It was the craziest and shortest interview I ever had. The interviewer was a VP. She seemed to be very angry with me from the moment I walked into her office. She asked questions about my membership and involvement with a well known national association for professionals in my field. I just assumed she was using that as an opening to the interview. Then she immediately switched the conversation to her tirade about her personal stock market loss due to the downfall of a former employer of mine. That company declared bankruptcy following discovery of internal accounting fraud, of which I had no knowledge as an employee in an unrelated department. I expressed my sympathy for her loss and attempted to explain to her that even employees suffered tremendous loss as a result of that company bankruptcy, but she quickly escorted me to the door, where I smiled, shook her hand, told her I was very interested in the position, and thanked her for her time and consideration of my qualifications. On the way back to my parked car, which I had left only 10 minutes earlier, I wondered if she had even noted that on my list of references was a former boss, a U.S. Senator who currently served on her company's board of directors. A couple years later I read a newspaper article about her being fired in which she was labeled the most hated woman in the city. The reason I am sharing this experience is to remind everyone that you never know what to expect in an interview. All you can do is be prepared, keep your composure and good manners in check, and realize that everybody has a bad day every now and then. Know also that God has a reason for everything; you may or may not know all the answers this side of eternity; even bad experiences can have good resolutions for those called according to His purpose.
