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Need To Know Basis, Revisited
Sep. 29th, 2014 08:36 pmToday I have mostly been remembering why I didn't want to tell people about the interview. I was partly right. It is about disappointment. However, it's not about people being disappointed in me, or even really about people being disappointed for me.
As is perhaps evident, I didn't get the job. Having found out who did - someone I know and like, and, more to the point, someone who will be excellent in the post and who they'd have been bonkers to appoint me over - I'm happy both with the way things have turned out and with the way I did them. Time was when I would have thought this job not for the likes of me and not even bothered putting in an application form. As it is, I did a decent application form, got shortlisted, did a decent interview, and got feedback that I can work with. And one of my friends has got a job. Honestly, I'm not disappointed. I'm happy, tired, stressed, and suffering from the onset of seasonal depression, but I'm not disappointed.
And yet people are telling me, 'You must be disappointed!' Or, 'I know you're disappointed...' And it is setting my teeth on edge.
Which means that it isn't about disappointment at all. It's about people telling me what they think I ought to be feeling, and pushing back against that, or not. Which means that I can connect this to last year, when everyone was telling me how difficult I must be finding it not living with my husband. To six years ago, trying to plan our wedding, with the industry telling me that I wanted everything to be perfect, with my family telling me that of course I wanted one thing, with his family telling me that of course I wanted another.
Still, it is particularly connected to things that I have failed at. And, revisiting it today, I find that it is compounded by having to tell people, and telling several people in quick succession. I hate being the bearer of bad news, even when it's my bad news that I don't really feel bad about. The whole thing is still reminding me of when I couldn't trust my parents to speak to each other civilly, and failing two driving tests and not getting three jobs I really wanted in the space of a year, so having to deliver five sets of bad news twice over. Having to do that ten or twenty times in the space of a day - no, I still hate it. I need an improved strategy.
As is perhaps evident, I didn't get the job. Having found out who did - someone I know and like, and, more to the point, someone who will be excellent in the post and who they'd have been bonkers to appoint me over - I'm happy both with the way things have turned out and with the way I did them. Time was when I would have thought this job not for the likes of me and not even bothered putting in an application form. As it is, I did a decent application form, got shortlisted, did a decent interview, and got feedback that I can work with. And one of my friends has got a job. Honestly, I'm not disappointed. I'm happy, tired, stressed, and suffering from the onset of seasonal depression, but I'm not disappointed.
And yet people are telling me, 'You must be disappointed!' Or, 'I know you're disappointed...' And it is setting my teeth on edge.
Which means that it isn't about disappointment at all. It's about people telling me what they think I ought to be feeling, and pushing back against that, or not. Which means that I can connect this to last year, when everyone was telling me how difficult I must be finding it not living with my husband. To six years ago, trying to plan our wedding, with the industry telling me that I wanted everything to be perfect, with my family telling me that of course I wanted one thing, with his family telling me that of course I wanted another.
Still, it is particularly connected to things that I have failed at. And, revisiting it today, I find that it is compounded by having to tell people, and telling several people in quick succession. I hate being the bearer of bad news, even when it's my bad news that I don't really feel bad about. The whole thing is still reminding me of when I couldn't trust my parents to speak to each other civilly, and failing two driving tests and not getting three jobs I really wanted in the space of a year, so having to deliver five sets of bad news twice over. Having to do that ten or twenty times in the space of a day - no, I still hate it. I need an improved strategy.
