Sell Yourself, They Said
A middle-aged mom. A bad interview. A parking garage.
It is 3:30 in the morning and I am sitting in my dirty kitchen, lights dim, trying to be quiet as a mouse so I do not wake my husband and children. Why do I tell you this? Because context matters.
The context in which I manage to find time to write is between things, a stolen hour here or there instead of doing the dishes or laundry. What’s so great about early morning writing, if I happened to find myself awake and in need of something quiet to do, is there isn’t a whole lot else that I could do without waking people. And so I can relax a little into the act, I can read what I put down, reflect, edit a little, re-read. Although, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to “publish” something without typos. It’s now a point of pride. My stuff isn’t perfect and I’m putting it out there for ten people to read anyway.
Which is another thing — there really are, if I’m lucky, about ten people who read any given post. And at least one is my mom, and I don’t think she even reads them all. Should I be more concerned about building a “following”? I find the word followers creepy, I don’t want followers. Just maybe some people willing to read. Can we re-name followers to readers? Is that too old fashioned?
I also am not a natural self-marketer, which I realized a while ago is a skill I would need to hone to make it as a successful writer and why I ultimately decided not to go down that road. For one, I would need to tell people about my writing and that I am a writer. That just seemed obscene to me. I’m sure this is fertile ground for psychoanalysis. I can hear Freud now: Tell me Samantha, do you have feelings of inadequacy?
I once applied for a communications job with the research department of major university. I was really excited about the interview. I had pored over their website and because they were so fantastic at marketing themselves, they sounded amazing! All the cutting-edge research! The collaborations! They were changing the world!
This interview was a phone interview, but I wanted to feel professional, so I had showered and gotten dolled up. I even wore (low) heels and put on makeup. And perfume! The phone rang and I my palms were sweaty with nervous anticipation that this might just be my dream job. Aaaaannndd this is how it went down, in very short order.
“Samantha, let me get right to the point. This job is answering emails for a VIP and pretending to be that VIP in emails. Do you know what it means to work for a VIP?”
Oh brother. Is this what they consider communications? I had been misled, but didn’t have time to reason the situation, to feel angry about them wasting my time.
“We don’t have much time, so why don’t you just sell yourself to us?”
And there it was. Sell myself. The worst thing you can say to me, the thing that will have me a deer in headlights. Excuse me, what on earth do you mean?
I didn’t say that out loud. The sad part was I had been so excited to interview, I didn’t just let them know pretending to be a VIP in emails was not a job I would knowingly apply for. Instead, I tap danced around a while, humiliated but unable to stop myself. Oh yes, I know all about VIPs and I am totally willing to answer emails at all hours of the day!!
Insult to injury, I didn’t even get a call back. So, so much for selling myself. Never again, I said.
Anyhow, I have met people who are very good at selling themselves and I have noticed that they do tend to do well out in the great wide world, but that is not me. It might even be true that talking out loud, particularly singing my own praises, is the single thing I am worst at. I must acknowledge, therefore, that ladies and gentleman, this is it. Typing in my dirty kitchen at 3:30 in the morning.
But in an age where going viral is an aspiration, I’m ok with a quieter existence. I’m not a ride the tiger kind of girl. I am here doing what so many other people are, to get through this life, to process it, to try and understand: I am writing. This is an act of rebellion, screaming into the void, a very pedestrian thing really — something I strongly feel absolutely anyone could do should they choose to.
Leaving work one day, I walked into the parking garage to hear the most beautiful singing. A woman’s voice filled the cavernous and otherwise ugly cement grey parking garage. I could not see her, where she was, so the effect was otherworldly. I got chills and my soul filled with something. Appreciation? Wonder? This woman could have been a professional singer! On the stage! Wowing crowds! But like me, she must have had a decidedly unglamorous job at the school district headquarters(in a buidling we called the Death Star), a workaday drone, to be in that parking garage that evening. And this made her art, which she must have imagined she was practicing in a private moment, all the more beautiful.
