I had this moment at some point during college, when I realized that I was actually alive, and that this was my one-and-only life. What was I doing? Where did I want to go next? It was like that moment when you've swam out into the ocean a little farther than you expected and now you're looking back at the shore and thinking, "Oh fuck, what the fuck happened to the shore?" It's that crucial moment of enlightenment, similar to waking up from a calm dream to a blaring alarm clock, refreshing and horrifying all at the same time. Because it's nice to be swimming in the ocean and all, but when you get out there on your own and you realize you're a half-mile above the sea floor and probably surrounded by sharks, it gets a little nerve-wracking. Basically now it's time to switch gears. Now it's time to start the next phase of being me, or the goddamn sharks will get me.
I felt this when I drove to Starbucks on Alhambra in my cool gray dress-shirt, my beige khaki pants, my gelled hair, my shiny brown shoes, carrying a laptop bag and paying for my mocha with a credit-card. It's one thing to pretend to be professional, but another to finally feel it.
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| Hire me, motherf**ka! |
I'm sure this feeling comes from the acquisition of two jobs.
Yes, they were coffee-shops jobs. Yes, in that regard, my resume is basically a recipe for an ideal coffee-shop employee. But there's more to a person than a resume, and if I hadn't impressed these people in the interviews, then I wouldn't have the jobs. It feels like crap to get called for a second interview when the company turns out to be a scam. Like getting asked on a date simply as the result of some cruel dare. But to get a call with an offer for a job, even a coffee-shop job, or any honest job, is a fantastic feeling.
Maybe that's because I feel like I floated upon a life-preserver. All that treading water I'd been doing of late has been wearing me out--I'd basically been begging for a change like this to happen, but too numb to do anything about it. Numbed by repetition. Numbed by a lackluster view of the future. The ocean's a cold place, after all, and if you don't keep your legs kicking then you'll get hypothermia and die. I'm glad I was fired. I'm glad I evolved.
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| Time to survive or be shark bait. |
Today I had that interview with Bevinco. Like everyone else I've interviewed with, Scott was friendly and easy to talk to, and he spoke to me like an adult. And I think that's something I've been taking for granted, lately, with all my encounters with people. This is something AJ does very well. She can talk openly with anyone with the passion and confidence that only comes when you try to give them the amount of respect you want them to return. This is hard to do when you're shy because you'd rather not get a lot of attention, so you rarely give it, but in that case you always find it hard to make strong connections. People want to talk. This is how you interact with people. And when I was meeting these managers, I remembered this fact and I had to empower myself to connect to them. And I did, twice--four times if you count the scams, but I won't be. So today with Scott, the ex-teacher Bevinco franchise owner, I felt like I did the same thing, and I felt like I nabbed it.
Hopefully my training schedule with Old Soul won't interfere.
In any case, he said he'd call back. I think it helped that he was wearing the same outfit as me, with a laptop bag, a mild way about him. He could've been me from the future.
- Left to Fry
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