today's interview

shit.

so how'd the interview go?

somewhere between mediocre and good, to tell the truth. not stellar. i certainly could've done better. it was a combination of a bit of nervous energy from the coffee i'd consumed just before the interview as well as sheer exhaustion.

i'm not exactly sure whether i'll be getting a job offer . . . . and yet my instincts are telling me that i'll get the offer by early next week.

at the very least, i can say that i looked all right. especially considering the fact that i put together an outfit in about 15 minutes flat this morning. i didn't oversleep or anything; i woke up at 7 a.m. after only four hours of sleep :( and was just so sluggish. i just wanted to enjoy my coffee here at home for as long as i could before venturing out into the world outside my house. :-P

anyhow, i went all jcrew-y for the interview. here's what i wore:

trouser pants kind of like this but from way trendier urbanoutfitters and of a darker brown:

blue-striped, button-down with the top buttons left unbuttoned:

short-sleeve sweater over the button-down shirt like this one, but in a cream color with blue-green patterned argyle and a v-neck:

the two, when worn together, is supposed to look like this:

and then a velvet jacket, from last winter's jcrew line, but in peacock blue:

my sister got me a jcrew gift card for my birthday last year that i didn't use for a whole half-year! so when i finally splurged, i got this jacket when it finally went on sale over christmas. it has an amazing fit! and it was the last one in my size, too. :)

to top it off, i tied a cream-colored silk scarf that had splashes of a bronze print around my waist as a sash and wore bronze-colored pointy-toed sling-backs. as for make-up, yes, i did have to really layer on the concealer. :-P

but it was fun to actually take the time to look nice. i usually just pull on jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers. sometimes i even make the extra effort to wear a bra :-D (i'm small-boobed. so i take advantage while i still can and avoid wearing bras unless i have to). so today, i was glad to change up my daily routine a bit. getting checked out by the construction guys was nice, too. :)

my first impressions about the department and the interview:

the building looks exactly like the building i used to work in when i worked for evil boss. it was eerie, like walking backward in time into my memories. and yet the building has an overall friendlier vibe. it is not as dark or austere in the lobby.

cube space. if i worked there, i'd be sitting in a cube, kind of like in the show the office. nothing but an endless sea of never-ending cubes. the decor in the office and indeed most of the building is a dull greyish green. the bathroom i stopped of into, before heading into the interview, had faded walls that you could tell used to be of a neon green color but has now faded into a tired looking pea green. the doors of the toilet stalls, however, were a bright orange. i got a sinking feeling in my stomach looking at it all.

the first part of my interview, i had to do a writing test. i think i kicked butt. the question was an open-ended one, and i typed about a page-and-a-half, single-spaced for about twenty minutes, then lounged around (like, there was no one there watching me) for the remaining ten minutes until the office technician (equivalent to a receptionist) came over to tell me time was up.

then i waited another ten minutes for my interviewers to get ready for the interview.

my impressions of them?

they are career state workers. meaning they are no-nonsense, they clawed their way up to management level positions, and don't remember what it's like to laugh. one was an older white lady, i would say in her fifties, and she looked like she would be one of those kindly older women you see working as RNs in hospitals -- until you looked into her humorless eyes and could tell she wouldn't take no crap from anyone. but overall, she was more approachable than the other interviewer.

the other lady was asian, and i'd place her age in the thirties-forties range. she looks japanese, but when she introduced herself, her surname seemed to place her as filipina. i made a few joking remarks during the interview, and after each joke, she never laughed right away as the other white lady did but paused as if to think about it, and then she'd laugh, too.

it is because they were kinda crusty that i don't know whether i'll be offered the job. it's my impression that a personality like mine -- kinda light-hearted, full of quips -- is something they aren't used to seeing. so it could be my personality and how i got along with them would be a tip-off to them that i wouldn't fit in well at the office.

and yet at the same time, if they were as smart as i think they are, they'd offer me a job because of those very reasons: because i'm light-hearted. oh, and smart and hard-working to boot.

at the start of the interview, i was given a number of duty-statements to review as well as an org. chart for the office. after i read through each of the duty statements, i spent quite a bit of time scrutinizing the org. chart. i could discern 6 vacant positions that this particular office currently has -- 4 analyst openings, and 2 front-office/receptionist type positions.

this is a red flag for me: four openings at one time in one single office that has no more than 20 employees. it's rare. and it's never a good sign of a positive environment.

another red flag: the job bulletin that this office put up that i responded to has been posted since november/december of last year. in this bureaucratic system, no job remains open for more than 2 months unless there's just something messed up at the particular office.

a third red flag: my interviewers totally remind me of evil boss and her even more evil henchwoman. not sure how much i really want to go back into a situation as bad as that was.

i'm not trying to be ruby gloom-ish. i'm just being pragmatic. and those are just some of the aspects that are making me feel cautious at the moment.

the positives would include the fact that this job's duties are right up my alley: research regs, draft documents, talk to people, and that's about it.

oh, and one thing i am dreading is the fact that they will call evil boss because, being a stupid idiot, i left her name on my resume as one of my references. fuck. evil boss has been wanting me to come back and work for her, and i think she'll be pretty disappointed that i am seeking out a position elsewhere instead of contacting her and trying to get back into her office. if she's professional about it, she'll understand that this is the way the game is in the bureaucratic system. but if worst comes to worst, if she talks smack about me, there really is no way for me to know.

but she wouldn't do that. . . .

i think.

at the very least, she'll give me a raving reference, but then talk shit about me to her evil henchwoman sidekick.

anyway, i shouldn't be worrying about this. plus, i am so tired. i've got other things to think about besides.

time to go back to bar study. i just need to take it one day at a time. . . .

p.s. i think i'm going to fail the bar again.