The Interview

Yes, I'm in the process of attempting to get a career. At this point, we won't talk about what exactly my day job is (I'll let your imagination strike up images of temp agencies, restaurants, garage sales, eBay sales, and that sort of dead broke excitement). Suffice it to say, that depressed on a Saturday night & not feeling too great, as I typed away searches on google for the things I may never afford or get (a villa in Italy, a masarati, and a boyfriend from Wilhemina Models), I checked my "work" cell phone. Ah! There is a message from last Thursday waiting to be heard! How could I have let that slip? As it turned out, I was wanted by an interior design recruiting agency for a job interview. Well! Maybe that villa isn't as far down the road as I thought.

Monday, I completed the telephone interview with success and moved to the next phase: Tuesday interview with a different recruiting agent at the design firm. As expected, the medium sized business was beautiful and set in the rugged hills of Aliso Viejo. Heck of drive to get there and the toll roads aren't cheap at $4.25 each way, no wonder there were only brand new jaguars, range rovers, and BMWs on the road. One other note, the design firm specializes in model home design.

The interview lasted an hour and half. I guess you could say it went well. My eyeballs were super tired by the end. Unfortunaly, I keep my portfolio on the web. Due to the swift interview that was scheduled the following day, I had to stay up till 2:00 am printing my portfolio & putting it into a presentable form. I was up by 7:30 am on Tuesday to finish printing my resume and that sort of fun stuff. The man that interviewed me looked just like the bald guy from CSI and I remember him telling me that he thought I had great energy and stuff like that. Boy, did he know the half of it.

At the end of the interview, it was all on the table. He said, "Well, miss, you aren't a traditional candidate for the design assistant position. You haven't graduated from a design program and your portfolio alone won't get you the job. In order for the company to understand if you have the skill to handle the job, you have to complete a Design Test." He walked out of the room and came back in with an architectural print. He gave it to me and said design this house, create its location and the buyer demographic. In a week, you will be presenting it to the owner of this company and me. He said one last thing to me, "But despite everything, I've got a good feeling about you."

Ahoy...I left the interview with the blueprint of a 2,500sq foot house with 4 bedrooms, living room, dining room, family den, kitchen, master bath, bath no. 2, garage, and all of those lovely hallways. My boat was in danger of sinking. That night as I fell asleep, the Santa Ana Winds returned back to the coast. I woke up to the sound of high winds outside my window and then my brain was awake. I was in a panic sweat for the next two hours on the sort of fabric the living room couch will have, the floors in the master bedroom, the curtain treatment of the family den, kitchen cabinet color, the color story of the entire house, buyer demographic-I was freaking out until I told myself to calm down & go back to sleep. But, by then I had missed that valuable REM sleep. I had "lack of sleep" throb in my head the next morning. Baby steps. & you know what, I'm slowly getting this project done. If I don't get this crummy $13 an hour grunt design assistant job (the interviewer told me specifically that it was grunt work and it includes travel to northern California to install projects-I haven't confessed yet to not knowing the basics of how to dry wall or how to wire chandeliers-Do I have to know this stuff? Shoot!). At this point, I'm just trying to get my foot in the door of any interior design firm. Lie, Cheat, & Steal, I'm going to get the design for that mega mansion done. I'm also learning heck of a lot more about interior design than anything I've learned in a classroom so far! I just need time to catch up on my sleep.