Smoosh Time

This afternoon, nobody call me! I have my first internship interview by phone. Tomorrow I have another phone one, and then I have to go out of state to attend two more on Friday. (Which will mean about 6 hours of interviews in one day.)

Internship interviews are not normal job interviews that simply assess your job skills and whether you'd be a decent person to be around all day and maybe try to figure out whether you'll steal from the company. They are interviews by psychologists, trying to see what your secret flaw in relating to others is. Or what your personal insecurities are, since in Psychology your personal insecurities are a job liability--they are your flaws in relating to others.

And all this is going on while you might be suddenly tested on something you learned in grad school at any point during the past five years. (Or worse, didn't.) I've heard of someone's interview being conducted entirely in Spanish because one of her reference-letter writers mentioned that she was fluent in Spanish. (Not that they're likely to find someone to interview me in Norwegian, but one never knows.)

And the thing I find myself worrying about most today is out of my control (of course). It's that the one-time guest parking pass sent me by one of the out-of-town sites is marked for the wrong date. And it promises in small print that if you write on it, you get a $100 fine, so that's out.

I also considered bringing a bunch of quarters, but does that mean I'll have to repeatedly run outside to feed the meter during the all-morning interview? (Even if I did find a pay spot that was coincidentally close to the interview building, which since it's on a college campus I'm seriously doubting.) It could be a stress test, but I don't think so. I think it was just a dumb mistake that's now stressing me out. I emailed the contact person about it, but never heard anything back from her, and at this stage it would be really bad form to complain about inconveniences, since she's likely to be one of my interviewers.

Today I had planned to try to finish my cramming and then spend some time relaxing by painting, before the phone call this afternoon, but we'll see. I may end up feeling too nervous to be distracted like that. At least it's not one of my top sites today, so I'll probably feel less anxious about making "mistakes". However, tomorrow morning's interview is my top choice site. Too bad it's not scheduled for next week after I've had some more practice.

So anyway, wish me luck! (And don't call me this afternoon, for the love of dog.)


Update:

Upon viewing my MapPoint depiction of interview Friday, I realize that not only did I choose a close hotel, I chose a very close hotel. Neither of my interviews is more than .5 miles from the hotel. Now, regardless of weather or what fant-see clothes I'm dressed up in, there is no half-mile I can't just walk on my own two legs.

Whew!