Yep, six. Not two, not four. Six. I was referred in by a friend of a friend who is now a friend too, since I've been around the Target Experience so long. Can you imagine how many interviews you'd have to withstand if you weren't actually referred by someone reputable within the company?
In a couple of decades of being interviewed, and another of being the interviewer, I have never, ever heard of anyone being questioned by so many people for such a lengthy amount of time. Except by perhaps the FBI or the Spanish Inquisition. Actually had it been the Spanish Inquisition I'd have been stretched on the rack and dead a month ago.
Target got my resume in September, called and started the interviewing in November. It's now almost the New Year. The supposed position available was retail management, of which I have eight years experience in an 18 million dollar Barnes & Noble, the third largest grossing out of 800 stores in the United States. All of my reviews were fairly shining and if one were to seek out former employees I believe they would speak quite well of me. I left of my own volition, with no bridges burning and no skid marks.
Easy, right? So - talk to me, see if I'm mentally impaired, whether I smell okay, if I know not to wear jeans to an interview, even try to provoke me and see if I bad-mouth my former employers. Go ahead, use a big word on me, and then use an "insider" sales term and see if I know what you're talking about. Pass me off to another person and then call my references. At most, set me up to later see the "big guy/gal" on a third interview to see if I know how to behave myself in the face of cold, hard authority and see if I can show up on time for it at an obscure location almost an hour away. Appropriately, I'd be somewhat nervous, but really, piece of cake in the end.
Aforesaid company does not use this model as a best practice. They have a big packet of questions that two people ask you in separate rooms; teensy, tiny, windowless rooms that make you wonder if anyone weighing over 120 or asthmatic could ever be eligible to work there. The questions are, of course, overly simple, and the same as the questions the last person asked you but they are worded just slightly differently. Then they let you go and say they will call.
Then they call a week later and set you up for "an" interview for a week after that. This time you speak with not two, but three different people, in three different beensy, minute, airless rooms and they ask you questions from a different packet, although the questions are still the same, really, just worded differently. They are very mysterious as to what they're looking for, and I ask them after I simply answer the questions if my answers made sense to them. Each looks up slyly as they're jotting away on their pads like some Freudian shrink, and says, "Oh yes." Then they send you home and say that someone will call.
In fairness, they do ask you if you have any questions for them, but for god's sake, it's a freaking retail floor management position, not engineering for NASA, so as hard as I try, I can't really come up with anything. Other than perhaps what shade of red they think I'd look good in. No, I didn't.
They now call on a Sunday, because they're retail and want to know if you can speak without a slur on the weekend, and set you up for another interview, somewhere in the distant hinterlands, to speak with someone else. A person with only one name, like Cher or Madonna, who has an obscure title that you've never heard of that must be an insider thing and, for the love of allah, I just need a fucking job already, I'll scrub your toilets for minimum wage, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME ALREADY!! No, I relax, sure I can look it up on MapQuest and I'll be there whenever you want me to be there.
WTF, what position are they looking at me for? El Presidentress, Tsarina, walker of the company bull terrier - and WTF is up with meeting somewhere else? I just want to sell toys for Christmas and rearrange your housewares department. So, I drive out of Seattle a ways and find this, this other place and walk in and ask for the one-named person on which my future lies. She is busy, can I wait? Uh, yeah, I can wait. And I smile at all the shoppers for awhile, thinking, hey, I could be a security deterrent for awhile if nothing else and forty-five minutes after my scheduled interview time the one-named woman shows up in front of me. No introduction from her, just "Ah, who are you?" I extend my hand to shake hers and say "Hi, I'm Nancy and I've been sent over from Northgate to meet with you." She hesitantly takes my hand and gives me that half-handed, withered dead fish non-grip and says, "Ok, yeah, and what are you here for?" I say, "I've met with five people at Northgate and then HR sent me here to see you." I Am Not going to help this chick out, okay? She takes me back to a larger, windowless cubicle and takes out a packet and asks me exactly the same questions the other five have asked only this time in monotone:
Tell me about a time when you and another employee had a disagreement.
Tell me about a time when you had an idea to make things better.
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver negative information.
Tell me about a time when you had to help someone when you were doing something else.
Tell me about a time when you made someone feel good.
You get the gist, right? Fuck, you are not going to get a more creative question answerer than me, all right?!?! Yet, as I stayed on track for the first five people, by the mysterious and extraordinarily bored sixth, I probably did not deliver with all the enthusiasm she wanted. Or maybe I did. Who knows?
Because you know what? The very next day, Human Resources called and said, "Hi Nancy, Happy Holidays! How are you today? I'm sorry to tell you that we do not have a place for you here and I wanted to let you know as soon as we knew."
I can't breathe. She's called while I am looking over my new Making Home Affordable mortgage papers. I say, very small, "Really?" She says, "Yes, I'm sorry it didn't work out." I wait a moment, quiet, not letting her hang up on me without SOMETHING, Anything, and I ask, "Well, do you have any feedback for me? After SIX interviews with your company?" She says, "Well, we just do not believe that you would be a good fit for our culture."
I feel slugged in the stomach. It appeared to be such a sure thing, any position would have been fine, really, WTF. And I leave my house and I walk miles in the rain down Greenwood Avenue and I cry and people are watching me, probably thinking somebody died and I could give a shit because it's all just too much. My wonderful neighbors bring over dinner because my one-of-a-kind daughter tells them I'm down and out and my friends send me messages on Facebook of love and support and all I want to do is my drug of choice, which is sleep. Please see former post, "Sleep Is My Drug Of Choice."
I get up today and I am enraged, pissy and cannot quit going from sighing to barking at those around me. I miss my mom, who absolutely loved Christmas, like most moms do, but she was fun and we baked and decorated and laughed and cried and sometimes just sat held each other on the couch while we watched a movie. But that's not going to happen anymore. And I'm lost. Again.
Today I am grateful for my sanity, that continues to be tested by some of the most unworthy opponents. Okay, that didn't sound very grateful. Today I am grateful, so much, for my super-supportive friends and neighbors who are not afraid to show up, even when I just want to crawl in a hole, and bring me kudos and chicken cassarole.
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