This song is so stuck in my head.
Sorry if it gets stuck in yours. Especially if you follow me across other platforms.
As soon as you know you have a job interview lined up, gather all paperwork that they may ask for at the interview. Different jobs have different requirements but items you may wish to take to a job interview include: driver’s license, proof of car insurance, any professional state license you have. Chances are that they have already seen your CV, but take one just in case. Things get lost when a company is interviewing more than one person. When you cannot find a paper you think you might need, rest assured that the medical insurance card, 2 birth certificates, copy of your termite bond contract, and the last bill from a cable company you have not used in a year may come in handy one day.
The second thing you should do in preparing for a job interview is to look up the address. Plan your route. Make sure to add time to the “Maps” estimate. You are likely not checking the route during the time of day that the interview is scheduled, so things can change. Also, if there has been any recent/ongoing construction in the area, Google may be wrong. Google lady is cool but can make mistakes. Beware of season changes and the topographical specs of the region you will be driving through. Fog, soupy thick fog in a construction area, may add time to the drive to your interview.
Third: make sure you know what you are wearing to the interview. Do not leave things out, like, say, shoes. While it is fun to run around the house playing hide and seek, checking every closet until you find the shoes next to the kitchen, it may make you late.
The night before your job interview:
Set your alarm early enough for you to get up and to do your usual morning routine with some extra time for lint brush and mirror checks. No manager wants some bed-head, pillow creased grin coming through their door. In fact, set 5 alarms. Do not forget that you may have purchased a new phone since the last time you set your alarms and check the alarm tones so they do not all sound the same. Sleeping through 60 minutes of alarms because you think they are all the first one is okay, but may make you late.
Oversleep by an hour. Keep your cool. You still have time for a quick cup of coffee. Take your shower and get ready. Do not worry about pulling your hair back. The interview is in an office building, there will be a bathroom for you to pull your hair back. You will not have a frizz bomb mop to carry in the office.
Get stuck behind a large truck running the left lane through the soupy fogged out construction area. They keep you from being tempted to speed.
Be sure to hit 9/10 red lights on the one hour drive. This is a must because it gives you time to think of answers to questions that they will not ask.
When arriving at the office building that your interview is in, be sure to not see any of the landmarks they described in the directions. Worry so much about Google lady calling out the wrong street name, that you circle around the block an additional time.
Be relieved that the only restroom you see is in the office suite that you are heading to because 5 minutes late is excusable (they know the directions are complicated and the fog is soupy) but 10 minutes late is just rude.
Answer all the questions in the interview, maybe ask a couple. The absolute key to leaving a great impression is to forget something in the boss man’s office. Once you make it back to your car, have a five minute debate with yourself about whether it would be worse to leave your glasses in their office or to go back and announce that you left them (you think….could have been dropped somewhere in between.) At the very least, you have stood out enough for them to remember you.
Now go find a bathroom!
Photo by Tim Gouw on Pexels.com
Did a little photo shoot during my getaway. The place where I took the video and most of the pictures has likely been shut down for a couple of days until they are 100% about the hurricane and storm surge. The beach was already much less busy than usual. The only one I had seen driving on the beach was a lifeguard, so I about fell out when an ice cream truck drove past. (Daytona Beach has sections that allow people to drive and park on the beach.)
I was ready to tweet about swimming in a spring this afternoon. I wanted to recommend that if ever you have a chance, do it. Even after I had parked and changed, I found myself wanting to turn from the moderate size crowd and go back to my car. The thing about most springs is that you have to walk downhill to get to them and uphill to get back to your car. The areas to enter the water are always congested. Was it worth it? There is something about earth cooled water and the sandy floor of nature’s pools that is both relaxing and revitalizing.
What stopped me from making the tweet was that I started to think about the faces in that moderate crowd. I guess Berthold Gambrel was right, “Writing about an experience is a great way to capture what was most important about it.”
I started to think of the retired couple heading back to their car after a picnic, the little kids playing jokes on each other, the ladies in bikinis, the ladies in wet suits, the guy just sitting on a bench enjoying the atmosphere, the little kids in the shallow area that was the only part of the pool that had clearly been altered by park staff to make it safer for the kiddos, the mom in a tube float with her youngest sitting on the edge holding on to mom, the middle aged mixed race couple that were comfortable and relaxed with each other, the teenage mixed race couple with their new relationship tension and passion, the snorkel that was always moving around but never surfaced, the older gentleman climbing down the steps with fins and snorkel in hand, the different languages that echoed across the water, the group of kayaks coming back to shore after adventure on the other side of the swim area, the young lady stretching trying to find the right angle to capture the scene, the group of young men just hanging out and making plans for the weekend…
I was not there very long. In fact, the middle aged man blowing up floats for his family in the parking lot when I arrived was just starting down to the pool as I went back to my car. I was there for a quick cold water walk in the sand. I had no idea my brain was having a soak in all the warmth community can bring.
Be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself.
Go swimming in a spring.
I did not take any photos today so this is an old photo of a similar area
Holey Mud
Depth marker
Depth marker with camera lens for perspective
“When the truth is found
To be lies
And all the joy
Within you dies”
Just as I was about to go on a Twitter tirade over all the blind hate tweets, I remembered something I saw 20 years ago.
As luck would have it, YouTube has everything.
The ecosystem in my garage.
A few years ago I witnessed a spider eating a mosquito. As he finished the meal, a lizard stepped in and had his own.
Yesterday I spared the life of a small spider and told him to eat lots of mosquitos.
Today, I find this:
I just got bit by a mosquito and the snake is still in the garage. I guess I should be happy the bear did not stay.