L'Entrevue

Last week my cursed telephone finally began to ring in response to résumés I've recently sent off. I interviewed for a job as a secretary at an advertising company on Thursday. Not, obviously, what I want to do- but I thought I'd show up for the interview and see where we went from there. The manager was super young and apologized for the thundering noise coming from the adjoining room- they were building a gym on site. They also offer ski passes to their employees- not so bad, I thought. The following day, I got up early and dragged myself out of bed and made the long trek to the Old Port. I arrived at the office and was greeted at the door by your typical middle-aged Québécois man, M.St-Pierre. He smiled and said 'Ah, Bonjour Debbie!' - not a good start. Turns out I dragged myself out of bed and all the way down there for nothing. He meant to call Debbie Bolton for an interview, but somehow called me instead (he said because Bogue and Bolton are so similar). He interviewed me anyway- and succeeded in becoming the most frustrating interview I've ever had. He asked me why, as an actor, I was applying to work as a receptionist at his télé-production company. Like any good actor, I'm quite adept at lying. I blathered on about wanting to see how things work on the other side, learning the ropes of the administration side to further my goals of one day running my own theater company. And blah blah blah. Of course, the real reason is because ACTRA is on strike and this makes it difficult to convince an agent that they should take you on. And because I have yet to perform in French, I have no French demo, and thus cannot acquire a French agent. Blah blah. So M. Le Québécois, looking over my cv with squinty little eyes, asks what makes me think I'm capable of multi-tasking since none of my jobs have required this skill. I sort of laughed and said, well- I do have teaching, management and waitressing experience. He stared at me blankly, and without missing a beat he said he didn't see how any of those jobs involved multi-tasking. Another glance over the page and he proclaims that I have too much leadership experience to work under someone else. He doesn't think this will work, and by the way- you're being very quiet, how is your French? Quiet? Hmmm... perhaps, sir, because you keep interrupting me to tell me your interpretation of my position, which frankly I don't care to hear. Of course, instead I just smiled and said "M.St-Pierre, je parle très bien français." He went quiet. Gave me an outline for a letter and asked me to write it in French, then in English and then I could go. A test, he said, of my creativity and written skills. I wrote the letter and stormed out of the office and up the street back to the metro, ranting silently the whole way. Of course, he was right- why would I want to work there? And I do have too much leadership experience (and intelligence) to work for a man who completed the interview by inquiring as to fluent I was in Mandorin. My face blank and confused, he had repeated the question- and finally it clicked- "They speak Korean, in Korea," I said.

Back home, my head throbbing from the frustration of the job hunt and damn it, how hard it is to be content when you're so darn smart. I spotted a posting for a temporary teaching position at a private school. I have an interview tomorrow, and hopefully if all goes well, I should be teaching next week. I just can't sit on my ass anymore. I'm about to lose my mind.