I once showed up to a job interview soaking wet.
Luckily, I was the interviewer, not the interviewee. But it was still super awkward, especially since the candidate I was grilling was dressed to the nines. We’re talking three-piece suit, the works. I have never felt so shlubby in my life. And shlubby isn’t even a word, so that’s saying a lot!
I blame my faux pas on two things: failing to check my weather app before I headed out for a walk on my lunch hour (total rookie mistake; I know better!) and the fact that Portlanders look down on anyone who carries an umbrella. Seriously, it’s the nuttiest thing; you’ll actually get made fun of if you whip out an umbrella when it starts to rain, as if staying dry is some cardinal sin to be avoided at all costs.
Probably the best example of the whole “Keep Portland weird” thing yet.
This wasn’t even Portland, but rather Camas, on the Washington side of the Columbia River. But the same rules apply there, so I didn’t even own an umbrella. Stupid peer pressure. A few days after Tara moved in with me, she left the townhouse to check the mail. It was raining, so she grabbed an umbrella. “Put that away!” I hissed. “The neighbors will see you!” She looked at me as though I had lost my marbles and proceeded to the mailbox clutching that umbrella, pointedly ignoring me. She returned a few minutes later perfectly dry, and this was a revelation to me. Soon after, I broke down and bought my very first PNW umbrella. I’m sorry I was ever content to get wet when I could have very easily, you know, not gotten wet.
But I digress.
In any case, I was caught off guard that afternoon by a sudden downpour, and got absolutely drenched in the process. Which is why I walked into the conference room 20 minutes later sopping wet. Hardly my finest moment. To be fair, this was the epitome of a casual workplace; shorts and flip-flops were perfectly acceptable attire, and if employees weren’t congregating around the kegerator, they were playing ping-pong. Be that as it may, I at least tried to make a decent impression when interviewing potential new employees. It’s gotta be hard to take your interviewer seriously when he’s sitting in a puddle.
The worst part of all? We didn’t even hire the guy, so I couldn’t retroactively joke about “that one time I walked into the conference room soaking wet to interview you.” We’d have chuckled knowingly and then grabbed a beer on our way to the ping-pong table, I’m sure.
But hey, at least it makes for a fun blog story all these years later, so: not a total loss.
It’s also a really good segue, because I am part of a three-person interviewing committee at CheeseGov this week. Our internal communications guy was promoted and we need to fill his position unless he wants to keep doing two jobs forever.
(I asked him. He does not want to keep doing two jobs forever. Hence, the interviews.)
I have always enjoyed interviewing people. It’s a lot less stressful being on the other side of the table, asking the questions instead of answering them (I’ve done a lot of that too!). Plus, it’s a nice change of pace from my usual day-to-day schedule. I haven’t interviewed candidates since…well, that rainy day in Camas eight or nine years ago, back when I was too stupid to bother with an umbrella. So, I’ve been looking forward to this week, even though it means more days spent in the office than a typical week since all our interviews are in-person.
I even dressed up nicely and wasn’t soaking wet, so this is progress, guys!
The Great Un-Halloweening
As much as I love Halloween (all those skeletons are a dead giveaway, ha-ha, pun intended), once it’s over, I’m done. Ready to move on. Which is why, first thing Saturday morning, I spent a few hours taking down and packing up all the outdoor decorations. And within 48 hours, all the inside stuff was back in storage too. It’s as if Halloween never happened.
We’re not the only impatient ones though. The next day, Christmas decorations had magically sprouted along my town’s bike path, never mind the fact that the trees are still in autumn mode.
After all that hard work we wanted to kick it, so we headed downtown to check out the inaugural fall festival, a brand new event that doubles as a fundraiser. Cool vibe, complete with live music, food trucks, a beer tent, arts and crafts, and–best of all–a baby cow you could pet! But it was cold, and then it started to rain, so we hightailed it over to our favorite Irish pub. Grabbed a cozy corner table and, whadda ya know, that was a cool vibe too.
Didn’t even need an umbrella to stay dry.
Mark My Words 
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