today's agenda
I remember when I first started work, almost three years ago now, I was sent to interview this one fairly senior guy at a fairly large multinational company. I was so junior then that I didn't even have a beat, and although I'd done some research I was quite clueless about the way the whole industry worked. So I started off the interview by asking him a few background questions about his company. To which he replied: "You don't know all these things? Didn't you do any homework at all before coming here? Why don't you go back and find out all this first and then come back when you're done?" And the interview ended there and then.
While he wasn't wrong in saying that I didn't know much about what I was doing, he falsely assumed that he mattered enough for us to do another interview with him. The interview never happened; even now, we seldom have stories on the guy or his company, though of course I don't flatter myself in thinking it's because of me.
At that time I felt completely humiliated and crushed. I walked out of the interview and hid somewhere to cry; the PR woman was nice enough (or maybe embarrassed enough) to call me later and apologise for her client's behaviour. My colleagues kindly told me to grow a thicker skin.
I'm not sure I've succeeded in that, but I've never cried again over work. Maybe it's because the criticism has become less about me than about the people who are criticising. Today I found out (from our expat photo editor, of all people) that there was a thread on an expat forum where contributors were flaming me by name because of something I wrote. The only thing I felt was a sort of surprised glee, like, hey! Someone knows my name! The forum posts were rather unpleasant, which is probably why they've been taken down now. If I'd known, I would have saved them somewhere, just for posterity.
So that's my maybe half an hour of fame on the internet. I'll try to provoke another soon, let's see if that lasts an hour!
posted by zyn ::
9:47 PM ::
6 Comments ::
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