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.