Interview skills fail

Note to self: when a senior member of staff springs an impromptu meeting to talk about your role in the company the answer to the question “where do you see yourself in 5 years time?” should not be “5 years?! Blimey that’s a long way off!”

In my defence it’s a stupid bloody question really. Who the hell nowadays knows what they will be doing in 5 years? I could still be here, I could be running the Hobbit department, I could have moved on to bigger and better things, or smaller and worse things, I might have won the lottery, I may have moved to Puerto Rico, I may be farming llamas in Italy, the world may have ended and I’ll be spinning out in space somewhere as a trillion tiny atoms, I maybe have joined a LoTR sect and sold all my personal possessions to fund the quest for the ring.

The most I’ve managed to stick it out in one job is about 3 years so if I was to go with the trend of my employment pattern then my answer would be “working somewhere else”. But that’s not what they want to hear is it? They want goals and aims and aspirations and enthusiasm and swashbuckle and get up and go! This is not something you will get from me in a meeting at 4.45pm on a Thursday during a week I have Friday off. Plus don’t spring it on me like that! Give me time to think up some appropriate bull shit so I can say what you want to hear and we can then part ways and forget about the whole thing an carry on as normal.

In the end I managed to talk myself into a butt load of work. And I’ve got to write a feckin’ proposal now – a proposal! Lord. Potentially it could be quite interesting, but equally it could result in me going slightly (more) insane and raising my stress levels. I don’t do work and stress, I don’t think the two should ever be combined and I avoid that kind of collision at all costs. Perhaps if the interesting and stress balance out I’ll be able to live with it, I guess we’ll see.

This of course is all pending on whether my proposal ever gets past Harley’s desk and anything is done about it. I did point out that I mentioned all of this in my annual review in December and what I was interested in doing. What objectives I would like if they ever get round to setting them…. Shant hold my breath. I’m sure this time next month I’ll be sitting here doing the same old stuff while they faff about with it all. God forbid anyone should make a decision on anything.

You know me, I’ll moan if I’m too busy and I’ll moan if they do nothing about it. I’ll moan regardless and you’ll love it.