Exactly a week after I got home in May, I got a phone call from the English Chair at a high school in New York City. “We’d like you to come in to interview in person as soon as possible,” she told me. “Are you available tomorrow?”
“Well, you see,” I told her. “I’m in Mississippi.”
“Oh,” she said. “Hmm. How fast can you get a plane ticket?”
During the next ten hours of ticket buying, sleeping, packing, and rushing to the airport, I received another surprise email from a school in Richmond. “How soon can you get here?”
I like to imagine what a normal interview might be like. I’d meet with a potential boss. We’d shake hands and then Potential Boss would offer me a seat. I’d wear something nice but not miserable. Potential Boss would ask some questions and tell me about the job. Potential Boss would then ask me if I had any questions, and I’d come up with some to seem interested, even if I didn’t really have any. We’d both smile a lot, and I’d try not to fidget too much. Our chat would last about an hour, and then Potential Boss would thank me for coming in and ask me how soon I could start the job. I’d buy a celebratory snack on the way home.
But private school interviews are not normal interviews. Private school interviews start a lot like normal interviews, except for the part where you travel a thousand or so miles to meet Potential Boss and are housed in hotels far fancier than any hotel you’ve ever been in in your life. You arrive at the school at an absurd hour in the morning to meet Potential Boss. The interview follows the aforementioned protocol, except I’m wearing a suit that makes me feel like I’m a straitjacket, and instead of the part where I’m offered the job and then go get my celebratory snack, I’m then brought to Potential Boss #2. Then the process starts again. And then again. And then again. Until I’ve met with the Headmaster, the Assistant Headmaster, the Dean of Faculty, The English Chair, the Head of Academic Affairs, the Athletic Director, and the entire English department faculty. At some point I’m fed lunch, generally with the whole English department, which means I do a lot of looking enthusiastic and answering questions and very little eating. And then I’m given a campus tour by a carefully chosen overachieving student.
And at some point I have to teach a class. This class can be anywhere from a 7th grade class to an 12th grade class, from 12 students to 20. This class lasts an hour. In addition to the students, my audience includes 6 or 7 faculty and administrative members. I refer to this class as the Stress Test.
After about 10 interviews, the lunch interview, the campus tour, some class visits, and the Stress Test, I get to leave. But then I have to go back the following day to finish whatever couldn’t be crammed into the day before. If it’s a boarding school, I also have to do dinner and breakfast group interviews/pretend eating and help with dorm duty.
And then, finally, after two days of marathon interviewing and malnourishment, Potential Boss shakes my hand, thanks me for coming, and tells me I’ll hear more news soon.
I fly home. (Or, in the case of this particular trip, I fly to Atlanta where my mother picks me up and we drive 8 hours to the next school.) A couple of weeks later, I receive two things. 1. A reimbursement check for my travels. 2. An email, which says some variation of “Unfortunately, we had to go with a more experienced candidate” or “a candidate who met more of our needs outside the classroom,” which I interpret to mean “a former Harvard professor” or “a new football, lacrosse, and soccer coach.”
I’ve now repeated this process four times. And here I am, waiting for the next invitation. Here are some things I’m doing while I wait:
-Searching for/applying to more jobs
-Writing follow-up emails for said jobs
-Doing phone/Skype interviews
-Watching True Detective
-Watching other TV shows that I’m more reluctant to admit (HGTV shows. Dance Moms.)
-Writing more followup emails
-Painting
-Reading some of the books on my “To Read” list.
-Reading other books I’ll neither bring in public nor admit to reading (There are some wonderful YA books. And then there are these.)
-Looking for tutoring jobs anywhere within a 100 miles radius (It seems no parents want their children to learn in the summer. Or else they don’t want to pay more than $10 for it.)
-Apologizing for writing so many follow-up emails
-Looking for freelance editing
-Making up reasons to go to town (“I have $2 off my next Panera Bread order.” “I really want some figs, and the closest grocery store that has them is 50 miles away.”
-Sitting on my couch
-Wishing I wasn’t sitting on my couch
-Feeling guilty about sitting on my couch
-Eating so many frozen grapes that I feel sick
-Writing letters
-Writing nothing else
-Attending family gatherings, where we do things like feed my cousins’ alligator, Wally
-Sending more applications
-Looking up dogs I want to buy when I (hypothetically) move
-Waiting for good news.
