What that was a strange experience.

It may very well come to pass that I just concluded a successful job interview. I suspect I did quite well, but it was one of the most disjointed interviews I’ve ever experienced, both as an interviewee and interviewer.

I was escorted into a conference room and soon was joined by the director of HR, who spent about 48 seconds briefing me on the company’s employee benefits and stuff. This guy was the type of person whose time you don’t waste (especially when you’re a prospective employee trying to curry favor), so when he asked, “Any questions?” there really wasn’t any answer other than no.

The HR guy left, and the interviewer walked in. A tall guy with a big gray beard. Grizzly Adams with a tie. His “interview” had little to do with me; I suppose his job was to double-check everything I wrote on my resume, but he mostly wanted to talk about his project team. When I dutifully asked a follow-up question about said team, he looked a little exasperated and explained it almost word for word the same way he had done it before. So yeah, he spent most of the interview doing the talking.

Why do I think the interview went well? First off, Grizzly is one of those still-extant developer types who clearly have little interest in  technical writers. We’re the folks who disturb precious coding time with all kinds of ridiculous questions about usability. Sensing this position in Grizzly, I took the deferential route and talked about how important it is for writers to work with developers, blahblahblah, but of course not the other way around. You know, it’s my job to pick your mighty brain; you are not in any way obligated to impart your wisdom willingly to me. He liked that. I think he may have nodded.

I also played the Wizened Card. Everyone keeps telling me I look young for my age, so I always feel like I need to overcompensate to prove that I haven’t just fallen off the beet truck. Using phrases like, “Things have changed a lot in technical writing since the ’80s” and “By adding experience in things like XML and databases, my skill set has come a long ways since the days of Microsoft Word 3.0.” Whether or not these pithy comments made a dent, I don’t know, but I’m tired of playing the part of a fresh-faced kid. Grizzly needed to know I was a veteran of the game and therefore wouldn’t join the company full of beans and desire to make waves.

So now we wait. Based upon this experience, I’m not overly thrilled about this potential employer. If a job offer is forthcoming, I’ll need to do some soul searching to see whether it’ll be a reasonable fit for me.

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