Bleh

I’m in quite a fortunate position generally when it comes to my career. I’ve had quite a few interviews over the course of the last 23 years or so and I can count the number of times I’ve not gotten a role I’ve gone for (as far as interview stage) on one hand.

I always tend to do quite well on interviews, not so great on technical tests (AWS aside) but in talking through concepts and competency questions, usually, anyway.

I had my gallbladder removed at the end of November. Then followed by three weeks off work for recovery. Then had an interview scheduled for a possible promotion at the end of that third week. Despite spending 6/7 hours prep time during the week and writing notes up, getting things arranged in my head - I absolutely crashed and I could tell, referring to thingies and unable to grasp terminology that would usually come to me with no issues.

I’d not been anywhere near so much as a command line terminal in anger for three weeks. I was rusty, I wasn’t thinking straight and a week before Christmas, my head just wasn’t in it.

I knew I’d fucked it. I knew it. Scores were out of 5 across the competencies, and you had to get 3s, 4s or 5s. I got 2s across the board. Absolutely shocking. Feedback was sympathetic, but I could also tell that he was disappointed that I wasn’t where I should be.

Then came the email..

Having considered you carefully against the requirements 
for the role, we’re sorry to tell you that you’ve been 
unsuccessful on this occasion. If you’d like to receive
specific feedback on your interview, you’re welcome to 
contact your interviewers to arrange this.

I don’t often get emails like that, and seeing it in writing hurt more than the video call to tell me that I didn’t get it.

Do I handle rejection well? I don’t know, I don’t think so - probably not.

It’s fine to fail. Because there’s always lessons to be learnt. There’s always something you can do better. I guess it would have just been nice to have something go my way at this time of the year.

I started this post on the Friday night (16th), I couldn’t figure out how to do a blockquote, the markdown for hugo just was not working, stupid blockquotes. So I’ve figured out a different way to handle it for the time being.

I’d have a look at changing the theme up a little, but I’ve added that much customisation to this one that I’d have to spend a lot of time adapting something else.

I might mess with the css and change the colours and fonts up a bit. Maybe.

So. Directions. I’m looking for some at the moment and I’m trying to figure out what way I want to go. I want to stay technical. I love tinkering, building stuff and solving problems.

I’d like to see how far I can get with AWS. I might even be in a position to self fund a trip to Vegas for RE:Invent next year. That’d be nice wouldn’t it?

Lots to think about over the course of the next few weeks and months and over the new year.