Post Post-Mortem

Well, I had my interview bright and early at the UMMC for a social work position on their Bone Marrow Transplant service. Couldn't sleep last nite but kept the coffee to a minimum this morning, fearing that nervous fluttery talking thing I do...

It was with 2 social workers and a manager (of...?) who seemed quite nice. They are pretty hard core about the interview process - allowing lots of time, 20 multi-part questions about background/ clinical challenges/ strengths/ resources etc., and just when you think that part is over, you take a deep breath, and then they hand you a sheet full of clinical vignettes and ask where you would start and why. Brutal. That's just the first interview. It was an hour and twenty minutes and I had a couple of word-finding difficulty moments, and then a few things I said probably sounded a bit too flippant or glib. These are the soundbytes that I replay over and over, with more intense facial reactions each time, and I wince. I try to remind myself that only about 15% of spoken conversation gets in & encoded, and a few less than elegant turns of phrase over a 80 minute time period, perhaps they didn't even take it in... Plus I talk fast and it was an 8 am mtg. And yes, I'm grasping at straws here. I just need to be okay with the way it was played. I was honest, pretty sincere, warts/worries & all.

They will still be doing more initial interviews next week. And then they start doing second interviews. This might take a while... And meanwhile, I'm left hanging. Yes, I'd be good at the job and my skillset and experience are a pretty good match. And it seems interesting and intense enough I'd like to be able to see myself happily in the same setting for 10 years. Now that I've talked myself into seriously wanting the job, I'm afraid I won't. And if I do get the job, there's another whole host of problems lurking nearby... last-minute childcare worries, after school care, dear God when will I fit the rest of my life in, nothing that working mom's don't do battle with on a daily basis. It's all too much for me to contemplate, much less accomplish.

It's official - I need a stay at home wife.

If I could talk Bob into a polygamy situation, it'd be a win-win. Childcare taken care of, housekeeping and all that fun stuff shared. Oh, and no need to be fashionable or bother with makeup or clothes that aren't made from flour sacks.

These musings are probably only coherent to me, as it's 3 am and I haven't slept in a couple of nights. But, I'm trying to balance my usual crappy point of view with some cognitive restructuring.

Time will tell. My time tells me it's 3 am and the obsessing-over-everything is long past and better spent elsewhere. Like in bed.