Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Interview



I had my interview yesterday.  It's an entry level position but everyone has to start somewhere.  I know she believed I was over-qualified, but the interview went exceptionally well.  She was very nice, and I'm pretty sure she thought the same of me.  I know I would enjoy working with her though I know that being director at this place is not her primary job.  Her main position is as the outreach director for a large civil rights organization/legal institution that built and administers this museum.* overall, I think the interview went really well, and I was told that I would hear from them very soon.  I just hope it pays somewhere near what I was making as a teacher (don't forget I was paid very poorly as a private school teacher, roughly 50% of the salary of a public school teacher).  Whether I get this job or not, I believe in what my current supervisor at my volunteer job told me to pray for: "God please let me be offered the job that is right for me.  I get confused when there are choices."  I never did do well on multiple choice tests.

One of the things that really intrigued me about this interview was that she wanted to discuss my experience with conducting oral histories.  I was glad she did that for two reasons.  One, it showed that the oral history experience I have is something that stand out on my resume.  This is important because I recently applied for a job that would primarily deal with oral histories.  It's a job that I'd really like to have in a part of the country that id love to live in.  The other thing is that, whether I get this job or not, it gave me some great experience and practice discussing my background in oral history.  As RB commented on Monday's post, "Every time you interview it's good practice and you usually learn something. The more you interview, the better you become at it. So not a waste of time."

In other developments, I was contacted by the the Campaign for Southern Equality because I had signed a petition earlier this year about marriage equality in Alabama.  Fourteen of Alabama's sixty-seven counties are not issuing marriage licenses to anyone because "they feel issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates their religious beliefs."  My address made it appear that I lived in one of those counties, though I actually live a few miles from the county line in the neighboring county.** I explained this to her and gave her some insight into the county. Anyway, she now want to discuss things over the phone with me tomorrow.  I'm not sure how much help I can be, but I am happy to be able to offer some assistance.  Sadly, if they want to call to ask me for a donation, they are out of luck until I find a good paying job.



*To give just a hint at what organization I applied to work with, it just lost one of their founders over the weekend.  His death was a great loss to civil rights movements.

**In my part of rural Alabama, the two nearest town refused to serve the rural mail routes where I live (this was many years before I was born), even though one of those routes ends two houses down from me.  So another rural post office offered mail service but it was located in another county.  At the time they only had one rural route all in the county where the post office existed.  They expanded to have a second rural route in the neighboring county to give people that did not have rural mail access, mail service.  Thus before they named our roads and gave us street numbers to simplify the rural 911 service, my address began with Route 2, Box ###.  My great-grandmother is actually the one that convinced this small rural post office to bring mail service to our area.

4 comments:

Susan said...

Perhaps she might reimagine the position now that she has met you and sees your amazing skill set. There could end up being a job for you that is more than entry-level. But regardless, Joe, I'm sure you gave a wonderful interview and she was impressed. Fingers and toes crossed this is the one—at least for now. You can always move on when something better comes your way. :)

Michael Dodd said...

May you indeed find the job that is best for you. And whatever position you accept, may you find the best in it.

Hot guys blog said...

Good for you, buddy. Hope you get it & it's a fit for you.

Mike said...

I was wondering how the Box and Route system worked. My aunt in Oklahoma is Route 3, Box ____. She does have a physical address I found out, only recently.