interview questions

I'm still thinking about my upcoming interview.... Sorry. You'll have to endure my angst for a few more days.

I asked the corporate recruiter what the interview would look like -- questions they would ask, etc. and I thought you, my captive audience, could review my answers and it would give me an opportunity to express not only what i might say, but to also give voice to the truly unacceptable answers that might pop out if not given voice somewhere else. A vent, if you will, for impropriety. You know how I am, and underpressure, the whole "not caring" thing might get the better of me. I could decide halfway through the interview, for instance, that "fuck it" is the best I can do, and this would be based on a sideways glance that had absolutely nothing to do with me. An unrelated sigh. The wrong clothes. Somebody prettier than me. I throw in the towel for the most bizarre reasons.

So, according to Andrea the Recruiter, the questions may include:

1. What brings you to long term care?
A. A car.
B. I loved my grandmother.
C. No, really, this can be a short or long answer, and I think I'll try to keep it fairly short, (but I'll give you the full monty.)

In the early 70's I had been involved in a string of small robberies and was nearly caught. (Obviously, the statute has run out and I can tell you this without threat of incarceration.) So there I was, finally in need of legitimacy. A real job. Not drug dealing or petty theft. So Karla, this girl from downstairs, said, "Go to Hillhaven, they'll hire anybody." So, being anybody, I drove to the nursing home. It was a brief interview. "Can you take a temperature?" Mrs. Ingersol, director of nursing asked. I said, "Sure." And she said, "Be here at one." Then, as an afterthought, "Do you have any white pants?"

So, I showed up at one, in my white pants, and began my life's work. I wasn't serious. I didn't (as you know) care, even then. I was 19 or 20, and really an unfinished version of myself. Arrogant, drug addicted, but clearly on the cusp of something. So, they set me up with these two experienced aides who I was to follow around until I "got it." We went into this room and there was a man who, in my limited experience, appeared to be suspended from the ceiling by a series of leather straps. I hung by the door, staring, horrified at the circus geek in front of me. My trainers went to work on him, doing this or that, and ultimately, pulling a bedpan out from under him. I was horrified. They handed me the gigantic metal bowl full of human shit and I said, "Oh, so I get to do the good stuff."

And the man said, in a voice I will never forget, "Honey, if there was any other way...."

It is difficult to express the sudden onset of knowing that was contained in that moment: He became human, the job became real, and in my humiliation, I became part of who I am. His name was Gene Austin. He had been an army pilot and had the top of his head blown off in Korea, I guess. It left him quadraplegic, but his mind was intact.

And so it began. I have always treated arrogant young women who want to work in the industry with a measure of patience. I know what they can become.

Okay, question #2.

I don't really have that one figured out yet. It may be, "Why did you leave your perfectly good job last May and how do you have the audacity to come back grovelling for yet a second and better paying job???? Hmmm, biatch?" And you know, guilt may color my response just a teeensy little bit.
A. There was a car behind door number 2.
B. There was a car behind door number 2.
C. I wish I hadn't. I thought the job would be different. I didn't know where McMinnville was. Seriously. I just thought: free car, more money. But it is notable that I took a job without knowing where it actually was. I mean, I knew. But driving 99 day after day -- not so good. And like so many things that seem too good to be true: it was. The car wasn't free. The job wasn't anything like I was accustomed to. So. Here I am. Grovelling. Pick me. Everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?

I hope they don't ask. It will be difficult not to be a tongue in cheek version of myself.

So, it is Sunday morning.