Since I had them scheduled anyway, I decided to keep two interview appointments I had made for this afternoon. All I can say is that I hope I didn’t disturbe anyone with the strangled gurgle you heard coming from West Tennessee. That was surely my ferocious choking during a job interview with a federal department that rhymes with Domeland Obscurity. It. Was. Painful. I’m only blessed that I didn’t really have to listen to myself give the answers. Once I realized I’d completely lost the bubble, I stopped listening to myself and was focused on keeping my answers as short as possible in order to put the interview to rest with some semblance of dignity. Lord. It was just brutal.

The first question was ok. The second question is where the wheels came off. I don’t even remember what the topic was… and halfway through answering, I realized that even as I was giving an answer, I didn’t remember what the question was. The answer ended up being a series of vaguely interrelated partially developed thoughts as I mentally groped for the thread of the conversation. Needless to say, I never found the thread and never recovered my equilibrium after that. Running out the clock was really the only option I had left.

I knew I was in the deep grass when the panel leader closed up with “Thanks. I think you have some adequate answers there.” Adequate. Wow. Ouch. At least I didn’t drool on myself. Without a question, that was the most painful 25 minutes in recent memory. It was a shitshow tempered only by the fact that it was the second of back to back interviews and the first went remarkably well. It’s the carnage of that second one that’s going to stick with me, though.