The Dreaded Question

Guess everyone has one dreaded interview question. There are plenty of runners-up: “What are your weaknesses?” “How do you deal with stress?” or “How would your current employer describe your performance on the job?” But, for me, the Dreaded Question is one I can’t truthfully answer. There are two variations: “What is your career objective?” or “What’s your five-year plan?”

I was asked the latter today at the 911 dispatcher interview. I arrived early and sat in the warm funk of the car thinking about probable questions and acceptable answers. I’ve been to enough of these things now to have a whole list of questions emblazoned on the insides of my eyelids. I even thought I had a good answer to the one about weaknesses (something about never picking fights but having strong convictions), but I tiptoed around the Dreaded Question again and again. For me, it’s a stumper.

Wouldn’t you know it was the one that came at me today. I heaved a sigh and said something about being a person of faith, accepting the challenges and situations that came my way and hopefully learning something in the process. Maybe I’ve fallen back on faith because I’ve never had a career objective or a five-year plan and wouldn’t know how to formulate one at this stage in my life. I refuse to put a Career Objective on my resume because whatever I make up sounds lame and, well, not-me. Faith is a real part of my life, but I never feel that that’s what the interviewers want to hear. It’s like throwing a daisy to a den of hungry lions instead of giving them the hunk of bloody meat they want.

Maybe, deep down, I don’t believe in career objectives and five-year-plans. I’ll tell you why. Five years ago, I was eking by on a part time job, being driven crazy by loneliness, and joining a local church after not being a part of a Christian community since high school. Five years before that, I was working an office job in the armpit of the San Joaquin Valley, writing darn good poetry, and taking the neighborhood by storm on my Roller Blades. Five years before that, I was living in a little mountain town, teaching one night a week at a prison, and making payments on my first car. Five years before that, I was living in Atlanta GA, taking a night class at Emory, proofreading NAPA parts catalogs for a living, and still listening to the R.E.M. cassette tapes I bought in college. Five years before that . . . .

Well, you get the picture. If you take a look at your own life, you might find the same pattern or lack of pattern. There are some people, like my uncle Bill, who know what they are going to do for a living when they are young and tender. Uncle Bill knew he was going to be a lawyer way before he applied to the University of Florida as a freshman. But, life has never come that way to me. I went to college because I was good at school and studying. I chose Florida State because Tallahassee was only four hours away and because it was a city big enough to assure me some degree of anonymity if I did silly things like drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. I majored in English because I liked to read and write and liked reading about what other people had written. And so it goes. Was it the easy path or the path I was meant to take? Maybe both.

This whole vocation thing is perplexing. I did have some career ideas along the way; “objective” is too strong a word for the urges, however sincere I experienced. When I finished college, I wanted to go to work in a publishing house, maybe become an editor, although I wasn’t sure exactly what that involved. Or maybe become a journalist, since I liked to write and had been on the high school yearbook staff. I’d even written a few pieces for the college rag. But, funny thing was, when I went to look for jobs like that in Atlanta, I couldn’t find anything and I didn’t know anyone in either line of work. Smart college grads today take advantage of internships and do things like network. I didn’t.

When I lived in California, after the experience with the class at the prison, I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s Degree in English so I could teach community college or high school. I saw an inspirational movie on TV one night about this black woman that had become an extraordinary teacher, the kind that change kids' lives. I was so shook up I knelt down by my hand-me-down sofa and pledged that I would go back to school and become a teacher. School, along with a full time job, kept me busy for four and a half years. Then, I realized there was no way I could stay in the Armpit and be a teacher. I moved to Oregon and discovered I couldn’t be a teacher, anyway, without going back to school and being certified. I’d had enough school, so that was shelved. After working with at risk kids in a Federal training program and substitute teaching with no classroom experience or lesson plans, the vocational urge was purged.

After I moved to Oregon and got the part time job, I thought I would pursue another long time dream and become a writer. I had the time, after all, and surely the novels would just pour out with a little nudging. I was fortunate in that I had a good friend up here who was an actual writer; she’d published books, had a small stack of them on her shelf at home. She became a wonderful mentor, generous in praise and criticism, always willing to read my work. We’d meet for coffee and spend an hour talking about the books that we read and admired, drafting short lists of the Books That Changed Our Lives. She even helped me get a some-time job at a local antique/junk store where I could sit behind the counter, listen to public radio, and read the New York Times Book Review between customers. I did start and finish a novel, but when it was done I found it had betrayed me. It hadn’t said what I wanted to say about the subject and had, instead, turned out to be a sick piece of self-analysis on my part. I wrote other things, but “novelist” was another nametag I peeled off and put on my chest that didn’t stick.

Editor. Teacher. Writer. Sometimes I wish I had chosen some simple, straightforward kind of career urge. Something like court reporter or medical insurance billing specialist. You’re trained for those jobs and ready to go to work in 18 months, or so the mid-day TV commercials claim. You show up for work every day and go home filling satisfied. You have a career!

I don’t have a career. I just have me – all my urges and pleasures, my skills and gifts, my impractical passions and comforting daydreams. By now I’ve come to accept that. But, how to explain it to an interview panel? I’ve you’ve got any ideas, let me know.