seanessay.com
No longer wet behind the ears, it’s queer to look back at my progress. This after once being scared about getting and keeping a job. But then an executive in a forgotten business training film had said, “It’s normal to ask who would hire me.” Oh.
Working at different job contracts, I was heartened when a seasoned construction foreman told me that he feels anxious at the start of each new site. Again, oh.
One year I found myself working in a group home where one of the staff, “Shawna,” asked me for ideas on things to do. Not to suck up to me, since I was not a manager, but to do a better job, as our so-called “leaders” had accused us of being lazy. So at the end of every shift I would stand at the door zipping up my parka and saying exactly what I had seen staff doing productively throughout that shift. They found this very reassuring. No surprise when Shawna applied to a major store; the surprise was when she asked if I would be her job reference. “Sure, I can give you a good one!” I thought, I guess I’m a real grown up.
As it happened, when the Human Resources person phoned me I found she was new at her position, and so I advised her on buzzwords such as “works well with minimal supervision.” Next time I saw Shawna I predicted, “You’ve got the job.” How I love being experienced in the working world!
My Outdoor Pursuits teacher at college had used the same words, “… a good one!” when I asked him for a reference, saying the job was to be a relief house manager for the Canadian Mental Health Association.
At the time I wasn’t finished community college, and I could barely afford a nice blazer and slacks. Sitting in the lobby, waiting for my interview, I shrank in my seat when the applicant just ahead of me came out wearing a grownup business suit and carrying a shiny brief case, and no doubt having a university degree in psychology. Maybe I muttered, “Who does he think he is?
In an earlier life, as a soldier, I had been “glued to the mission.” If a weapon jams, you fix it and carry on; if your patrol gets hit, you carry on. In the interview, they asked me, “If a resident commits suicide, then after the ambulance and police are gone, would you want a supervisor to come in to be with you, or would you carry on until the end of your shift?” While this might have seemed like an innocent “screening for wimps” question, I knew it was a trick: I wasn’t glued to being an idiot! “I would want the supervisor in with me.” I thought, I bet that fool with degree and no real-world experience answered like some John Wayne hero. I got the job.
Of course as I worked more contracts I became more confident. Once, at the end of an interview, two managers burst out laughing. I politely said, “I don’t get it.” It seems I was the first interviewee who wasn’t scared. I thought, I am learning to just be myself. No tricks.
Another time I was interviewed by a rehabilitation centre boss and a senior executive. It was the first time in my life I ever did something I had only read about: I looked at my hands. They asked why did I leave the army? And I explained I wanted to be a man among men, not among wimps. So many of them hadn’t known how hard it would be, and they complained. The boss said, “My husband’s a police officer, he was in the army.”
Uh-oh. “What did he do?”
“He was in reconnaissance platoon.” (Doing scouting patrols)
Whew! (Because scouting is hard)
They asked, “What’s your greatest weakness?”
“I can’t think of one off the top of my head.”
They swiftly came back with, “Are saying you can’t think of one or that you don’t have one?” They were being a tad aggressive.
That’s when I looked at my hands, then looked up and said, “I read in a government brochure on getting a job that you’re not supposed to reveal a weakness.”
They burst out laughing! “We must have read the same brochure!”
…These days I sympathize with young workers. Happily, my last evaluation report had nothing but “above expectations,” excellent, in every category. I should have kept it as a souvenir for my old age.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
Calgary
June
2024
Blog note: One way to slowly read through an entire blog archive, without being overwhelmed, is to only read a given month, down the years.
