Post-interview blues

I had an interview today thanks to an introduction arranged by a neighbor, who is one of many people approached by my uncle in his one-man marketing campaign to get me a job.

I'm somewhat depressed.

Because the interview went well.

As some background: I need a job. I need a job really soon. I need an income, and a budget, and to stop putting everything on credit cards, and to get a used car so that I'm not a prisoner of Suburbia, and I need to be able to make plans, and for that I need a job.

So I was thrilled to get the interview, and hit it off with the people I met today. The problem is that they were the step before meeting with the person I'll be supporting, who is a high-level executive at a large Boston-area hospital.

I've always avoided being an Exec Assist because I don't relish the idea of spending my days managing a calendar and constantly being "on," and I'm concerned about my ability to focus on being someone's handler without losing my mind.  I like being able to get tea without letting everyone know where I'll be. I  like being invisible and head-down and working. The current EA  has moved far away and the commute is untenable so she is leaving, but assures me she loves it there.

She and I have very different personalities; she's very serious. I'm serious about work, but I'm not heart-attack serious. I worry I'll get all Zen Big Picture and the minutiae of the job will seem petty and trivial and I won't toe the line, and adios.

I realize this is my perpetual Imposter Complex, my insecurity that, despite my achievements, this, THIS, will be the job that exposes me for the incompetent fraud I really am.

But nothing else has come along, aside from a  phone interview last week that apparently went nowhere, which was fine because the commute would have been a nightmare. While this commute is rather long, it's not particularly complicated.

But nothing from the contacts of former colleagues, nothing from the chatty LinkedIn emails trying and failing to hide mercenary communication beneath too-casual suggestions to "get together and catch up." Nothing has come from the resume my clay instructor gave to her husband, whose company is "hiring like crazy." Nothing from anyone and everyone I've spoken to and asked to keep me in mind. I'm off Facebook for Lent, and it's a good thing, because it's all I can do not to post in a huge font HOW CAN I KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE AND STILL BE WITHOUT A JOB?!?!?! AND HOW CAN YOU POST YOUR F*CKING FAMILY PHOTOS FROM YET ANOTHER FAMILY VACATION WHEN YOU HAVE NOT GONE TO ANYONE IN YOUR COMPANY AND SAID, "THIS WOMAN IS AWESOME AND YOU MUST! HIRE! HER! NOW!"

*breathing*

So they liked me and now I'm going in for an 8:30am interview, because this person's schedule is so insane that this is what she can spare. And I will be the keeper of that insane schedule. I dread asking what my hours will be.

My uncle is over the moon. He broke his usual discreet silence to ask me whether I'd met with the VP, whether we'd discussed salary. What about benefits? What would my hours be?  Maybe I could drive in with the neighbor, since she works there, but I should mention that he'd suggested it so I won't seem pushy, on second thought, no, he'd take me to the train. Then speculation on when we'd need to be out of the house to make the train with plenty of time, which meant calculating when we needed to be up...

I finally had to tell him to relax; it's an interview, not a Broadway audition.

I look at the rabbits and think, "They need a place to run around in again, and you need a place of your own again, and lord knows you've had much more awful jobs than this would be. Think of this not as a burden but as a gift, because it can give you your freedom."