Interview

My interview clothes and I have a history together. I wore them to two research conferences as an undergrad. And also on the day I defended my thesis. Perhaps this is why they remind me of research, even though I've worn them to other job interviews more recently - most notably the one that got me my last job (*cough* position of indentured servitude). Anyway, after a year of lying dormant in Italy, Evil Competitive Pre-med Self is the one who stalks up the steps to the latest interview (confidence courtesy of said interview clothes) - without even tripping! huzzah! - with half-formed thoughts of methodology and p-values swimming vaguely in her brain.

I greet the lady at the door with a confident smile and a firm handshake. I take the seat she offers me and sit with my back as straight as it goes; while she leaves the room to get something, I skim idly through my resume and try to remember my stock responses for interview questions. There's the two-sentence research summary... the chronological volunteer-work history... Oh, look, and that time I was a supervisor at that other thing... better mention that. Leadership or whatever.

"So, what's your previous experience with children?" she asks upon her return.

I start with the most recent (indentured servitude) and then start to summarize the research thing, "... focusing on early cognitive development..." I'm fairly sure I lost her somewhere around the word cognitive, though, so I trail off slightly and then wrap it all up with a bright, "and some babysitting in high school!" She perks up. There we go.

"That's great," she says kind of vaguely, apparently still re-grouping, "uh-huh, so... " you can see she's thinking. It looks kind of painful. This is why when I interview people, I always think up the questions in advance. Or used to, anyway. When I interviewed people. Back when I had a real job. She breaks through my little daydream with her next question: "... do you know how to change diapers?"

She opens her eyes wide and looks at me expectantly. I must confess, I am somewhat taken aback. Does she really get that many people applying to work in a daycare who don't know how to change diapers? For that matter, there is nothing particularly complex about changing a diaper. I am pretty sure that most reasonably intelligent people would be able to figure it out if suddenly placed in a situation that urgently required them to do so.

"Uh... yes. Of course," I can't help adding.

"Great!" she enthuses, before beginning to shuffle through some paperwork.

I like kids. Really, I do. But sometimes, I miss some things about before - when I was a student and I had other jobs. Mostly, I miss having a job where people were impressed when you did something like, say, figure out a new way to analyze the data on SPSS (not that that happened to me very frequently) or churned out 10 pages in half as many hours (that did). People when being impressed when you confirm your ability to properly operate the sticky tabs on a diaper is just not the same.