Notes from the Breadline: Always Seem to Get Things Wrong (Part II)

Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.
One time, early in my stint in the breadline, I interviewed for a position at a New York non-profit organization. The interview, with members of the organization’s steering committee, was held at the plush offices of a Wall Street law firm – a setting so genteel, so prim, that I immediately felt underdressed despite my perfectly respectable interview suit and conservative heels. All the women who passed through the reception area were wearing knee-length skirt suits and pantyhose; the men looked as though they had come from a photo shoot for Brooks Brothers. The walls were hung with portraits of stately, gray-haired firm elders, hunting scenes, and graceful horses who, I suspected, had pedigrees much more distinguished than my own. I was reading a tattered copy of the previous week’s New Yorker while I waited, and I remember feeling sheepishly self-conscious — both because I hadn’t gotten through a lengthy article about Iceland’s post-financial crash identity, and because I wasn’t reading something … weightier, like The Economist, or the Harvard Business Review.
How, you ask, did I have time to read, reflect, and observe a cross-section of the firm’s personnel? Well, friends: when you spend 45 minutes perched on an uncomfortable settee, waiting for your name to be called, there is little else to do. Eventually, of course, I did make it into the conference room where the interview was being held; once there, I was greeted by five lawyers, all of whom were talking at once. To each other. In fact, I found myself wondering, at various junctures, whether they were aware that I had joined them. One lawyer asked me a complicated question and then (without skipping a beat) answered his ringing cell phone and had a lengthy conversation. I tried to shift focus seamlessly by turning to address the others, but two of them were BlackBerrying while another listened to voicemail messages. When I finally stood up to say my goodbyes, they told me that they were impressed with my qualifications and hoped that I could come back to meet with the members of the steering committee who had been unable to make it to the interview that day. “That would be great!” I said enthusiastically. Perhaps, I mused, given the general level of attentiveness I had observed, they were hoping to organize a flag football scrimmage, and simply needed a few more people to work with (as well as a captive audience, or a referee).
As a new arrival to the breadline, this experience left me with a few thoughts. Among them were, “Are interviews always this suck-ass, or was this a freakish anomaly?” and “Is there a sliver lining in all of this?” Like a convoluted legal argument, the answer to the latter of these questions resolves the first inquiry as well. As I have discovered in the intervening months, there is not a single “silver lining” in all of this, but many, including: freedom from the oppressive sartorial conventions of the workplace, the luxury of dropping by Lat’s office for a mid-day drink from the coffee fountain, and the (admittedly mixed) blessing of life in a lower tax bracket. These perks, however, pale in comparison to one, particularly luminous reward, which I consider the most spangly of all silver linings.
And what might that be?


Stated briefly, dear readers: it’s you. Though the circumstances of our acquaintance are unfortunate, I am no less grateful for your communion. The thoughts and stories you have shared with me are often funny, sometimes sad, and always honest and compelling. In short, you had me at hello. Your responses to last week’s Homework Assignment from the Breadline were no exception. Good job, friends! Your diligence and overall execution have earned you a solid “A” and a gold star from Ms. St. Thomas.
Which, of course, brings me to the first of the questions above: are interviews always this suck-ass? As was clear from your answers, suck-ass interviews are — like bad hair days or unfortunate dates – all too common. The good news, however, is that — like bad hair days and unfortunate dates — even the most excruciating ones can be funny, at least once the immediate discomfort, irritation, or downright humiliation is over. And, dear readers, do you know what’s really funny? I’ll give you a hint: when it comes to interviews (during which we are, presumably, on our best behavior), nothing takes the cake like bodily functions, pratfalls, and colossal social blundering in any form.
Exhibit A comes from our friend Laura, who wrote, “I looked down at my hand [during an interview] and realized I had a booger on the knuckle of my first finger.” Laura had “no idea how long it had been there,” but guessed that it was a keepsake from some innocent nose-blowing in the ladies room, prior to the interview. Horrified, and “not knowing if the two interviewers had seen it,” Laura “tried to get rid of it under the table, debating whether to wipe it on the front of my dark interview suit, or the office’s nice furniture and leave as a souvenir?” Alas, while Laura told us that she “didn’t get the job,” she neglected to disclose her booger-remediation strategy. [Laura: how about a follow-up? You left out the money shot, girlfriend.]
Another friend, BH, shared a story that, he told me, has become “the stuff of legend” at his firm. “Back when I was a first year associate,” wrote BH, “we had a 2L candidate come through the office. Let’s call him Bill. Bill had an afternoon schedule of lunch with two associates, followed by a series of six interviews with a mixture of associates and partners; I was scheduled to be his last interview of the day.” Lunch interviews, as we know, can be fraught with peril, and Bill’s, it seemed, went particularly poorly; an eyewitness told BH that Bill “had sweated profusely throughout lunch, and disappeared for about 20 minutes during dessert.”
After that, things continued to go downhill for poor Bill. “Before his interview with the managing partner,” BH explained, “Bill had had to wait outside his office while the partner wrapped up a conference call.” The partner’s secretary and an associate both noticed that the candidate did not look well, but when they asked him “if he was feeling okay, Bill assured them that he was fine.” Eventually, the managing partner finished his call, and the associate took Bill into the managing partner’s office. “Just as the associate was introducing Bill to the managing partner,” BH wrote, “Bill projectile vomited all over the managing partner’s office.”
But wait: it gets better. Bill, who had “driven close to 100 miles that day for the interview, was determined to soldier on despite his illness, because rescheduling would be difficult.” He insisted that he felt much better, and that the proverbial show go on. After meeting with an associate, Bill was taken to his penultimate interview, this one with another partner. BH continued, “the partner had been on conference calls all afternoon and was completely unaware of the mess — literal and figurative — Bill had created that afternoon, but he did notice that Bill seemed somewhat off. The partner asked Bill how his afternoon had gone, and Bill responded that it had not been great.” Despite gentle prodding, Bill declined to give specifics, “but he assured the partner it had been a disaster. The partner then said (and, again, bear in mind that this partner had no idea what had already happened), ‘Cheer up, whatever happened can’t be too bad. It’s not like you puked on someone or anything like that.'”
Oh, Bill. Though I regret your total interview fail, you have done a great service. I think I speak for many of us when I say, “Thank you, projectile vomiter, for lowering the bar to nearly unmatchable depths.”
Of course, awkwardness comes in many forms, some of which do not require a mop (or at least a Kleenex). One reader told us about a meeting with a candidate for an associate position where he was among the interviewers. “The conference room in which we met (four men plus the young woman who was the interviewee) was an interior space with no windows,” wrote Ken. “In the middle of the interview and with no warning (with no windows, how would we know?), a thunderstorm caused a power outage and plunged the room into complete darkness. From somewhere in the dark, a female voice asked, ‘Is this part of the interview?’ We assured her that it was not, but it was real awkward for all of us to find the door in the dark without more personal interaction than was appropriate.” (“Um, guys … those aren’t two pillows.”)
One of my personal favorites came from Jennifer, who told me about a candidate she interviewed at her [then] law firm. “By the time the candidate got to me,” Jennifer said, “he had met with 3 other partners and had clearly decided my firm was NOT the right place for him. But, he was there and committed to meeting with me, and probably had already told people at his firm he was out for the day.” (Points for pass completion, Nameless Candidate!) So, while Jennifer was “glowing about the wonders of the firm, he asks if it’s ok if he eats his lunch while I’m talking. And, before I can say anything, he pulls a peanut butter sandwich (I could smell it) out of a foil wrapper and starts munching on it. I offered to get him some water, but he already had some.” Nameless Candidate: I commend you. You may be a douche, but at least you were a prepared douche.
Your bad interview stories were characterized by a few recurrent themes. One, not surprisingly, was cell phones, which have a way of ringing at the darndest times. Our friend Erika, for example, told me about her interview with a firm that had been courting her aggressively for eight (yes, eight) months. “The partners came in and we were about to start the meeting when my phone rang,” she wrote. “Of course I went red, of course I grabbed it to shut the damn thing off. One of the partners smirked at me and asked innocently what phone that was. I said ‘It’s a Motorola’. He smirked again and said ‘Well, I have one of those and MINE has an OFF switch. Doesn’t yours?’ Erika “excused myself to the group and walked out,” and then “told the partner who raced after me frantically that, if this was how they were going to treat me while they were still in the romance phase, I wasn’t going to stick around to see how they behaved in the marriage.” As always, Erika, you are our hero.
Since a considerable number of us have, at one time or another, shed tears of quiet desperation in the office bathroom, it is not particularly surprising to learn that many bad interviews simulate the workplace experience in this respect. One friend told me about an interview she went on while she was employed at a Big Law Firm, where the work conditions had become “impossible.” “During this time,” she wrote, “I got an interview at [a different] Big Law Firm through a couple of contacts. The interview began rather normally, but by the end, I was in tears, sobbing and repeating to the personnel director: ‘I just want a normal job.’ Needless to say, I did not get the normal job I was seeking.”
Another reader, “Lisa,” told us about her interview with a judge, who – due to his secretary’s scheduling error – believed that Lisa had arrived for her interview 45 minutes late. After a blistering rebuke by the judge, the stunned – and shaken — Lisa proceeded to her interviews with the law clerks. Despite her best efforts, she burst into tears while talking to the first clerk. Whoops. But, wait – there was another clerk! Hope, for Lisa, sprang eternal. “Interview with second clerk came, and she was super-nice, too,” Lisa wrote. The clerk “handed me a poem of apology the judge had written for me – a limerick (he was a bit eccentric that way),” but when she said, “‘I’m so sorry you were put through that,'” Lisa “burst into tears, again. At this point, I’m just thinking ‘at least I haven’t cried in front of the judge yet.’ I pull myself together, yet again.” Finally, Lisa met with the judge himself, “and by this time I’m sure I’m all cried out. Seriously, how emotional can one person be? The interview was endless – or so it seemed – and about 45 minutes into it the judge said, “I really have to apologize about how we started out, I’m so sorry . . . .” Yup, burst into tears. Again.” Fortunately, Lisa was interviewing with another judge that day, so she figured she still had a chance. “Nope,” she lamented. “That judge knocked on the door to ask “Judge A” a question, almost as soon as I had that thought. Looked at me sitting there, in tears. Three strikes.”
Alas, many of your stories — too many for me to do them justice here – touched on two common features of bad interviews: the interminable wait, and the bait-and-switch. If you’ve had a bad interview, there is a good chance that its unpleasantness was attributable to (or exacerbated by), a partner, recruiter, or anyone else with whom you might interview forcing you to endure an endless wait, during which your composure deteriorated and the “best foot” you planned to put forward twitched with the urge to boot your tormenters. Similarly, many of you have been lured by the prospect of an interview for a position that seemed “perfect,” only to find that you are, in fact, being considered for a different job entirely. These stories are rendered with a degree of anger and frustration that, it some cases, has lingered despite the passage of months or years. Why? In my humble opinion, it is because they encapsulate the helplessness, fear, and resentment of being unemployed. You may be a qualified attorney, a stellar member of the profession, and a lovely person. But when you are waiting for an hour in the reception area, the message is loud and clear: your time doesn’t matter, and the jerk you’re waiting for doesn’t care what you went through to get there or how high your hopes are. Similarly, the “bait and switch” is particularly painful because it denigrates the experience you have worked so hard to accumulate, and casts you as unqualified and, ultimately, disposable. I’m sorry, dear readers, that so many of you have felt the sting of this kind of dismissal and disrespect. I know just how you feel.
On a happier note, I have some good news. Remember our friend Sara Beth, whose interview for a dream job ended with her captivity in a revolving door? Sara Beth wrote to me with the following update, which I thought I’d share with you:

So great news…. I got the job! You know, the one where I got trapped in the glass revolving door after the interview? My husband says they’re only going to keep me until the statute of limitations runs on the state premises liability statute, but I’m more optimistic.

Godspeed, Sara Beth! And Godspeed to the rest of you, too. Keep the lighthouse in sight.
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Roxana St. Thomas is a laid-off lawyer living in New York. You can reach her by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.
Earlier: Prior installments of Notes from the Breadline

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