Saturday, January 21, 2006

the funniest story so far this year

I was edgy all day Wednesday. I think it was a combination of a new mind-numbing data-entry temp job, watching Dark City the night before and the anticipation of a job interview that afternoon. By 4:30 my anticipation had turned into anxiety and I was barely functional. I don't know why this happens sometimes. Such minor inconveniences hardly warranted anxiety, but I just get that way every once in a while. I had been drinking a lot all day so by the time I got to the interviewing company I needed to go to the bathroom pretty bad. The receptionist showed me the room I would be in as well as the bathroom, so I ran off to the bathroom really quick and then back into the interviewing room. Two women were already there to interview me, so I couldn't relax out of my post-urinary haste. Obviously, my behavior was less than social and the interview was pretty scattered and unflattering to me. I've never ever interviewed well, but this one was less than normal (and normal is pretty bad for me). I went home and began getting out of my suit when I realized my fly was down. I could think of no way it came down after the interview.
The next evening I wrote a thank you email addressed to the both of them for the experience. I hate doing those. I considered mentioning the fly incident and making light of it, but figured there was a good chance it was just covered up under the table and nobody noticed. Instead I wrote that I hope their interviews go well and that my second impression is often better than my first. I checked my email the next day at work and received one from one of the women who inteviewed me. It's pretty obvious that she did a "respond to all" instead of just responding to her coworker:

I love it so much! At least he is smart enough to know that he
doesn’t come of real well!

Another email came from the same person immediately after:

(******* ******* would like to recall the message, "Interview".

The subject line was actually titled "Recall: Interview" instead of "RE: Interview" (which was in the subject line of the first email). I didn't even know you could actually recall emails, not that it did one darn bit of good anyway. The damage was done and now they looked foolish in front of me (albeit by actually calling me foolish, so no battle won). I laughed out loud for ten minutes before I realized how horribly sad this was for me.
I'm sure they won't call me back now. Not only because I didn't interview well, but now they'll feel dumb just communicating with me. I suppose I could give them a call and say sorry about my nerves, my fly and their inexperience with emailing simple responses. Certainly that would make everything better right?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How on earth did that happen? But yes i would say that is the funniest story I've heard in a long time. I can't tell what part was my favorite, your response you could have sent, the fact they recalled an email, or that you laughed for ten min until you relized that it's sad for you.

I still can't believe that happened. I'm a little speechless. Good luck on your next interview!

Anonymous said...

Oh, Jon, that comment was made by Dre. forgot my username and password. Go figure i guess