Eye Contact

Naomi also dreamed about her interview. She said that the interviewer asked her a thousand questions, none of which she could answer and in the end, they told her that they would hire her anyway because she is so pretty. I never have dreams like that. We had searched out the company ahead of time in preparation for the interview. It was started by a pair of Lebanese brothers in Dearborn. Oh great, Arabs hate redheads. She is basing this on what her sister's mother-in-law said when it was discovered that Shanna might have redhead genes. We then went over their menu so she'd be familiar with it. We reviewed what 'halal' meat was (Don't say-it's like Kosher meat, right?). My main advice was to be friendly and look the interviewer in the eye. Also no-mumbling.

They had all the people that they were going to interview there together. She recognized many of them and thought she was was more out-going and 'prettier' than they were but she has less experience. The restaurant had a 'hookah' tent. WTF, her friend whispered to her. But somehow Naomi knew all about hookahs. She thought her interview went well and they asked for her fall schedule.

Eye contact. I tried to follow my own advice when I interviewed more than 33 years ago. However I was interviewing with a man who had been promoted due to his scientific achievements, not for his social skills. If I looked at him, he'd look away uncomfortably. He did say that in his department, they had never hired a woman except as a secretary and I was too nervous to ask why. I pondered this for several weeks and finally went to him after I was hired. He then said that the job entailed some physicality but I looked stronger than most women so they figured I could handle it. All righty. This man was the inventor of PCP-a very much abused drug in the 70s. On his own time, he developed a kit that police could use to quickly identify illegal drugs.

When this man refused to look at me, I didn't assume it was because I was hideous but that he was just awkward (not a rare trait among chemists of that era I quickly discovered). Since I've had (hopefully HAD)cancer, I have sadly noticed people avoiding eye contact with me. If they have a choice between looking at me or someone else, the someone else wins out. It very much hurts my feelings. Am I so hideous? Yeah, maybe especially when I went through that no facial hair stage-no eyelashes, eyebrows.

No cancer yoga yesterday and I didn't go to the Y until late. I read the fine print that I needed to schedule an appointment first with someone before I could resume going there and it took me a while to find her.

It was a nice day to run this morning. Naomi is away dog sitting my granddog Sunny, the German Shepherd while her owners go on a wine tasting trip up north. We sometimes just let her stay here but she goes on a hunger strike.