Tuesday 19 January 2010

Now I Can Get REALLY Anxious

I haven't written in this blog much about it, but I have applied for a job. It's just a temporary one on a 6-month contract. I'm not sure that I could, or even want to, work for longer than that. That may sound a strange thing to say but I live on pensions (four actually, two for my service in the RAF and the Civil Service, and two widow's pensions from the same organisations for my husband's service) and if I had a permanent job with a decent salary the tax man would take so much money from me that I would need to consider whether it was worth the effort to work.

But this job is different. It was tailor-made for me mainly because I am the person what actually suggested its creation. If I get it, then its mean being paid for 6 months to do something daily that at the moment I do on an irregular basis for free. That is, talking about why it is important for patients to have online access to their medical records and the benefits that can be accrued by it.

This morning I received an email inviting me for interview for the post. I have to go armed with a mass of paperwork proving who I am and that I have the qualifications that I claimed on my application. I can't really go armed with my degree diploma because it is framed, but fortunately my home page on the OU website gives me access to my academic achievement with the OU detailing what I studied for my degree and the qualification that I have as a result of that study.

That part doesn't worry too much, but I also have to dream up a 5-8 minute PowerPoint presentation to give at the interview and which has to be submitted the day before the interview. The subject of the presentation is obviously geared towards the job and worries me a lot more. It's not something that I have thought about and so I am going to have to put on my thinking cap over the next few days so that I can create something that shows off my talents with PowerPoint and that covers the question posed for the presentation.

Perhaps the thing that worries me most of all about all of this is that I have only had two job interviews before. The first was nearly 38 years ago when I applied to join the RAF, and the second was 18 years ago when I applied for a job with the Civil Service. I had a couple of promotion interviews while I was in the Civil Service, but that is not quite the same. So you can see that I am not exactly experienced in the job market and I don't deal with interviews very well.

I become a physical wreck. I get so nervous that I become nauseous and have been known to have to make a dash to the loo to throw up before an interview. I physically shake and the anxiety of what is to come builds daily while I am waiting for the interview to happen and then it doesn't dissipate until I have had the results. The thing that is making me anxious about it already is that the interview is next Tuesday, that I am the probably the first person to be interviewed because it is at 9am, and that after the interview I have to go for my psychotherapy session.

So, readers of this blog, I am asking a favour of you all. Will you all keep your fingers (and toes) crossed for me and send me positive vibes so that I can win this job? I really would appreciate it.

6 comments:

alhi said...

I applied for over 50 jobs and got about 10 interviews before finally being successful. At the time of interviewing my hip was really bad and I was in more or less constant pain. All the interviews bar the one I got required significant travelling and I often arrived in such a state of exhaustion that I didn't care less what happened in them. All I would say to you is that you do know this stuff, you have given this information over and over again and it is something you feel passionate about. I truly believe that you couldn't do a bad interview while feeling so strongly about it.

I'm also a great believer in fate: if it's not meant for you it's not meant.

Bippidee said...

I will certainly be thinking of you and sending positive vibes. I am something of a freak in that I think interviews are good fun. I have been known to apply for jobs I have no intention of doing so I get to do an interview. This may sound weird, but it is a chance to pretend to be whatever you want to be. I think I just like bullshitting, but if you try and just think of it like that maybe it won't be so scary?! Or maybe I really am mad....

BenefitScroungingScum said...

I'll be keeping everything crossed for you, I think you'd be absolutely brilliant at this job! Best of luck, BG Xx

Achelois said...

I completely agree with BG. Perfect. You may not have time to fit in a hypnotherapy session which could really address the nerves you experience pre-interview. But you could rush out and buy some serious hypnotherapy/relaxation cd's to get some breathing exercises in and each time you feel the interview phobia feeling rising put into practice any and every relaxation techniques you can think of.

To anyone that is anti-hypnotherapy please don't slate me I just personally feel that for some people it has fantastic results. A close relative is a practising Harley Street Hypnotherapist and she certainly has seriously helped some people solve some very severe issues and phobias.

In the meantime I will sending my virtual thoughts to you over the wibbly wobbly web and keeping my bendy fingers double crossed for the interview process.

Brilliant news.

Fuddled Medic said...

All the best, let us know how it goes

Anonymous said...

I have no doubt you will ROCK. ;)