an exercise in self control

[jaeclectic]

The context: I interviewed with company Q over a month ago, and was told within a couple of days that they wanted me to give a presentation, and that someone would call me with details that week. At that point, I'm thinking this is a really good prospect. But the week goes past, and I pinged the HR person, and got an uninformative 'we're working on it' type response. And a couple more weeks went past, and I pinged the HR person, and she said 'they're still finishing up the first round of interviews'. And meanwhile I see the job is still being actively posted. So by the time a full month has gone by, I have pretty much concluded that they are looking for something / someone other than myself.

And then, lo, after the third ping, I get a phone call Monday AM saying they want me to come in this week. (And BTW, they hope to make a decision by next week and have someone start immediately, causing me a serious quandary with regard to the short AP gig, but that's another story.)

Talking to a different HR person (perhaps the first one's boss), we agree to Wednesday afternoon for the preso, with the understanding that I will get the "assignment" by that afternoon, plenty of time to prepare. Then that afternoon, I get a call from the hiring manager, saying he hopes it will be ready by the end of the day, but certainly by 9 AM Tuesday. I say, sure that's fine, I'll call you at 10 if I haven't seen it, just in case something goes awry with email.

So, here it is, 10:15, I just talked to the guy, he says he sent the material to the HR person to forward, and he'll check.

The thing is, I tend to overprepare for presentations, that's my nature. I mean, I like to be overprepared. And it makes me very, very nervous to know that I need to give a preso tomorrow but I can't start preparing.

And at this point, that nervousness is sequeing into anger. I mean, these people made me wait a month, now they're in a big hurry. But they couldn't spare the time during that month to get their act together for the next phase of their own interview process.

Interrupt: OK, email just arrived. I am sure I will calm down once I start working.

The point of the rant, however, is that the situation makes me angry, but I feel obliged to suppress it. Because, they have something I want, and they can be as disorganized and thoughtless as they choose. It just makes it hard to keep that upbeat, 'boy I wanna work there' attitude.

And being angry right now just distracts from what I need to do.