Drat

So it turns out I didn't get the job, namely thanks to the old "Need experience to get a job/need a job to get experience" joke. I've got savings enough to subsist for a while but if I'm still unemployed in about six weeks time then I may be forced to scuttle back to Canada. Even though I've thought about coming back for good in December, during more homesick moments, I really would prefer not to come back quite like that for all sorts of obvious reasons.

The other part of the rejection equation came, I believe, from my answer to what is easily one of my least favorite interview questions. The question was "Where do you see yourself in ten years?".

Now I do appreciate that there are those amongst us who have laid out grand architectural blueprints for their life - where they'll go to school, when they'll marry and precisely what job they shall have at specific ages. But man, even Joseph Stalin only managed five year plans. Even that plucky lil' fella. I myself am certainly not someone who can plan that far ahead in any meaningful way. I can fantasize all day long, but does that count?

Plus, even though it is clear that I was being asked specifically about where I saw myself career-wise the vagueness of the actual wording made me go a bit blank for a brief moment. I think I must have unknowingly given a very mild "Are you stupid? Also I am confused" look as I replied "Happy....?". I recovered my composure pretty quick and tried to cobble together some answer about how I wanted to be an editor and why I would enjoy that but it undoubtedly came across as just what it was - an attempt to give them the kind of answer they wanted.

Meanwhile, ten years ago I was fifteen and thought that maybe I'd like to get a job in marketing since I had cynically and naively deducted that that was a good way to get paid for being creative. Ten years ago I had no thoughts of film as a career (only "writing") and though I had enjoyed my trips to England thus far, I had no thoughts of moving there. Most of that came about seven years ago and I didn't begin to lay any concrete plans until about three years ago.

I completely understand why it is in the best interests of an employer to only hire experienced individuals who have known that they want to work in a specific field since a very young age and that they will continue to be in that field for the rest of their years. It's a much wiser investment then someone with vaguer ambitions who might just as likely try the role out only to discover it's not for them as they would fall in love with it and be a loyal employee for years to come. This is what makes it all the more maddening that I didn't figure out what I wanted to do at a very young age. Still, knowing this, it is hard to feel that folk aren't looking for someone whose first words were more along the lines of "In twenty years I see myself working in my second job along the corporate ladder as a Junior Assistant at a prestigious corporate law firm in either Boston or New York."

"Also, ma-ma!".

Addendum: The BBC had a great pair of articles today, one on a rather ambitious project and another on how a lot of people are missing the most obvious way they can help with climate change.

Meanwhile, screw you Londinium - I'm off to Broadstairs this weekend for some sun and beach and not job hunting. I'll be sure to bring my camera and have the webcomic done in advance, which should be a problem for reasons that will become apparent.