The interview for a new job has been completed. Anticipation has set in like a stiffening rigor mortis as I find myself now playing the waiting game. I hate this part. It's the worst. I can make arguments for and against my performance today, speaking in front of shrewd hiring agents with fiery snarls and tremendous shadows cast over everything. Granted, I had to interview before a total of four different people, individually. Only one played the mantle of the shrewd, contemptuous private eye hounding for any misleading information. The others were nice, and I was able to hold good conversations with them. However, my mind tends to wander and exaggerate. In this respect, they're larger than life, even if they may only be a staggeringly short 5'3''.
Every American deals with this process at some point in life. For some reason, we program ourselves to view job interviews along a similar perception as judgments deciding whether or not to commit a soul to eternal damnation. The ultimate judgment. The final vote before lights turn off forever.
Then, while we wait for the jury to make up its mind, we sit in the back room, twiddling our thumbs. Teeth begin to gnash. Sweat beads the brow. The urge to burst forth through the conference room door of the deliberating room rises to its highest crescendo.
At least, that's how I feel. I am offering you the right to deny similar feelings. Go ahead. Use it. Don't abuse it. Be the bigger person and quell those strange worries underneath a rug while you stand loud and proud. I know, on any other given day, I would do the same.
That day, unfortunately, just isn't today. I had my hopes raised by the first interviewer, telling me I was quite possibly their best candidate. That was before another interviewer shook my composed mask into shock where I stumbled over my words more than Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park. Later, I recovered, but that hiccup made it anyone's ball game I feel.
And that's why I sit here now, watching the phone intently, seeing if it'll move. I want it to ring with some number I don't have on my contacts list, and I want to answer it to here those three favorite words in the English language. They aren't, "I love you," or "You are hired."
That's too cliche, and it's not in sync with my brain. Being a media-addled lunatic, there's only one phrase that could denote my hiring and acceptance in a way that jives with my cinematic love.
I need to hear Zero Mostel shout, "That's our Hitler!"
That's right! The quote from The Producers. I feel it best exemplifies how all of us feel when waiting to hear the good word. We all want our future bosses to shout to us, "That's our Hitler!"
You can hear it at the tail end of this clip.
There's just such conviction and joy in Zero Mostel. Such power and appreciation. Granted, he's purposely trying to create a flop on Broadway, but I feel that is a moot point.
If all our potential bosses cried out toward us with the same tone, I feel we'd be a little less demanding and insecure. We'd have a little more self-worth and would be less inclined to compensate for something. Ingenuity would boom again. People would rise up to the challenge. The WORLD would be in perpetual scientific MOTION!
...or we'd scratch our bellies, turn on the tube, and feel justified for a lengthy night's worth of Seinfeld re-runs.
BELCH.
