The Futility of Being Good

I had my first job interview today; so leading up to it, I've been trying to be good.

Last week, I turned down an offer to hang out in San Francisco for the weekend, FOR FREE. A friend, who knew that I had some free time, was flying out to the Bay area on business and thought it'd be more fun to have other people to hang out with, so he offered me a free ticket and a place to crash, if I was interested. And I was, but I figured it might be unwise to go into an interview just back from a cross-country flight, possibly hung over, probably jetlagged; and anyway, I thought it would better if I spent the time reviewing my old projects so that I could talk intelligently about them.

And last night I tried to be good because I knew I had to be up early this morning for the interview. We had plans to meet up with friends for dinner in town, but I didn't have any drinks and we didn't stay out late so we could get home and get to bed at a reasonable hour. It was kind of a bummer having to cut things short, but I wanted to be well-rested, and thankfully everyone understood and was supportive and wished me the best of luck.

I was a little stressed when I got to bed and was still running over some things in my head (prepwork for the next day), but it didn't keep me up.

The heartburn did, though.

I've noticed a few twinges over the last few days, but thankfully nothing full blown. I thought it might have been the acidity or sweetness of the juices I've been drinking in the morning (cans of Hansen's fruit smoothies -- leftovers from the summer party), but it's probably just the stress.

Over the last few years, I've observed that there seems to be more of a relationship to what I'm doing rather than what I'm eating when it comes to getting heartburn. I normally can eat things that are pretty spicy or greasy or whatever without any problems, but if I'm overtired and stressed (like trying to force myself to stay awake when I'm doing late night driving and my body really wants to be asleep), I could be eating dry white toast with saltines on the side and still get heartburn. I've also learned that I can sometimes nip things in the bud if I notice the symptoms early and take an antacid and get some rest.

Last night's dinner certainly wasn't out of the ordinary (fried chicken served over mashed potatoes with a white gravy with sweet peas at the Linwood Grill in the Fenway), but I did notice the beginnings of that familiar burning, so I took a Zantac and headed for bed. I figured I'd be fine. Of course, no such luck. You've got an interview tomorrow -- do you really think we'd let you be well-rested? Dude, what were you thinking?

So that sucked -- it wasn't the worst heartburn I've had, but it was enough to make it hard to get to sleep, and what little sleep I got was fitful and uncomfortable. It felt better around 6:30am, almost right on time for me to get up at 7. (That's also common: the whole suddenly it feels fine at way too late AM for no reason thing. I've never quite understood that either.)

So in the morning, feeling better but still tired, we have breakfast at Wilson's diner (blueberry pancakes and bacon -- mmmm, bacon) and I drive up for the interview.

The interview.

Yeah, so, it could have been worse; it could have been better.

It also could have been over.

But it's not.

It turns out that they're right in the thick of crazy schedule crunch to meet a deadline and they don't have time to interview me today. I get to talk to one guy, but after that, I'm told that I'm done for the day and that the hiring manager will give me a call to reschedule things.

So I guess I haven't put this interview cycle behind me yet so I still can't concentrate on all those other things I wanted to get to.

Bah.

UPDATE 17Dec2004:
The hiring manager never got back to me, so I finally called today and left a message. (Maybe I misunderstood what the office manager said? Was I supposed to call him?) He calls me back and tells me they found someone to fill the position, oh, and sorry about not calling you back and all that.

"Mea culpa," he says.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. But in Steve Martin's immortal words:

"Sure, I'm pissed; but what difference does it make?"