Pastel Blue
There was a faint streak of pastel blue on her face. The whole time she listened to me intently, nodding to my words, smiling. That made it easier for me to answer their questions.
"So, are you an introvert or extrovert?" asked a stone-faced member of the hiring committee.
"Well, that's hard to say. I mean, I enjoy my times alone in the coffee shop pondering this and that and reading and getting up early to scribble away at my desk. So in that sense I'm an introvert. But ironically, as you review my resume, all the work that I've done involves me to be heavily involved with people, outreaching, public speaking, facilitating groups, so..."
She kept nodding and smiling. You're doing well, Adam, I knew I was right to bring you here, she seemed to say.
"You can't be fifty-fifty," says the stone-faced member.
"How about sixty percent introvert, and fourty extrovert, that's okay, right?" I said, thinking it a clever and fair response I had just made.
The faint streak of pastel blue, I had seen it before, on the dry wall of an abandoned basement, on the tin box of pencil crayons, on the scrap napkins that accumulate in my knapsack, on the shiny stretchy fabric of rarely used umbrellas, on a Sammi Cheng CD cover, on somebody else's face. Maybe there's a blue patch that remains constant in our space, and as our bodies rotate round and round, we might come in touch with this blue patch, and depending on the kind of person we are, it manifests itself on our faces in various shades and style. I must have had a faint streak of pastel blue on my face too. I must have, sometime, somewhere. Maybe we both had it on our face as we were rotating within the constraints of the interview room. Maybe she saw it in me, and that's why she was looking and listening intently the whole time.
She led me to the door, handed me her business card and thanked me for coming. I see a patch of blue on you, I wanted to say. I walked out of the interview feeling myself to be more interesting than before I walked in, then I rubbed my fingertips as if I had touched chalk.
"So, are you an introvert or extrovert?" asked a stone-faced member of the hiring committee.
"Well, that's hard to say. I mean, I enjoy my times alone in the coffee shop pondering this and that and reading and getting up early to scribble away at my desk. So in that sense I'm an introvert. But ironically, as you review my resume, all the work that I've done involves me to be heavily involved with people, outreaching, public speaking, facilitating groups, so..."
She kept nodding and smiling. You're doing well, Adam, I knew I was right to bring you here, she seemed to say.
"You can't be fifty-fifty," says the stone-faced member.
"How about sixty percent introvert, and fourty extrovert, that's okay, right?" I said, thinking it a clever and fair response I had just made.
The faint streak of pastel blue, I had seen it before, on the dry wall of an abandoned basement, on the tin box of pencil crayons, on the scrap napkins that accumulate in my knapsack, on the shiny stretchy fabric of rarely used umbrellas, on a Sammi Cheng CD cover, on somebody else's face. Maybe there's a blue patch that remains constant in our space, and as our bodies rotate round and round, we might come in touch with this blue patch, and depending on the kind of person we are, it manifests itself on our faces in various shades and style. I must have had a faint streak of pastel blue on my face too. I must have, sometime, somewhere. Maybe we both had it on our face as we were rotating within the constraints of the interview room. Maybe she saw it in me, and that's why she was looking and listening intently the whole time.
She led me to the door, handed me her business card and thanked me for coming. I see a patch of blue on you, I wanted to say. I walked out of the interview feeling myself to be more interesting than before I walked in, then I rubbed my fingertips as if I had touched chalk.
posted by Adam C at
2:00 AM
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