Interview Withdrawls- (No. 80)

I worry I might actually get the job.

Now would be the time where I would traditionally start watching a YouTube video or browse some sort of news source. It’s that time of the evening, right after dinner. I had the Butterfinger that I grabbed from the morning, and was itching to start scrolling. I just threw the Butterfinger across the room. I have Canh Hong Phai playing, by Nguyen Hung.

It is good to think about doing things for your long-term benefit.

Today I had an interview with the famed Jerod Weinmann himself of the CS department. I found that he was personable, direct, but also has piercing questions. He'd really be someone who would really push you, and I can see a lot of students disliking his style. If you go off of reviews alone, Weinmann is the scourge of CS students, the final boss. If you dedicate yourself to learning and adapting, I believe you'd be able to take a lot from his class, though. Just my uninformed thought.

I am concerned about that position. The CS AI Data Entry job. I jumped on the opportunity, and wrote such a good cover letter and sent in my pristine resume. I did handled my interview well. Ostensibly, it sounds like a wonderful thing to be involved with. With further investigation, it is really just brute labor, menial. thoughtless, labor. I'm worrying that my interview was too personable, that I turned on my charming self a little too much. I made myself a little too compelling. What did I really want to get out of it? I don't really need to continue farming entities on my resume. It is full enough as it is. Maybe I wished to be involved with the conference in some form. It's obviously not going to happen.

So here I was, really just hoping to drop it entirely. Really hoping that he wouldn't hire me at all. Truthfully, I feel like I'm fearful of getting the job-- which is paradoxical since I applied for it in the first place. However, I know that if I do happen to get it, that would mean a lot more effort, a lot more work, and a lot of time spent doing something I might not be as passionate about. There are other students who wish to have the job more. It also seems like my original idea for what the position was not what it really is.

I've just had an idea. I wonder if I can email him and thank him for his time, but then request to withdraw from consideration. I've been reflecting and the main thing I wanted from the position was the chance to learn about organizing a conference. It seems like it is more data collection, and scraping. I know my time can be better spent, teaching me and learning new skills. Additionally, I already have potential in my current jobs to work up to 20 hours-- and I'm already struggling to truly meet that number. Therefore, I'd be better off withdrawing from this position and letting someone else who might need it more. My intuition tells me this is the right move.

I enjoyed the interview, nonetheless! It was pleasant and I learned a lot. He had a final insightful question—why should I hire you? He was nice about it and made sure to scaffold it up with context and the reasoning for that question. However, that is true. Why should he hire me? I remember stumbling a tiny bit for an answer, the only wavering moment throughout the entire interview. I'm not sure. I did play along, though, because of social convention. A better move might have been to state outright that it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

Okay I sent it! I feel good. I kinda feel bad for "taking up his time" but it is the right thing to do. It'd be worse if I stayed and did things half-heartedly. Plus, we really only chatted for around 20 minutes. I took some good thoughts from it.

So things will all work out.

Housing! Well, housing is more complicated, but right now, I believe I made the right choice to drop the messy apartment situation and choose to move over to East (somewhere, sometime) with Eti. Let it all work out. Lil Wayne was onto something.