather childlike as I am spoken to rudely by this lady made me question more than once whether this interview was worth the trouble at all. “No, you need the money,” I reminded myself. Once the phone has been hung back up, I am told to stand back in the museum and wait for someone to come and collect me (due to my lateness I was told it wouldn’t be Kate, great, really great).
So, there I am standing, in the chaos of the crowds, focusing on keeping my neutral face looking as friendly as possible, not knowing who would be coming to collect me and wanting to make the best impression when they do. I see another security guard make his way over to me and I collect myself, greeting him with a huge smile. “Hi, I’m Mia,” I say fully expecting him to guide me to the interview. Instead, I am greeted with a terse, “why are you standing there?”
“Ah because the lady in there told me to wait here…for someone to come grab me” – my words trail off as he just looks confused and baffled – “for an interview…”
“Right well you can’t stand here so go back into that room,” he points.
“Oh, but I was told to wait here,” I say as he shakes his head.
“No wait back into the room.”
So, there I turn, and walk back into the room (which I swear has shrunk to half the size) with the lady who’s now bulging eyes are staring me down. I felt like a fool, and in the manner of her glare she clearly thought the same. “Why are you back?”
“The security guard told me to come back in here because I wasn’t allowed to wait out there,” I stuttered.
“Well, that’s just stupid go back out there or they won’t be able to find you.”
I really love being the ball in a game of security guard ping pong. No really, I do.
At this point, I am ten minutes late, have been chastised by two scary security guards, and am all but hiding behind a column so that the same security guard doesn’t try and throw me back into the office. It’s a great start to an interview, and a really great way to keep a clear mind. Finally (praise be) I see a chirpy young girl with a museum lanyard swinging around her neck, beaming at me as she strides across the hall. “Are you Mia?”
“Yes!” I sigh with relief and my returning smile feels more of a pained grimace, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she asks how I am and shoots off down a corridor. “Yeah good,” I say running to keep up with her, “there was a fire at the station, that’s why I am late.”
“Oh no", she says lightly: she doesn’t care.
She delivers me to a glass door with a friendly looking woman standing on the other side, smiling at me. “You must be Mia”, she says.
“I am, I am also so sorry I am late there was a fire at—”
She cuts me off with a “it’s totally fine, I’ll get you to sit in the empty seat just over there.”
“Oh,” I say as I pivot to look at the room, and then “oh” again as a I see about 20 other people (already seated) twisted in their chairs looking and supposedly waiting for me. Awesome, this is a great start.
You would think this would be the end. But I didn’t title this piece a tragedy for nothing, and for the first time in my life I don’t think I am being dramatic at all.
So, there I walk the long 30 metres to the sad but empty chair on the corner of one table. I smile tentatively at my group and am met with a very direct “You’re late we’ve been waiting for you” from the woman sitting next to me whose accent could belong to the majority of Europe. Her unfaltering gaze and direct line of questioning really threw me off guard and I found myself for what felt like the 100th time today stutter through my fire story. As seems to be the going trend, I was interrupted mid story by Kate. Would no one ever fully hear my fire excuse?!
Finally, with a minute of peace I slowly take 3 deep breaths, trying to calm down my erratic heart. As Kate drones on about how happy she is to see us all, I collect myself. I tell myself the worst is over, I made it, just impress in this interview and I can march over to that crepe store I ran past and buy myself whatever I want as a reward. Shit, why is everyone shuffling around? The scary European lady with the unwavering stare is smiling at me, her lips slightly cracked beneath a thick layer of red lipstick. Her large eyes made even larger by the smudged brown coal lining her lids.
What I had missed when I was telling myself the worst was over was that we were going to break into groups to write, script, and then act out a scenario that would be handed out to the different groups. Yes, you read that right. We must write a mini play and then act it out in front of the whole group. Is this a joke, is this legal? So the worst isn’t over then. In no possible version of events could I understand why this was necessary and how it could differentiate who would be good at the job. I looked over at the door I had entered and dreamed of all the ways I could leave. This cannot be worth the job, it simply can’t be. And yet, I did not move. I stayed with my group as they drew out mind maps and made lists, I even made suggestions because I had to look like I was slightly involved. I felt like I was on a high school excursion, or a school camp where the activities were strange and uncomfortable. Except instead of being in a room full of friends my own age I was in a room with strangers, and I was one of maybe 5 young people, the rest were well over the age of 35—one had a walking stick for Christ’s sake. Imagine being old enough to need a walking stick and being asked to act out a mini play for a job interview. The simulation is glitching.
“You all have one minute left,” Kate said as she did her rounds around the room, the same eerily kind smile plastered to her now not so nice-looking face. Like being back at school, my heart started thumping and my eyes were jumping back and forth between my group and the others trying to gauge how we were measuring up to the others. My group, in my opinion, seemed to have missed the brief just a little. Sadly, this niggling thought was confirmed when the other group was called up and performed a genuinely funny little skit, with the two main “characters” producing actual laughs. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck.
With bated breath and a lot of third-party embarrassment, I watched from my seat as adult after adult presumed to “act” out a role. Trying and failing to conjure laughs, trying and failing to act on with dignity. The mortification I felt when I witnessed a middle-aged man heighten his voice and pretend to be a child was like none other. Where in the world am I, and why on earth am I watching this. Suddenly we were called on, and I couldn’t move. I was frozen, with embarrassment, with fear maybe both. What I realised in this moment was that now it was my turn to lose all dignity. I couldn’t do it.
Actually, as it turns out, I sadly could.
Our group (who entirely missed the brief) didn’t have people crawling on the floor or pretending to use a walking stick, rather we had a narrator (me), and the rest just talked about ideas and the gallery as they kind of walked around the room a bit. It was boring, tragic, and I knew halfway through none of us were being employed.
Here is the thing I still struggle to understand… why, for an admin and marketing support job, was it necessary to have potential employers crawl on floors and act? If this was a drama role or an opportunity to give dramatic museum tours, I could maybe understand, but the purpose is absolutely lost on me. Sadly, I must report that it wasn’t even that bad. Happily, I can report that the next time I’m in this situation I will confidently walk right back out that door because several weeks later, I can confirm that I did not get the job, and therefore this experience was not worth it.
The crepe, however, absolutely was.
Edited by Madison Case. Cover Photo by Michael Erharddson.
