The end of the school year is finally here, and what do I have to show for it? My car is - or soon will be - full to bursting, my bank account is starving for some funds, and all I want is to go home, breathe deep the brine of Puget Sound, and unwind in every humanly possible way. There is also the part where I totally would love to reunite with a few people, but that is a natural given.
Don't get me wrong. Bozeman is great. But lately, all I want is to get out of here and be with the people who have loved me for all this time. Because that is the great thing about real friends. You can stop talking for months at a time, and all of a sudden, they call you up and it is like only an hour has passed by.
And the thing about friends is that nothing is ever forced, something that not a lot of people get. So when I applied to be an RA, and let me preface this by saying I wanted absolutely nothing to do with this job in the first place, I wasn't really thinking I would have to force anything. Everyone kept telling me to be myself and that I would get the job for sure.
RA camp comes around when we all interact with one another, strangers though we might be, and the underlying expectation is that we make nice. Recall my INFJ article? I stands for Introvert - and one characteristic of introverts is that small talk is highly frowned upon, avoided, tolerated at best. When we had free time, and the expectation was to mingle, I sat and listened to the people around me. I had nothing meaningful to contribute to the conversation, so I left it alone. I didn't feel the need to interject.
The letters come a week later, informing us if we've been hired or not. I ran to my room, hoping I'd been pooled - meaning that they liked me, but they didn't have a place for me. I open the envelope, and there it is: they didn't want me period.
The reason this frustrates me so is because they stress so definitely how they don't want a set personality on staff, but as I continue to hear from other people their outcomes, a pattern emerges. Everyone who forces it, everyone who is willing to blindly do as they are told, they are the ones who get the job. I ask questions, I listen and wait for somewhere to enter a conversation in a meaningful way, and I don't blindly follow. I am not right for the job simply because I am not a blathering fool who can't self-motivate.
Do I sound bitter? Maybe I am. But the major thing, I think, is that I did not want to go through this arduous process in the first place, and was pushed into it anyway, only to be met with a "you aren't good enough". For one so prideful as I am, it stings. It burns to hear this. And all for something I had no desire to be a part of in the first place. There was no reward and no lesson other than "don't strive for things you don't want".
So I am going to go home this Saturday and I will remain in Washington for another three months to cool off and come back fresh and renewed, and hopefully those who told me I wasn't good enough enjoy their fools, for that is what they have gotten. I wash my hands of it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment