I believe in fate. I think it's a beautiful concept that I hope has at least something to do with everyone's day to day lives. But I'm a stronger believer in making your own destiny via hard work and perseverance. You can't just sit back and wait for your life to happen. In the same vein, when you face a disappointment in life you don't have to shrug it off because "everything happens for a reason." You deserve to cry your eyes out or stew in anger or have one too many extra long naps, at least for a few days. If you keep working hard and focusing on your goal(s), you're bound to find another great opportunity. As you can probably guess, I recently had a career disappointment.
About two months ago I had an interview with a very large company for an internship in their TV casting department. I've interviewed a handful of times but this was definitely my best interview ever - I seemed to do everything right, I answered all the questions really well, and I definitely hit it off with the two people interviewing me. At the end of the interview they were very cheerful; they told me they "really liked [me]" but they had to keep interviewing other people and that there was no hard feelings if I took another internship and they would get back to me in a few weeks. I was on a white glittering fluffy cloud. While of course I knew there was a chance I didn't get the internship, I was very optimistic about it, and I was sort of planning my summer around working there. Three weeks went by and I hadn't heard from anyone, so I decided to follow up. The email I received as a response was a bit crushing. The two people I interviewed with (who would have been my bosses) have a boss and she decided to rehire their current intern but they "loved [me]" and would recommend me for anyone this summer and wanted to discuss fall internship opportunities. So the email was bad, especially cause my fall class schedule didn't allow for an internship. And while this happened about a month ago, I'm still pretty devastated about it. And okay, yeah, I decided to alter my fall schedule to allow for this internship because it's definitely an opportunity I don't want to pass up on, but not getting the internship threw my entire world into whack and I was extremely stressed out for about two weeks.
You may wonder why I'm writing this post now as opposed to then. I mentioned the whole "if you keep working you're bound to find another opportunity" - well, I may have a few of those. Initially the only job I had locked down was my on campus job in the communication school at USC, but because I was relying on the internship, I was only scheduled to work 13 hours a week and now I can't get any more hours. I really didn't want to work X Games again (just as I told myself last summer..), but it's pretty good money for only 20 days of (hard) work so on Wednesday I emailed my boss about it and got a positive response. Also on Wednesday I was approached by a professor I did an unpaid research study with in the fall and she asked me to be one of her paid research assistants this summer. Now this was all fine and dandy until yesterday afternoon when I received an email from one of the biggest companies in the god damned world asking to set up an interview with me for their full time paid summer internship. I had a phone interview with them three weeks ago and the woman I talked to said I would hear back "early next week." The interview was on a Wednesday and when I didn't hear back by the following Wednesday I followed up. She emailed back right away indicating that they should be scheduling interviews that week. THAT WAS OVER TWO WEEKS AGO. Honestly I thought they didn't want me to interview so I just carried on with my job search. And now I have an interview on Thursday and if I DO get this internship, I have to take it. I can't NOT take this internship. And then I would have to bail out on three jobs I have lined up, and bailing is not something I like to do. Ever. Naturally I'm a bit frazzled about the situation but I'm trying not to to think too much into it until after my interview. Who knows, I could make a complete fool out of myself (the interview is with the Vice President of Casting) and walk out of the building and throw up on the security guard's shoes. But I shall cross that path when I come to it and do my best to avoid as many speed bumps and road blocks as I can.
