The last month

It has been a long time since I wrote anything on here. Matter of fact, as you can see, I have removed all the other posts. I don't know if there was anything good or not in those posts, but it has been long enough to make them irrelevant.

Nonetheless, I feel the need to write again. Who knows how often I will do it, but for now, I think that if I write it out, I might feel better.

At the end of June I was in Kansas City for a week. If you are a friend of mine on Facebook, you know how it ended up. Anyway, I was there competing in the national SkillsUSA competition for Internetworking. If you don't know what that is, that's ok, because I didn't either. SkillsUSA is a trade group that celebrates technical skills. SkillsUSA took over a huge arena in Kansas City for competitions in things like Diesel Mechanics, Home Building, Computer Repair, and various other forms of technical skills and they had awards for the best in each field.

In order to get into the national competition, you have to win at the state level. To be honest, I only competed because one of my teachers wanted me to. Well, I suppose that I do like competitions, so I might have been predisposed to going, but I did quite well in state. Well, I did better than well. So I ended up in the national competition. To be honest, I really didn't expect to do that well.

The competition I was in had people from 21 other states. I figured that there were people in many states that applied themselves a lot more than I normally apply myself. Really, I do quite well half assing things most of the time. I don't know if it is really because I am that good at things or because others are that shitty at things. I know that if I say it's because I am good, I come off as an asshole. If I say it's because everyone else is shitty, I come off as an asshole. So really, the statement really doesn't matter. Anyway, I competed, and I won. I can only see my scores, so I don't know how handily I won, but the outcome was the same.

For my ego, and my sense of what I should be doing, the win was quite wonderful. Here I was, beating 21 other people at something that I know I'm good, but not the best, at. Shouldn't I be using that for something productive instead of my dead end job thinking about more schooling? Shouldn't I take this time when I am on top and run with it? I did a lot of thinking on the way home from KC. I thought about what I needed to do and how I could accomplish what I want in the future. Really... I did what every adult should do and I audited my life to see if I was going anywhere. I wasn't.

I got home and I was full of enthusiasm about my future. Then I sat on my couch and pretty much did nothing. Of course, I did look into jobs, there aren't any, and I thought about moving. Of course, I discussed all of this with my wife and we looked at what it would take to move somewhere where I could find a job that would make something in the future and not just leave me in a dead end. We talked about it, and thought about it, and we decided that moving was about the only option, and that I would e able to look for a better job when I graduated unless something else came up in the meantime. Yay us.

I was at work a few weeks later, after a vacation where I realized I didn't want to go back to work, and I saw a job that I was really interested in on the jobs website. This became even better when I realized that this job was with another of my teachers where he works as the director of IT. I had been in one of his classes and I knew that he was a good guy and that I would be able to work for him. I also knew that he had realized that I was good with computers and I thought that that might help me get in at that job. I submitted my application and cover letter the next day.

The response was quick. I had a phone interview the next morning and then an interview was set up for the following day. At this point I was on cloud nine. I was thinking about how long it would take to quit my job and get started somewhere new, what it would be like to be back on the bottom rung of the ladder trying to prove myself, and how I could keep my ego in check to be sure that I would fit into their "culture".

The day of the interview I took a lunch from work to go there and do the talking. I figured I would be there an hour or so and then wait to hear what happened. I was a little off. The interview was 2 hours long, and I was supposed to be back at work to get things done, but they just wanted me to get a walkthrough of the place so I could see what it was like. I had never had this on an interview before. Usually the walkthrough portion was more of a "welcome to the team" even, but I was ok with it, as long as it was quick. I have to admit I was a little bothered about being late, but figuring that I was getting a new job, I didn't think it would matter. I had to had a little text conversation with my employee to make sure she knew what was up though.

I was shown where my office would be, and told what I would be doing, all in the "this is YOUR spot" not in the "this COULD be your spot" tone by the rest of the team. It was an interesting walkthrough where I was told a little about them and then about the problem that I would be taking charge of figuring out. Figuring out problems is something I could get behind, so I started immediately thinking about solutions and getting things in my head to get what needed to be done while trying not to get too excited about the prospect. After the walkthrough I was told that I would be informed of their decision the next week and they appreciated my stopping by.

At this point, I was really certain I had this job. My interview went really well, and other than being 45 minutes past the latest time I should have gotten back to work, everything was splendid. I even considered putting in my two week notice then and calling it good. I was finally starting down a path out of dead end jobs into something that I could really sink my teeth into. I was amazingly happy when I got home and shared the good news with my wife, and we had a generally good evening in. Happy day complete.

The next morning I had to go into work early, so I was in the shower when the recruiter called and asked me to call back. I tried calling her, and I left a message, feeling certain that she was going to ask me about how the interview went and giving me some form of happy recruiter thumbs up. When she called, she asked about how I thought the interview went. I told her that I thought it went well, a little different, but interesting. We had had a good conversation and that I felt like I would enjoy working there.

She was quiet for a minute after I finished, and she said that she had some feedback for me. She said that 'Technically I was perfect for the job and they would have hired me on the spot, but they felt I was... condescending.' This meant that I was not going to be a good team player and that they were going to have to look somewhere else. The only thing that made this event even slightly comical was her trying to tell me not to be an egotistical asshole without using the words egotistical asshole.

Now, I'm not really good at dealing with rejection. I don't know anyone who is, or who would admit to it if they were. I know there are other jobs and that others have been searching all over for employment and have felt the sting of rejection multiple times. I know that I really don't have much to complain about, as I have a job that pays really well for here and I am considered to be very good at it. I know all these things, and yet this has hit me pretty hard.

I think that the issue isn't that I didn't get the job, but that I didn't because I'm me. I honestly didn't think that I was being an asshole. I didn't think that I was being condescending or egotistical. I know that I am at the bottom of the ladder and that I have a lot to learn yet. I'm good at what I have done, but I haven't done everything. I know that there is more than what I know to the job that I want, and I know that I am not the best at things I haven't done... yet.

What I was was distracted by needing to be at work. What I was was being afraid that I would be seen to be stupid or not good enough, so I did use a little of my knowledge to try and show that I know some things. What I didn't do was ask enough questions of the team. What I didn't do was show more interest in them. I didn't try and team build. I didn't try and learn what it was like to be part of something bigger.

That's what's chaffing my ass. The fact that I made the mistakes that caused me to lose something that I would have really enjoyed having. It's like that horrible breakup when you are younger that is even worse because you really did the things that they say you did to make the want to leave, but you did them almost absentmindedly because you weren't paying enough attention. I think that's what is really fucking with me. The fact that I had all the ins in the world, and I managed to make it add up to zero. I know that I can't blame anyone but myself and I hate that.

What makes it worse is that I don't know if I can stop it. I wasn't trying to be assholistic. I was trying to be on my best behavior. I was trying to be everything that I know that I can be, and I managed to fuck it all up. I did it without even realizing that I did it, and I can't say where I made the mistake. If I knew exactly where I messed up, I would know how to fix it. Since I don't know, I can only look at the whole event and say that I have no idea what the inciting incident was.

I am introverted. I like silence. I like being alone. I like not having to worry about others. I have been this way for a long as I can remember. I don't know how to small talk. I don't know how to have all those conversations that people seem to have full of inanities. I am a information mover. I don't chit chat. Unfortunately, the information I moved was evidently not the right kind for the team that I was applying to work with.

This is not me providing an excuse or a rationalization. An excuse would try and take responsibility away from me and put it onto them and a rationalization would just about be the same thing. I know that the cause of my issue was me. I know that the reason I didn't get the job wasn't some missing comma on the cover letter or something else superfluous. I was the reason. I hate that. I hate me for providing my own downfall.

I wish that I could change me. I wish that I could make myself enjoy the company of others and understand how a "team" really works. I wish I could go back and replay those 15 minutes with the team and not be me. Wishes are shit. I know that you can change your personality but I don't know how to even start. I know that I could get better at meeting people by trying but I don't want to meet people. Unfortunately, I don't want to hear about people's problems. If we have something in common, then I love to meet people. I could talk about some things all day to people. I just want to make sure that they want to talk to me about the same things so it doesn't seem like I'm talking at a wall.

Now this is starting to sound all teen angsty and I am fairly certain that I am far beyond my teen years, so I think it's time for me to draw this to a close. Maybe writing some of this down helped me in my head, or maybe it didn't. I don't know, but I have been stewing for so long on things that I have to try something different. Every morning I wake up and tell myself that I don't care that I didn't get the job, and I spend about 2 hours a day dissecting everything that went on looking for that train that ended in egotistical asshole. Obviously repetition hasn't done what I need.