Shot Through the Heart: Rejection and the Modern Workplace

I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do with my life, but I am happiest when it involves stimulation and creativity. Entering my full-time job was a dream come true: an easygoing nine-to-five with low overall stress in a fast-paced, quickly growing creative media company. I had started eighteen months earlier with them as a contractor, covering for two people on learning tours in other departments. I was pretty good at it. Every eight weeks or so I had a new project on my hands and happily dedicated myself to it. When the time came for my contract to end, my boss let me know that new full-time position was opening up and strongly hinted I should apply.

After a year and a half of doing the same two or three things without new projects, I grew bored. I lost all intellectual stimulation outside out of my work friends and stalled. The company made a few really exciting changes, but having to suddenly handle content I found extremely offensive wore me down daily. Looking back, I think everyone could see it. 

I don’t hide my feelings well. It’s a professional flaw.

Coming full circle, around that time I did my own learning tour during a co-worker’s maternity leave. She decided to stay home with her new baby, and thus, the job I had been covering for the past four months was now open. Ecstatic, I stalked the job board like a crazed lion waiting on the wounded gazelle. I had my resume ready, and a stellar cover letter. I worked eight a.m. to six p.m. with them every day, they knew my dedication and loyalty. Best of all? No surprise penises or rape in my afternoon inbox. (For real. I am not kidding about that.)

I don’t know what I was expecting when I walked into the interview. I mean, I did prepare for the interview with all the normal types of questions, so I think I thought I knew, but then most of the questions caught me off guard and I realized I was recycling answers from my very first interview with the company three years ago. Was it really possible I hadn’t grown professionally since then?

I walked out of the interview feeling bewildered and blindsided. A sudden sinking feeling overtook me. All my patience in waiting for this job was going to be for nothing: I had the confidence, but lacked the acumen to back myself up. I had proven myself in the setting, but was unable to speak of my accomplishments in my regular department. I felt like I had no translatable skills beyond the four months I had just completed.

I got the call a few weeks later. My boss from the learning tour thanked me for going through the interview process and told me the position was offered to an outside candidate. I’d been a contender, but this woman arrived with the appropriate background: she knows about apps and analysis. I know about books and organizing collected data. (Although I am really good with a semi-colon, and I think that should’ve weighed heavier in my evaluation than something like knowing about apps. Anybody can learn programming; a good semi-colon is bred into you like wine-making. It takes generations. GENERATIONS!)

It's fine. I'm fine. NBD, right?

The department is stretched thin. They probably needed a candidate who already had a few years of experience, and not the deep-end crash course I had. Somebody who wouldn’t potentially have so many teachable moments. This is what my logic is saying.

Or maybe I really did just suck. This is how my heart feels. My failure to make a minor upward move after almost two years as a full-time employee feels like the car died. The drive train is shot. This is where I am right now, and despite my friends telling me to chin up and try again, I’m worried this is where I will stay. 

In the end I know that I am very good at my current job, and both the company and I benefit from where I am. It's stable, steady work that requires an extreme attention to detail and the nuances can be hard to pick up. For now I keep repeating this to myself, hoping for another opportunity with better timing: I am lucky, I have more than work. I have a career. 

I just need to figure out how to better steer it.