Even being retired for 10 years, I still have contradictions about not being employed full-time. Those mornings of cursing the alarm clock, early rising, rushing to get ready for work and fighting the traffic are still nostalgic. When I see cars racing by in the early morning heading for work in Pembroke or Deep River, I crave to join that caravan. Only one dark stretch proved distressing, the economic slowdown in the early nineties. Job cutbacks in Toronto, almost overnight, made job seekers a dime a dozen. Competition was fierce for any job openings that did arise. I too had to deal with that dry spell for about a year.
The onset of the recession saw unemployment rise six points in Toronto to 11 percent and the consumer price index to nearly four times as high. Being desperate for a job, I sometimes speculated that these times might become symbolic of “The dirty thirties”!
Curiously, I didn’t have a problem getting job interviews – just the job offers. After a good interview with a manufacturer of power supply equipment, I got a telephone call from the interviewer the following Sunday. He said, “Mr. Grylls, I’m not offering you a job but I want to say how much I enjoyed the interview. Good luck with your job hunt.” I had interviews at least once or twice a week until I began to envision that it was the ‘job’.
I had one bizarre incident with a job placement service (headhunter). An interview was set up for me in an iconic west-end Toronto hotel. I was met in the lobby by a sophisticated looking executive in an $800 suit and shiny black shoes. Escorted 20 floors up to a suite, it made me wish I could afford to return here someday under different circumstances. The interview was quite informal and moved along, until he asked how I would handle being the Corporate Purchasing Manager of a major Canadian Mining Company. Now off balance but having some know-how with bluffing, I answered with what little knowledge I had. The interview moved on but I suspected the potential job, which no doubt would pay about four times what I was worth, was slipping away. Subsequently, I felt somehow like a mediocre swimmer about to challenge Lake Ontario, knowing full well I wasn’t qualified to be even in the water. It turned out that someone at the placement office interchanged two names. I was at the wrong interview. Of course, I couldn’t help fantasizing, “What if I had been hired, and reached the top rung of the ladder in one shot!”
On another occasion I was running too late to dress up but knew my interview clothes were tucked away in my car. At the employer’s large plant, I drove to the back of the building. Not a soul was in sight. Getting into the back seat to change clothes, I suddenly noticed a man from the building approaching. I pulled on my dress shirt but fumbled with the buttons. He drew closer. I had no chance of getting my pants on. I slumped down hoping he wouldn’t notice me but upon peering into the car window like a pervert, he saw me, shook his head vigorously and headed back inside, likely thinking I was the pervert. I finished dressing and went to the front desk. The manager conducting the interview came and took me to his office. The door of an office, one just before his, was ajar. Looking inside, the man in the parking lot and I recognized each other. I could have crawled under a rock. My interview did go well but when an offer wasn’t forthcoming, I felt the unflattering predicament in the back seat of my car did me in.
I had other misadventures as well. So did most of my colleagues. We often shared our stories, which became like a medicine to alleviate apprehensions about job interviews and inevitable rejections. It was more effective than those tips gleaned from texts or magazines. I finally had an interview that went as smooth as silk with enough time to meet other staff, and ended with a job offer before I left that day.
I enjoyed going to work five days a week but eventually it was time to sever the connection for a better lifestyle – I think!
