Thursday, February 26, 2004
Interview Report
I called McInerney at the county before the interview date and left him a message about rescheduling. He called me back after 9:30 p.m. again, and I was already in bed half-asleep reading. I got up and wrote down the new time on the new date on my calendar on the refrigerator. The next day I did not remember where I'd written it down. Thinking I'd double-check later, I put the previously-scheduled time of 3:00 into my Palm with the new date.
For the day and a half before the interview, I tried to get around to double-checking the time but my mind was preoccupied by a huge runaround I was having with a handyman. He had called me because a woman at church told him I wanted to find someone to help with projects. On Monday, he came to my house, and he agreed he would have time to run 220 V wiring and to sheet rock the garage before Liberty returns from his round the world trip.
BTW, before he left India on Monday, Liberty emailed a photo of himself with the four Indian women he was training and the other trainer, who is a woman my age. He said that all the women in India are married. (Tongue in cheek.) They get married very young. He liked having a personal driver. And the personal driver must have liked him. Someone had told him to tip the driver 200 rupees. As it turned out that was a tip for the week, and Lib and his fellow trainer were tipping the driver that amount every day. Now Liberty is in New Zealand touring.
Back to Tuesday, the day of the job interview. The handyman had spent $200 of my money on wiring, then he came to me that morning to tell me he couldn't do the job because there was not enough power coming to the house. Later he called from Home Depot to tell me he couldn't return the wiring because he'd had it cut. He said, "That's all right. I'll eat half of the cost." I said, "You committed to do a job you didn't know how to do and now you want me to pay $100 towards the wiring?"
After some other incompetencies I won't go into here on both sides, we terminated our agreement. On top of taking almost all day Monday, dealing with him took all morning and part of the early afternoon on Tuesday. I think the whole thing cost me over $100 with no work done besides the day and a half wasted on my end. On his end, he not only couldn't return the wire, but he also lost about $95 worth of other materials out of his truck.
[NOTE from 3/3/2004: I found a paint bucket full of the missing materials on Sat. and called Carlos, who came over to pick them up.]
My judgement was clouded with the emotions (which you could probably imagine) that were running through me about that whole deal and the stress of having him use up huge chunks of my time when I was trying to get ready for the interview. I handled it better than I would have at other times in my life. At one tense point before I went into the kitchen with Carlos to try to tally up who owed who what, I paused a moment to imagine that Jesus was waiting there at the table for me, so that I could treat the man with respect and kindness. Which he deserved.
I hate interviews. I bought new clothes. Had them altered. Decided not to wear them. Wore something else. Agonized about my hair. Did my nails in the morning. Got them dirty in the garden. Did my nails again. A coworker wrote me, "Don't buy new clothes. They can smell fear." She's probably right.
I was glad to see the offices are in one of the few areas of San Jose that make you feel like you are in a city. The area for the county government offices is on a long block of other similar big buildings, including the county court house and a jail.
As I got out of my car two young black men, a woman, and five year old boy were walking by. I admired the boy's cute outfit, nice pants, a shirt with a collar and a vest. His mother suddenly said, "Jason, don't put that in your mouth." That would have been fine, but one of the men turned around and not really looking at him. "Don't be putting stuff in your mouth or I'll slap you in the face." That wasn't fine.
[NOTE from Tuesday March 3: I thought of that incident when I heard an NPR article about a recently-released CD of lullabyes from South Africa. In one of the songs, the daddy's voice to his child is dripping with love. I was jealous. I don't think anyone ever sang to me. He spoke about how his grandma and his auntie had sung that lullaby to him, and about how we have to fill our children with love instead of blame. That man who was yelling at his child was only passing on what he knew. Oh God, how can we break the chain? ]
After I crossed the street and started heading across a parking lot towards the entrance to the county office building, a phalanx of what looked like members of an Eastern European family was headed in my direction with mother in the middle. They were large and wide and their collective bulk made them look formidable, like a line of football players.
On the way up to the 10th floor, a tall handsome white man got into the elevator with a good looking white woman. She distanced herself from him by putting me between her and him. He was facing front and turned and before he realized who I was said something to me about two women. And then he paused. Now I wonder why she put me between them. I can imagine all kinds of reasons, but again who really knows?
Blithely I showed up at the District 3 office at 2:50. Mike was pleasant. I think it went well. Then close to the end he said, "You'll find a message on your machine when you get home. What time did you think the interview was?" I said, "Three? What time was it really?" He said, "Two thirty." I said, "I'm sorry. I know I cannot be doing this sort of thing [meaning not showing up for events for which I represent the commissioner]." He made excuses for me, said he might have written the time down wrong himself.
There was an awkward pause when he asked me what I know about the commissioner while I sorted out what I should say. I know too much. I know . . . never mind. I said I knew the commissioner had been mayor of Milpitas, and had worked at IBM.
Mike will be selecting eight people to come up for a second round of interviews next week.
Much of what he told me about the job was a relief. It pays better than Annette thought it would, a little more than half of what I was making at Sun. The work hours are very flexible, as they are at Sun. And the best news is that Mike would not be upset at all if I took the job and quit if I found a better one. I told him I would have been prepared to commit to stay until the job was up on December 31, 2004, but he said that he could just call another good candidate who didn't get the job and bring that person in. He would congratulate me, and that would be that.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
9:40 p.m. Call to Set Up an Interview With the County
Last night I fell asleep reading American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, and when the phone rang, I jumped up and tried to answer it in my bedroom. I keep an old phone in my bedroom as a backup that we could use if the electricity goes out. But it's practically useless.
I answered, and as per usual, I couldn't hear the caller and the caller couldn't hear me. I put the handset down on the dresser and went into the kitchen to try that phone. I said, "Hello! Hello!" and then I heard a dialtone. So I went back to reading in bed.
The phone rang again. This time I was ready with my cordless phone on the bedside table. "Hello. I'm calling from Santa Clara county. I'm trying to reach Roseanne Sullivan." "This is she."
The caller introduced himself as Mike McInerney, Commissioner "Don McRay's" Chief of Staff. He was calling to set up an interview. By now they are up to 61 resumes.
He gave me explicit directions to the office, even told me which bus I could probably take from my address if I wanted to avoid parking difficulties [#36], which building to go to, what to say to the receptionist, what the interview structure would be like. After about 50 minutes, during which he'll explain the responsibilities of the office, he will ask me a few questions, such as: "Why would someone with all the writing experience you have, a year towards a Ph.D. in American Studies, an M.A. in writing (3.9 GPA) from the University of Minnesota [he was obviously reading from my resume at that point], why would you be interested in what is basically an entry-level job? And what are your salary expectations?" He added hurrriedly. I laughed, sort of flattered, and amused by the guy's professionalism and break-neck style of delivery. I said, "I'll be prepared [to answer that]."
I've written in an earlier post why I would be interested in that job. I look at it as being nine months of paid training that might help me break into another field. At the least it would be interesting to break out of the high technology mold. I love learning how the world works, and this would give me some exposure to the political life of Santa Clara county.
Monday, February 09, 2004
No Nibbles Yet
No takers on my resumes, yet.
When I saw Pete and Gail McHugh at Baker's Square last week, I went to their table and asked him about the status of the county job I'd applied for. He told me they'd received 45 resumes and that Friday (last Friday now), his chief of staff would give him recommendations of some good candidates to contact. I haven't heard anything.
Thursday, Leyla and I had lunch. Right Management was hired only for this series of layoffs, and now they have folded their tent, left the Sun building, and the employees, who are contractors, slipped back into their old lives. I had a sinking feeling about the usefulness of the career training they were giving us when I found out that Leyla, the receptionist, was an underemployed, former event planner--who hasn't been able to make the glamorous kind of career transtion the classes there seem to promise you.
It was Leyla's first day off the contract. I showed her my house, which she exclaimed over from the front porch to the back deck (which pleased me), and then we walked down the long block to Casa Vicky's together. I bought her lunch in honor of her new status as an unemployed worker. We promised to be a support network for each other. It was a very pleasant part of an afternoon.
Recently, after a sort of lull, the emails among us laid off writers have been flying fast and furious. I fueled the flames by telling everyone what I had heard about the boss's quick remarriage, and the story of how one of the remaining writers got into her bad graces and now fears layoff for protesting orders to work a contractor 80 hours a week to finish some documentation.
After I made some changes to some old emails (to protect the guilty), I added them to this blog under their original dates, including an email I'd written about spiritual methods to defuse anger. When I was done I sent what I'd written to the diocesan newspaper to see if they'd be interested in printing it. Last week, the editor answered my email asking if they paid for freelance work, by telling me they don't have a budget for it. Today I offered the write-up for free. I think that readers of the Valley Catholic would like to know more about Fr. Joyce's teachings, and that they might benefit from knowing that there are ways to master angry thoughts (and significant spiritual benefits doing so.
I got my first unemployment check. They skipped one whole week and are giving me less than the maximum I thought I was getting, so I have to call and see if a mistake was made, at least to understand the amount I received.
[NOTE from 3/3/03: I went over it again until I understood. The weekly amount is $410. When I get paid $35 for tutoring, they let me keep $25 of it, and then deduct $10 from my check.]
