Last week I was feeling positively reflective and buoyant after a going to what seemed to be a successful job interview with TNT, the postal services. Seven days on and there is still reason to be positive but the result is still unknown. I can’t hide the fact that I’m frustrated now, as I was told that I would receive a phone call to notify me of when and where the training is likely to begin within the space of a day, and that hasn’t materialised. However, in passing a member of staff at Avanta on Tuesday I was informed that I have “passed the first stage of interviewing”, whatever that means exactly, and should anticipate word from TNT soon. So, I continue to anticipate but shall resort to phoning Avanta myself tomorrow afternoon if my phone doesn’t ring first.
The bigger picture is I am one of many applicants. Overhearing other clients at Avanta there are already people attending the TNT bike and warehouse training. I’m not worried that my place is taken as the very same interviewers are still there at Avanta seeing to more people, surely for similar if not the same positions, and also I believe TNT are looking to employ dozens of people for the run up to Christmas, not only several. I think that surely I am likely to be one of the successful ones, which is reliant on the interviewers in particular having some common sense as I feel that any company would want to employ friendly and intelligent people that they can then mould into the shape of the desired employee.
The other possibility is that I seemed a strange character in the interview, but I know I made sure I brought the ‘normal me’ in with me that day. The wacky part of my personality tends to stay at home with me, behind closed doors, and in public we all try and appear professional and ultimately ‘normal’ at all times. This is how I was that day, that day being last Thursday morning. That is until I got home and feeling pretty good about the interview I probably giggled like a maniac, but that’s normal, right? Either way I prefer to think myself as a comedy genius rather than a mental case, but that remains in dispute.
The smaller picture then is that I am growing in disappointment that not only by Friday early evening I wasn’t called, and then by the following Monday after the weekend I still had not seen or heard my phone ring at all. Things can be delayed and an employer’s priority is not so much to please those hoping to get a job, but to make sure they get the right people in the right timeframe. However, what does annoy me in general life is when you get given a specific time or day to either meet someone or hear back from them and then that promise, vaguely or loosely given or not, is found to be false and absent in basic manners.
As I say it is the smaller picture, so getting myself worked up about it isn’t going to alter the situation but it does almost feel at the point where patience is beginning to wear thin and perhaps I could say it’s poor behaviour and lack of any care from those who are supposed to ring me. But then who am I? Just a man waiting by a phone who’d like to think he’s of some minor importance. Never mind, though, I’m sure things are moving along smoother than it feels to be, and as TNT gather the bulk of their new trainees I’m almost certain to be on that list of successful applicants somewhere, maybe at the bottom section in the ‘cool dude group’ or something, I don’t know.
In other less pressing news I’m mildly excited by the fact that I’m cooking sausages and home-made potato wedges, or ‘wedgies’, tonight. It’s nothing elaborate like I sometimes do attempt in the kitchen, although not as often as I’d like to due to the lack of funds. It’s not entirely healthy either, especially after I pour a pint of gravy on top, but my mouth is watering already. Maybe it’s even a bit sad to get slightly aroused (steady on) by the evening meal, but a hot meal is always something to look forward to. And I am part Irish, so potatoes are always a joy.
Mostly, though, I am in this kind of ‘nowhere land’ state of mind at this very point in my life. It’s a fleeting feeling with no real depth to it, so I’m not panicking or stressing like I have done in previous months. It’s only that last week I was expectant and now I’ve slipped down a level to hopeful; but the phone call from TNT must come and if not I’m going to gently and politely create a fuss until someone gives me definitive word on my application. Moreover, I am still positive over all this, and stubbornly so, for I can see no reason why I won’t be given the opportunity to progress.
photo credit: Bill Selak via photopin cc
I always hated that period of time we refer to as “waiting for an answer.” The best solution is to stay busy! Keep the pipeline filled with more applications, appointments or interviews. You cannot count on anything until they give you an offer.
My goodness. This brought it all back.
I have run my own little business since 1995 so I haven’t been in an interview position since the late 1980s. I had just forgotten the relentless stress of waiting to hear.