A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT
This week, I’m ruminating about a job interview that probably should’ve never happened in the first place.
About ten thousand years ago (pre-internet days) I completed a job application on a typewriter. That’s right, the metal thing that people used to hit with rapid force at the behest of two locked index fingers. Anyway, I mailed, not e-mailed, but snail-mailed the application to a university over two thousand miles away.
A couple weeks later I heard back from them. They would fly me out there (on an airplane, no less!) put me up for a couple of nights in a local hotel, and I would spend three days on campus as part of the job interview. My heck, I thought I had won the lottery. I’d never been to the town where the university was located, so this was going to be a treat.
I packed my bags and had a smooth flight in. I invested in a rental car since the letter stated that no one would be there to pick me up, and drove the thirty miles or so to my hotel and then to the campus. And what a lovely three days they were! A beautiful campus surrounded by hills (which they charmingly called mountains), trees, and greenery. A lovely contrast to the smoggy, brown, sagebrush-covered mountains of Utah.
I attended several meetings where I met students, faculty, administrators, and the colleagues I would be working with if I got the job. Things were going pretty well, although I knew I didn’t stand a chance since I was working at a technical college and had not worked at a renowned university before.
On the last day, the search committee took me to lunch at a nice restaurant. I was one of the last to order and had made mental notes of what the committee members had ordered for food and drink, so as to be sure I was ordering something comparable. I didn’t want to come across as disingenuous if I ordered a salad with water while the rest ordered meat loaf and vice versa. I ordered a meal at the midline of what the others ordered along with a Diet Coke. The person next to me whispered, “I don’t think you can have that.”
Startled, I tried to figure out how I had broken etiquette. Why couldn’t I order a Diet Coke when others had ordered soda pop, and one or two had ordered alcohol with their meals? Flustered, I whispered back, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Luckily this was one of those restaurants that automatically provided water for each meal, so I drank the water and had a tough time concentrating on the conversations that ensued around the table because I was so focused on my faux pas.
After lunch there were two more meetings and another walking tour of campus. At last, the campus chancellor and the person who would be my supervisor, if hired, brought me to the chancellor’s office for the final interview. I had checked out of the hotel that morning and had the rental car parked on campus, but was worried I might hit rush hour traffic on the way to the airport and miss my flight if I was in this office more than a half hour. The chancellor stated rather somberly, “There’s something we need to ask you.”
This was it; what I’d been dreading. They were going to ask how I had the nerve to order a Diet Coke for lunch, and who was I to apply for a position to such an august institution when I worked for a piddly tech school in a piddly town out in the middle of nowheresville, Utah. Perhaps this was an elaborate hoax played on gullible westerners by easterners? An expensive form of chicanery, perhaps, but plausible. What if they were deliberately keeping me from catching my plane, so I would have to pay for a return ticket myself? I didn’t have the money for that. I’d be stuck here, and was this a form of kidnapping? Dang, I was going to have to call the police on these guys and that would be embarrassing. The police officer would ask me how I was kidnapped, and I would relay how the campus administration talked to me for too long, so I missed my flight, and couldn’t buy another ticket, and…
As I was mulling this over in my mind, the chancellor continued, “We have to ask you about your conviction.” Hang on, what? My mind flashed back to the Diet Coke incident at lunch. Was this a veiled attempt to find out if I was Mormon? Perhaps the person sitting next to me thought that since I was from Utah I was Mormon and that Mormons weren’t allowed to drink caffeine, which was not true; we weren’t allowed to drink hot drinks which had been interpreted to mean coffee and tea, but hot chocolate and hot apple cider were ok. Caffeine in soda was not forbidden, but some of the more pious Mo’s thought they were breaking the Word of Wisdom by drinking Pepsi, Coke, or heaven forbid, Mountain Dew. I knew that missionaries and BYU didn’t drink soda pop with caffeine, but how would the search committee know that? Oh great, now they thought I was a hypocrite and at the first opportunity when out of view of my Utah peers, went hog wild and ordered a caffeinated beverage. Besides, there were more people who weren’t Mormon in Salt Lake City than were, so how ignorant of them to assume I was Mormon even though I was. There was no way I was going to get this job now.
Instinctively, I answered his question by repeating the question. “Um, my conviction?”
Thanks to years spent as a counselor with a masters in educational psychology, I had another second or two to think while they came up with their reply. “Yes, your felony.”
“My felony?” I automatically repeated. I couldn’t keep this up for too long without sounding like a parrot trying to pass herself off as a human. But Holy Snot, what was going on? I was starting to feel a bit dizzy. I could’ve used a boost from Diet Coke at that point.
“Yes, you said on your application that you had been convicted of a felony but didn’t state why in the section that asked for an explanation.” I must’ve looked shell-shocked because he didn’t even wait for me to repeat the question back. The person-who-could-be-my-future-supervisor did it for me, and added hopefully, “We thought perhaps you had been a protester in college, or something.”
My heck, how old did they think I was? I was truly a child of the sixties, but came of age during the conservative backlash of the eighties, à la Alex Keaton. Surely, they would’ve seen Family Ties? I breathed in and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, there’s been a mistake. I’ve never been convicted of a felony; or even been arrested for one. I haven’t broken any laws; or misdemeanors, as well, but I have had some speeding tickets and parking tickets..” Great, now I was babbling and had just apologized for not being a convicted felon. It had been such a nice three days and two nights.
Then I remembered that in order to type the “x” in the little box on the application form I had had to memorize where the box was on the black rolling thingy where the letters were pressed on to the typewriter because it was out of view. I had to do that for all the check boxes on the application form and it had taken two or three applications to get the type lined up correctly with those blasted boxes. At the time, I was remonstrating with myself for not typing out the application form on my manual typewriter at home. No, I had to type it out on the fancy, newfangled IBM Selectric II electric typewriter at work. I could’ve sworn I had read and re-read the application to be sure I had checked the correct boxes before I mailed it in. I explained as such to them, but it sounded so lame, I was sure they didn’t believe me.
I think it was when the plane was flying over the Dakotas that it hit me. I started to giggle, and then laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself. At least they assumed my felony was due to being a radical free speech protester rather than a criminal mastermind. What if I had been a murderer? Or an embezzler? When they set up the campus interview at their expense they had no idea what crime I had committed. They must’ve interviewed me out of sheer curiosity.
Who was this middle-aged, white, Mormon woman who had done hard time in the clink? It would be worth spending a couple thou in university money to find out, I was sure they had reasoned. Even so, nobody had the guts to meet me at the airport and drive me to and from campus. I guess it was considered safe enough to meet me in a group setting, but not one-on-one. Oh, it must have been such a let down for them. What a disappointment. It’s the only time in my life I wished I was a criminal. And that’s how Penn State thought I was a felon.
A couple weeks later, I accepted the job.
~ Emery Lamb
Recent Comments