The Wringer

I spent my morning with my office door closed, near tears, and alternating between hoping for and dreading JP's return of all my calls. He found out on Friday that he didn't get a particular job he'd been really excited about and had made it to the fourth and final round of interviews for. That was a blow. But there were still two openings in a different division of the same company and he'd had a great final interviews for those last Thursday, so we still had hope. In fact, just this morning as we were getting dressed he commented on how optimistic he was about those interviews and how depressed he was going to be if nothing worked out. Because after this, he's pretty much exhausted the Austin MBA market and it would be time to look elsewhere. And while looking elsewhere makes a whole lot of sense for both of us, I'm not ready to leave and neither is he. As I kissed him goodbye this morning I desperately hoped he was going to get good news this week. And only in small part because of the fear of moving. Mostly I just worried for him and wondered how I could be enough support for him if he got another no.

And then at 9:30 a.m. he got the call saying the jobs weren't going to work out. Oh, they liked him. In fact, the Director insisted he was their #1 outside candidate, they've just been "encouraged" to use internal transfers over new hires and there were two current employees who had applied for the position.

My heart just broke for him. I said the things I've been saying- that he's great, that he'll find something, that it's their loss, and I meant every single one, but I don't think he believes me anymore. He believes that I believe it, and that's something, but it's not enough, and I don't know what else to say to make it better. I don't want to take anything away from how hard all of this is on him, but I will say that watching the person you love go through the demoralizing rigors of a job search is its own kind of hellish.

I want to call up the people he's interviewing with and yell at them for not immediately grasping how awesome he is. Can't you tell how smart he is? What a hard worker he is? How driven he is? HIRE HIM. Except don't, because I've now decided you don't deserve him.

And so I spent the morning with my door closed, going through periods of fierce productivity and then pausing to stare at my computer monitor feeling like I was going to cry. I just felt so terribly for him and I couldn't do anything with those feelings.

But then, he got another email at 3 p.m. from the Director informing him that one of the internal candidates was switching to a different division, so now he made it! Except then he got another email at 3:30 saying, wait, that's not final, it has to be approved by Talent Management. So now I have no idea what's going on, except that it's not a no, there's hope, we might get to stay at Austin, and I'm mad at this company for making me emotionally exhausted without giving me a conclusion by the end of the day. But JP is smiling while playing his guitar on the other couch, so I guess that's something.