Confessions of a Serial Interviewer by Steven Ra Ga

Holy gees.

Leading up to the pandemic I was enrolled in the RECA real estate license program, which was entirely online learning. They had just canceled the in class courses. I was studying to become a realtor but ultimately became a property manager, which was a bullshit license because I later discovered you needed to work your way up the ranks before anyone would hire you as a property manager. Yay 18months if torment for nothing.

While studying I had two different jobs and different time periods.

One job was working with Larry doing graveyard shift installs of cabinets for Safeway downtown. His company dose work with grocery stores.

Anyway, it was our third shift and Larry had told me to get new steel toe the night before. I am not big on listening, so I never did get new ones. Mine are big, made for welders with extra protection on the top of the foot. That night Larry had asked me to grab a file and shave off some excess laminate around an electrical socket. I of course didn’t listen and pulled out my $100 knife and began cutting, well my knife slipped and grounded the socket. KA-FREAKEN-BOOM!!! A massive electrical explosion emitted from the socket. I paused for a couple of beats then wiggled my toes and fingers. All were accounted for.

My knife was burnt.

When I slowly turned around I had hoped no one saw. To my surprise there were 3 men in different stages of working all staring at me in shock. “Are you okay?” One man asked. “Yes!” I replied. I then asked one of them if he was an electrician, I was talking a mile a minute, he told me he wasn’t, so I showed him the socked and told him to fetch the electrician. When he left I speed walked out to Larry to tell him what happened, Larry didn’t catch on until the ride home.

After that I put more effort into my studies. Kinda, I actually felt like I need to make a gift for the gods because my steel toe saved me. So I created my first shoe it was a comic book collage shoe, people liked it and from there my Art Fashion business was born.

The other job was at a popular clothing store, I had thought I could work there part time while I studied. They said they wouldn’t hire part time and it was full time only so I tried it anyway. I worked there for a while before it started to interfere with my studying too much. But while I was there I had a lot of issues, competing with reps for sales, a managers upset I was selling more from other departments then my own, which was slow and barely anything sold, to coworkers constantly hitting on me because they thought I looked 23, I am in my late 30s. Nothing really out of this world happend there. Just regular retail.

When the pandemic hit all was lost, I kept studying but it as hard obviously, I was able to get some extensions on exams as a result. But finding part time work and worrying about COVID wasn’t easy. It took until 2021 for me to start applying again. And that’s when the fun started.

I recall this one interview at a jewelry store, it was for their operations position. I had a zoom call with the hiring lady, she basically tried to talk me out of the role and into sales, when I protested my desire for the role it didn’t sit well. I recall her slamming my resume down on the desk and asking why I would want to work in operations, my response was I just wanted to, I had enough of sales and wanted something different. I didn’t get the job but I noticed a trend starting.

Another interview I had was for a home decor store, the job was selling item, when I had my zoom meeting with HR there couldn’t be a more bitter human interaction. The lady was not having it, she basically confessed to me her other roles were sales manager and when she started with this company they asked her to take over HR because she’s so great with people. I wonder if it was a passive aggressive remark because if you didn’t catch on she is terrible with people. Didn’t get that job.

Since then I had a number of phone and zoom call interviews, a lot of people I found have terrible zoom call edict. They often have the camera looking at the side of their face or top of their head, they are burnt out and not well versed at reading my resume before the interview. It feels like a lot of people just wing it.

I understand. But it makes me want to pause the conversation and speak to a manager lol…

As a result I did a deep dive into my fashion art in and attempt to sell it and make some money. It kinda of worked, been a struggle. One time I was debating on what I should do, attend the tattoo convention or open a pop up shop. So I decided on the tattoo convention, bad call… not only did I not sell but I lost money and time doing that. People only cared about getting tattoos they didn’t want to buy clothing. Since then I have been cautious where I setup shop.