One Door Closes...

I had a job interview back in late November. It is one of those jobs that I really wanted, the kind that I would keep my eyes open for all the time. Something I've got experience in and I think I'm good at doing. It involves an industry that doesn't have a lot of permanent type positions, but a lot of contract work, which is what I am always doing. It's great work, and it pays well, but it isn't consistent. It involves using actors to play patients for medical students to be able to evaluate their communication, physical exam and diagnosis skills. The actors are independent contractors, obviously they don't need them every day for 40 hours a week. But one position that the schools or centers will have is a trainer/coordinator, and that's a job I've been trying to land for a while. I had a great interview for one in Cleveland, when my wife was considering a job offer from there. I think I had a great shot at it, but had to withdrawal my name when my wife picked the New York job. Don't worry, I'm not crying over not living in Cleveland.

But after we moved to New York I got wind of a job coming open at one of the medical schools here. So I finally had the interview and have just been waiting. And waiting. And fucking waiting. Finally, I got an offer last week to work a bunch of dates in the spring by another place that does standardized patient (that's what it's called) cases here. I had to let them know if I could take the dates so I had to email the other place to find out what was going on.

I didn't get the job. They had already offered the job to somebody else, but hadn't gotten around to telling me. Who knows how long that I was still hoping where there was no hope? That's the part that really burns. It takes like two minutes to write an email saying "Thanks, but fuck off." At least I could have moved on quickly and gotten over it. It's not like this was a job at Wal-Mart that two hundred people applied for. There were three people interviewed.

This is the second time in my life I had an interview for something that could have really altered the way my life was going to go. You know, something that would probably have been a gig you would like going to every day, would pay well and offer some kind of potential long-term security. The other one would have been teaching drama at a prep school in Seattle. That one only had two of us interviewed, but I also waited a ton of time there and then contacted them, only to find out they already hired the other person.

You know, when someone says at the end of an interview, or anything else for that matter, "we'll be in touch," they should be in fucking touch.

So I was down a little over the weekend. I called my friend Barb, who was my first boss in the standardized patient world, and wrote me a glowing recommendation for the job.

She reassured me that something good would come along for me. She also said that even though she knows I don't believe in fate, Barb's one of those people that knows that about me without having to read my blog, she is sure it happened for a reason and that it means something better is going to come along.

And I really want to believe that. I really, really do. But it's hard. I'm the kind of person that tends to believe that the reason it happened is that the world hates me and I'm not meant to have any success in life.

I'd like to think of this as one of those opportunity moments. You know, I just say to myself, "Well, I guess this is just one of those door closing, another opening moments, so I guess I'll just try to focus on writing that book idea I've got banging around in my head."

I want to be that guy. But then I just turn around and think, "Right, the publishers are going to just be lined-up around the block for that. 'Look there's a guy with a blog, and his friends say they like it, let's give him a book deal.' Sure that sounds plausible."

I try to remember what they say, that you can't succeed if you don't take risks. Of course if you don't take risks, you also don't face rejection. So there's that.

And nothing sucks worse than rejection.

It's amazing I survived being a theatre major.