I haven’t posted for a long time because I thought I’d be posting long before this.
Sounds kinda like a Yogi-ism, I know, but I recently had an encounter with what’s colloquially known as the Hiring Process, in which I spoke with a man on the phone and evidently conducted myself with enough panache that I was invited to come visit him and his colleagues in person up toward Cape Ann. So I bought a new pair of ragg socks that would go well in cold weather with my professorial suede ducks, blew the dust off my favorite Brooks Brothers red rep tie, and drove off to my first Job Interview in 13 years.
I had been led to believe that I was in a very favorable position to land said Job, but the trip up happened four weeks ago and I have heard nothing since. So I suppose they have decided to go in A Different Direction. I have never been big on post mortems of these types of things, because I have always figured that once one lands in the short pile of people who are granted access to the final stages of the Hiring Process, it all comes down to intangibles, and trying to quantify one’s own intangibles is an exercise in futility, and should be. But I really thought I’d be bidding farewell to the lifestyle and business I have built over the past decade-plus, and sharing my thoughts on that.
I obviously thought that I would have heard one way or the other from these guys before two fortnights was out. I probably sealed my fate from the git-go when I told everybody up there the same thing — that I was looking at the job, which entails covering the interesting world of electronic medical records (and that’s not a sarcastic statement), as just one of several opportunities; that I would write about this stuff as either a freelancer or as a staff guy, and was simply offering my services as any experienced business owner would. I understood, of course, that if offered the gig, 13 years of freedom was to be replaced by being beholden to The Man.
Each has its upsides (staff work, steady salary, health insurance, and paid vacation; freelance work, absolute control over my day, week, month and year) and downside (staff work, your time ain’t your own any more, freelance work, an endless hustle for work and periods of great uncertainty and insecurity). We are about to enter one of those periods of uncertainty and insecurity, and the idea of a guaranteed paycheck has its temptations. But I am also confident that The Missus and I can weather any storm. I wasn’t lying to the people up there. I don’t really need “a job.” I need to increase my income a substantial amount, and going back to wage slavery would be a very expedient way to do it, no more and no less. I’ve seen enough sweat shops that demand unswerving devotion until they need to cut staff.
One of my great-grandmother’s friends used to say “It falls out of heaven for the Joneses.” She didn’t mean that my great-grandma was showered with a king’s ransom from Providence, but rather that, when times were tough and she really needed $100, $100 would show up somehow. So for now I’m banking on that, and continuing my dual marketing strategy, and telling people I encounter in the Hiring Process that. If that signals my unsuitability for their “team,” that is OK with me.
Interestingly enough, I just filed a story on the very far edge of research into using sophisticated natural language processing algorithms to analyze the medical records of a large patient base to discern unlikely co-occurrence of diseases (or its converse). It is very interesting stuff to both techie guys and social policy wonks, and working on the story reinforced the notion that I know this stuff cold. Cold enough to know that, taking all the technical, political, and economic interests colliding with each other into account, the “experts” are talking out their butts just as much as I am. Probably more, because I recognize the situation and can stand at a self-deprecating remove. So whatever and however the guys up north decided what they decided, I’m not worried about my fundamental capabilities to cover the beat.
Kristofferson had it wrong when he wrote freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose. It’s the intangible above all others that needs no quantifying. I have a feeling we are about to test the old phrase “poor but happy” here to an extent we haven’t had to in quite some time. I think we’re ready, and my day on the north shore gave me an opportunity to get a great plate of fried clams as well as a reminder of how pungent the aroma of the maverick can be to others, Brooks Brothers cover-over or not. A life lesson with extra tartar sauce on the side is a lesson well worth living.
Cockeyed Salmon 
I went through more than a couple of years in the Hiring Process (on my first scan I thought you were writing of the “Hiring Princess,” which would be much better), and I was absolutely stunned at the total failure of anyone in the private sector to ever get back to me after an interview, despite often ardent assurances and absolute timelines. And this was often after two or three or more levels of interviewing. I put no fewer than 10 people on two coasts at a major once-locally headquartered multinational through two days of sales pitches for myself — the company spent thousands of dollars in what looked like a sure thing. How did I find out that they weren’t even going to fill the job? An automated email from their centralized hiring system that told me that the position was either filled or eliminated. It’s absolutely maddening.
Public sector positions, on the other hand, always sent at least an acknowledgement that they had hired someone else.
BTW, we went through “poor but happy,” and there were some massive upsides for me . . . seeing my kids come home from school every day, being the bake sale and field trip dad, etc. If it weren’t for the actual need for money, I could very easily not work again and be perfectly happy.
I think more than one HR person considers herself the hiring princess, Carl. Also the firing princess. I worked with one who would actually hand people who had been laid off/fired/let go/separated/downsized a cardboard box to put their stuff in.