I had to pop over the Comms department earlier to get a couple of documents stamped. After my chit-chat a few weeks ago with one of the ladies who interviewed me, I thought I would stop to say hello, seeing as I am feeling slightly more confident at the moment, am trying to be more outgoing and proactive about stuff work-wise and, well, I had to walk right past her desk to get to where I was going. She wasn’t facing me, so as I left, I just leaned over and said a quick “Hi”, without really stopping. She said a friendly “Hello, how are you?” in reply. As we did this exchange, her boss and the head of their team, looked up. She had also interviewed me and was the one who informed me of the unsuccessful outcome of my interview, but told me about the other vacancy they have coming up and encouraged me to apply. There was a tiny pause before she recognised me, then we both said hello, me following with a rather casual “You alright?” (which in hindsight I thought might have been slightly less professional that I would have liked, seeing as I wasn’t dressed particularly smartly either). Either way, I hadn’t greeted them with any ulterior motive, I was just trying to be friendly and maintain good working relationships, honest!
I headed back to my office, then about 10 minutes after getting back, an email pops up. It is from the team leader, words to this effect:
“Good to see you briefly just now. We are hoping to advertise the job I previously mentioned to you in the next couple of weeks. There have been delays with it for various reasons that were beyond my control, but I think we are nearly there…sorry for not keeping you informed. I will let you know as soon as the job details are up on the website. I hope all’s well with you. Best wishes…”
Woo hoo! They didn’t just mention the job to me meaninglessly to soften the blow of my unsuccessful first attempt! They like me, they may actually like me! Haha. I emailed back to thank her for keeping me in mind, mentioning I’d caught up with her colleague at the post-event drinks a couple of weeks ago and had seen her but hadn’t managed to get a chance to say hello. I’m trying to be cautious, as I was ‘recommended’ for another internal position previously and given the impression I had a really good chance, so I applied, was interviewed and was unsuccessful. I know they can’t promise me a job, but I’d hope they wouldn’t go to the effort of mentioning the position to me several times with seeming enthusiasm that I apply, if they didn’t see me as an actual real-life contender for the post. It’s a higher grade too, so would be a nice little step up on the career (ha!) ladder and (crucially for me at the moment) on the salary scale. But I mustn’t think about that and get my hopes up. I always do this when a job opportunity comes up – start spending the increased salary in my head before even completing the application. And I wonder why I have cash-flow problems.
I guess I am mainly just happy that I made a good impression, seeing as work has been getting me down to varying degrees for the past two years. It’s helping to reassure me that I’m not stupid, that I do have some notable skills (even though it feels like I get very little opportunity to exercise them in this position) and am capable. Even if I’m not ultimately capable of securing this particular job, I am at least capable of interviewing well and conveying some sort of competency, even if I don’t feel it inside! This is progress for me. I haven’t been confident of my abilities for a while now. Damn you, black dog! So anyway, I think this pretty much means I am awesome, which is a good thing to be when on the brink your birthday weekend. So I shall be keeping this awesomeness up. At least until Sunday evening. :o)
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