<p>And now I have to un-hatch all my chickens.</p>
<p>I was truly perfect for the job. I had three rounds of interviews. I think I didn’t get it because they found someone cheaper.</p>
<p>So I will continue to work at the job I have, which is well-paying but very suck-y in terms of management. (Translation: The CFO is a lunatic.)</p>
<p>I have interviewed for and not been offered so many perfect jobs in my life.</p>
<p>I am bummed.</p>
<p>So sorry to hear your news, VeryHappy! You are entitled to be bummed out after getting through so many rounds of interviews!</p>
<p>Hmmmm. Maybe I will change my screen name.</p>
<p>I think it’s happened to most of us. I had never had trouble finding a job until I was laid off at age 40+ at the same time as most of the dot-coms in Washington State all tanked at the same time. It was a sobering experience.</p>
<p>My deepest sympathies.</p>
<p>Oh, Very Happy, so sorry to hear about… not just the job, but the crazy CFO you have to deal with!</p>
<p>VeryHappy- I felt just like you do two years ago. I had interviews, contacts and was a perfect fit. I was also unemployed and close to running out of severance! I didn’t get the job, and I was very upset and convinced I would never get another good job at my age and high seniority level. I happened to be on a mission trip to Honduras when I got the rejection email. As I was moping around, I heard one of the Honduran school officials say, on a totally unrelated matter, “God doesn’t make mistakes.” I tried to take that to heart. 5 months later I got the perfect job, relocated our household and could not be happier.<br>
Hang in there</p>
<p>Trying to make lemonade here:</p>
<p>Someone should feel free to take my “life experience” and apply it to all of our sons and daughters who may have recently experienced a rejection – from a school, I mean.</p>
<p>If you can’t do what you wish, do what you can.</p>
<p>So, I’ll stay at my job with the lunatic CFO. That’s what I can do.</p>
<p>So sorry VeryHappy. Not only can you stay at your current job, but you can keep looking too. 
(But I’m sure you know that.) Good luck. I loathe job hunting. Now I have my own business and I’m job hunting all the time! Ack how did that happen?</p>
<p>VeryHappy…did you happen to be one the millions who watched Dr. Randy Pausch’s final lecture at Carnegie Mellon? (it is available online, at the CMU website).</p>
<p>I ask because in it he discusses the “brick wall”. To paraphrase, the “brick wall” isn’t there to keep you out, it’s there instead to help you discover how badly you want something. The person who only mildly wants will shrug their shoulders and move on. The person who sincerely wants with all their being will find a way to scale the wall.</p>
<p>It’s about the same length as movie (about 90 minutes). I cannot suggest it strongly enough. It is life altering to watch it and really listen to what this amazing professor has to share. </p>
<p>[Randy</a> Pausch: Childhood Dreams Lecture - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/multimedia/randy-pausch-lecture.shtml]Randy”>Randy Pausch: Childhood Dreams Lecture - Carnegie Mellon University | CMU)</p>
<p>Best to you.</p>
<p>First of all, so sorry.</p>
<p>Second of all, well, I’m one of those people who mostly gets the jobs they interview for. Sounds good, right? Nope. I have talked myself into jobs I wasn’t qualified for, and jobs that were a terrible fit. And then, for the sake of professional credibility, you have stick with it.</p>
<p>So, there is something good to NOT being a slick interviewer who can sell the Brooklyn Bridge to Paducah. I hope it means that when you do get your next job it will be the right place.</p>
<p>Well, at my age (59), I’m not so sure there will be a next job. I kinda wanted to get this one so I could shout from the rooftops, “I’m 59 years old and I got a new job!!”</p>
<p>Well, maybe it will happen. It’s 10 more months until I turn 60 . . . .</p>
<p>What’s interesting, though, is that I really was perfect for this job, in terms of background, experience, temperment, geography, GPA, SATs (oh wait, wrong category; I’m a grown-up). And it was something totally totally out of my control – i.e., what they were willing to pay – that scuttled it. So when our sons and daughters weep that their GPA, SAT scores, desire, personality and everything else were perfect for their school of choice, which rejected them – well, there are things we can’t control, aren’t there.</p>
<p>Really, I’m feeling better today. Mainly because I do have a job, although of course it has Issues. (What job doesn’t??) If I were unemployed, it would be another case altogether . . .</p>
<p>JustaMom: I saw about three minutes of Dr. Pauch’s thing – you’re saying it’s worth 90 minutes?? Maybe over the holidays.</p>
<p>“And it was something totally totally out of my control – i.e., what they were willing to pay – that scuttled it.”</p>
<p>If the job doesn’t pay enough, how is it the perfect job?</p>
<p>I’m being emotional. Stop being logical. </p>
<p>(But you make a good point.)</p>
<p>Emotional is good. You’re alive. Dead people aren’t emotional. I like emotions.</p>
<p>My sympathies, VH. Sometimes when I’m frustrated with my job (and my boss, with whom I share a very small office) I try to remind myself that this job seems perfect when I describe it to other people. And all those other “wonderful” companies I’d like to work for - well, they may not be quite so wonderful if I ever actually started working there.</p>
<p>But I’m still looking to change jobs as well…</p>
<p>Well, I wasn’t even looking; a colleague of a colleague heard I might be right for the job and contacted me. What’s so difficult is that once you start to think about changing jobs, it’s hard to get the cat back in the bag. Or the eggs uncracked, or whatever. You start to fantasize – about the going away party, about the new commute, about what you’ll wear your first day, about where you’ll eat lunch – and oh yeah, about what you’ll do in the position. </p>
<p>I’m not miserable where I am – I have lots and lots of freedom – but, as I said, the CFO is a lunatic. A very scary man who attacks people verbally with emotional abuse for no good reason. I try to keep my distance, but it’s not always possible.</p>
<p>VeryHappy - worth every moment of his lecture. I saw it the day after he gave it, and here I am months later, still talking about it. </p>
<p>Trust me. I’m no easy prey. It’s worth it.</p>
<p>VeryHappy, the fact that you let yourself visualize getting and having the job in advance is a trait I highly value and admire. Too many people refuse to let themselves get their hopes up or get too excited in order to minimize the pain of rejection. I would rather experience the ecstatic highs (even if still in fantasy stage) and take the plummet to the basement if rejections occurs than stay within a tightly controlled narrow band of emotions. You’ll hit your equilibrium again soon.</p>
<p>Thank you, everybody, for your very nice comments. They help.</p>
<p>I’m at work right now (on this funky last-real-work-day-of-the-year) cleaning out my 2007 files and making my 2008 to-do lists. (And chatting on CC.)</p>
<p>So I guess I’ve made my peace with it. There’s no alternative, really, is there.</p>