Fear the Familiar

As I sat in the office of the Managing Editor of the Wheeling News-Register and Intelligencer last Friday, interviewing for a reporter position, I pondered how incredibly uncomfortable interview situations can be. The very backwards aspect of this was the fact that what made this interview most uncomfortable were those things that were meant to "personalize" it. All of the stock questions were not ones to sweat for me. After all, I have had my share of interviews and have grown rather confident, self-assured, and convincing. The first sign of internal struggle and coming undone surfaced with Mike Myer's question, "What would you say is the greatest American novel ever written?" This threw me all off. In a casual discussion with a friend or friends, I could go on forever about this. Mr. Myer, however, stumped me. Now, I did not choke, I presented my answer and even provided a well-formed answer to his follow-up question, "Why do you think that?" But, just as I thought the interview would abandon this uncomfortable foreign yet strangely familiar and personal stage, it strayed from the normal, run of the mill questions once again, moments later...

Mr. Myer was attempting to grasp my general Ohio Valley knowledge, so he did so by asking three rather strange and unbelievably obscure questions. The first caught me way off guard...he asked, "What is the difference between a shot gun and a rifle?" Internal me: "Huh?" I quickly rebounded from my disbelief and mentioned my belief that it had to do something with the ammo of each. He was surprised at my expertise, and I explained that I have a father and brother who both are outdoor sports enthusiasts. He went on to provide the exact answer he was searching out. Next, he asked who the three representatives in Congress are for West Virginia. I threw out Mollahan and Byrd, but I wasn't positive on the third...the legendary Jay Rockefeller. We both sort of laughed this off since I came up very quickly with the most obscure of the three-Mollahan--yet remained stumped on the infamous. Finally, and perhaps the strangest question I will ever be asked, "What is the definition of sewage versus sewerage?" Again, internal me: "Huh?" I was armed with the answer, however, after a tip-off from a former newspaper interviewee. So, I answered the questions without so much as a heartbeat passing.

Still, I have been unable to shake the feeling of irony surrounding the juxtaposition of the familiar and personalization of this professional must with some of the most intense discomfort. One would assume that the opposite were true, making a stiff, standard questions situation the most uncomfortable. I guess it's the concept of sitting with a total stranger yet attempting to display your most comfortable and together self.