We're in the midst of the annual kitten-herding exercise known as intern interviewers.
A course requirement of graduation with a post-doc certificate in copywriting from a local college, is a period of unpaid work placement.
Agencies love unpaid work placements. It makes them feel all powerful and gooey inside.
This year, the best part of our unpaid work placement is that we've actually budgeted to keep the successful candidate on once the unpaid term ends. So we're not just interviewing for a freebie, we're looking for a kitten we can keep.
We met two candidates yesterday. Both talented in their own way.
Then we came to the part of the interview where I ask my hypothetical questions. This is always my favourite part of the process. Often the only genuine moment of true personality in the whole structured and stressful process.
If you could invite 3 persons to dinner -- living or dead -- who would they be?
Interestingly, both candidates included Sigmund Freud as one of their three people.
Freud!
Weird.
I've gone years with everyone from Mama Theresa to Tiffany Amber Thiessen and I get 2 Freuds in a day!
In case you're wondering, my three are:
JD Salinger
Siddhartha
A true toss up between Spalding Gray and David Sedaris (for neurotic levity)
Anyway, wondering who you, dear readers, would choose as your three persons of choice? I will not hold you to these choices should the opportunity to resurrect your dead dinner companions come to pass.
5 comments:
Nice! We hired an intern for the summer, too. So excited about it! I remember my days as an intern... ah, the good ol' days.
Anyway - my three: Chaucer, God and my Grandfather.
It's hard to choose between the people who you think would have the best conversations with each other - and the people who you just want to meet.
But my three would be: Princess Diana, JFK Jr and the one guest who I think can tie it all together - George Clooney.
I was gonna switch out JFK Jr for Amelia Earhart, but figured she wouldn't know who the others were and it would be awkward.
My mom, Eleanor Roosevelt and you.
- any one of the three people recently released that were held captive in an Austrian basement for the past 19 years.
- Casting director of The Amazing Race or LOST
- My son
I have no intellectual interests. The only reason I work is to pay my bills. The only reason I read is out of a desperate hope for advice on how to quell my deep miserable loneliness.
That being said, I'm a terrific employee, competent and pleasant.
But you can understand of course why I hate your stupid fucking dinner question. It requires me to make up a fake personal self to go along with my fake professional self.
Can't you just assign me the work, give me my paycheck, and leave me alone?
You're probably also into having everybody dress in casual clothes to express their individuality - oh, except, what we're really expressing is our ability to copy the individuality of the person we're supposed to pretend to be - polos and khakis, right? Or, wait, you're an alternative intellectual freethinker - so I suppose to impress you I'd wear a black turtleneck and jeans. You know who I really want to have dinner with? Anybody who'll be nice to me for four hours.
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