Dissing Demons, Talking Angels
Good interview?  Yes.  Wonderful in too many ways.

After a 50 minute wait in a chilly foyer, the initial steps I took into the interview room were tired, weary ones.  I swiveled slightly in my chair as I sat down--and immediately was greeted with the cold blast of air from above.  A unit hovered right behind their heads, pegged to the wall above, and another swooped down from the centre of the room.  Right from the get go, I could feel my forehead tighten against the cold air shooting down.  Their smiles--a panel of two--were equally tight, just as cold.  Silently, above, the arrows continued shooting.  Numbing my thoughts, stalling my processes.  "Wonderful." I thought.  "Let's play."

Add nervousness, a truly skeptical party, difficult questions and an aggressive interviewer who kept on talking over me--it was extremely trying, terrifically unforgiving.  Nothing of the willingness to listen or openness to consideration that I so hoped from a foundation that described itself to be truly different from the rest.

It wasn't just in the way the questions were asked, but the spirit in which they were asked.  Claudio a good friend of mine told me that I was being unrealistic in expecting them to molly-coddle me through the interview.  Instead, it was a good thing that they were constantly challenging me, constantly on my back talking down and asking more about my game, my intentions, and exclaiming "it's going to be very hard, very hard" probably about fifteen times over.  Everything lasted for nearly an hour.

While I grew so cold my body started convulsing and my voice started quivering, what bugged me most was also the manner in which the questions were asked.  I am grateful that they asked only hard questions--but it was the inexplicable spirit in which they was asked.  The gaze, the dismissive hand gesture, the unflinching, cold hard pressed mouth-line told me it knew its answers and conclusions before I could proffer any.  The gaze told me it had learnt, earned and heard it all before any words came from my lips.  I lost my train of though so many times, left a number of sentences halfway unsaid--mainly because it felt like it had reached its conclusions before I even began. 

Given, this attitude may have been a interview tactic to see how far I would bend--and true enough, I felt like walking out of the room towards the end.  But instead, I kept quiet, continued smiling while the dismissing and my lack "of a proper CV" was being thrown in my face.  I saved those bolting moments to the last, as I firmly shook their hands, thanked them for their time, and walked out to the well of tears stinging my eyes and a deep, heart-wrenching hole quickly boring into my chest.

I needed to breath--I needed to think.  And it's ironic that the only space that afforded me those alarming moments of privacy was a toilet cubicle.  Even the instant reflex to dial for a trusted friend like Vince or Calvin failed.  I stood instead chest-high in a cacophony of hoots and jeers.  "This interview was not meant to be like this."  I thought.  "It was not supposed to have turned out this way."  I sat on the toilet seat nursing the wound.  The only thing that spoke back were the silent speckles on the toilet's grey marble wall.

That's why I think it so strange though, that when I finally stepped out of that dingy office building, all I could see, was how bright the day truly was.  Heavy heart included, yes.  But somehow, the day seemed to stand for so much more.