Interview appointment

Mid Week Break went very well on Wednesday where I presented on NS Duck Tolling Retrievers – the second of my series of six topics for cruise ship speaking. The shore captain suggested that I’d be ready to go in about three years at this rate, which did not earn him any travel points with this prospective speaker. The lady at the library who arranges the speaking events has already figured out that I work best with a deadline and if she keeps scheduling me that we’ll both benefit. She’ll be in touch in September again she said. There was less pressure this time around due to not being filmed and that I was familiar with the venue and some of the audience. Daughter # 1 accompanied and took some lovely photos of me presenting – she is such a good photographer!

The quote of the day was very appropriate as my life descriptor lately:“ Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore. ”
Wallace Stevens

Now Friday was not a great day work wise considering that I had to set out on an overland journey equivalent to the hobbits leaving middle earth to get my documents off the printer – felt like I should be packing a lunch of that elven bread they took with them wrapped in a leaf. When I headed off for a coffee break I took my cup of tea and managed to avoid full thickness burns as I opened the broken exit door at the bottom of the shadowy fire escape, wandered across the front parking lot, in through the lobby and up the stairs to the staff lounge. I’m sure I pretty much burned off the muffin in the trip there and back.

However, I am so excited to announce that on Friday when I checked my email at lunchtime I found the following message:

Thank you for contacting us regarding placement as a guest lecturer/instructor with one of our cruise line clients. After carefully reviewing your qualifications and proposed enrichment program, we have determined that you are a candidate for cruise lecturing. We are excited to learn more about you. The next step in the application process is a 30-minute telephoneinterview with a member of our recruitment team. We scheduleinterviews a week or so in advance, between the hours of 9am - 3pm EST.Please reply to this e-mail with a 30-minute time period that you areavailable to speak with us on one of the following three days. (Please be sure to state your time zone in your request to alleviate any confusion): April 15, 16, 17 We will then send you an e-mail reply to confirm the date and time of the phone interview. Please review the manual of information. Now the manual includes the cruise lines this agency places speakers for and they are all high end.

You can bet that I very quickly hit reply and have chosen April 17th at either 10 or 10:30 our time as that was honestly the only time available in those three days. I sure don’t want them to know that I’m so completely over schedule and figured the choice of two time slots would seem generous. Even the life partner had to admit that “they got back to you pretty quickly, you only sent that in last week” So apparently he is being more supportive as the likelihood of this actually happening (due to MY persistence) is increasing. Smart man as there is a list of alternate travel partners forming as I type.

Speaking of which, I checked in my friend, assuming that she would’ve remembered me had she been the single woman with two children who won the lottery from there. Coincidentally they both have the same employer, I’m sure she wouldn’t have forgotten me in the excitement! And it turns out she was having a much more mundane existence which I quote here:

It is Friday, which has to be a plus. I went for blood work today and waited 1 1/2 hours. I heard some folks talking in the waiting room and if you had fasted, once you are registered you could go into holding room #2 and have your blood drawn. Considering these two were at least 80 and I was guessing "frequent flyers" to the hospital system, I was tempted to get up and approach pit bull masquerading as some type of person in charge. Decided instead to wait my turn. When I left holding #2 and actually was having the blood drawn, I asked the tech if that was the policy. Little lady, said, oh that doesn't apply now because we have this NEW system designed to cut down on wait times. I guess I put on a really strange expression and she asked me my wait time and said 1 1/2 hours to get to this point. Oh, she says, it can't be working today. I thought you are probably right and then she had to use both arms to draw my blood since one vein wasn't working. She said, you know just because it is big, doesn't mean it works. I told her that applied to a lot of things. Eventually she had a good laugh.

I have scheduled a ‘girls night’ here for Monday, April 7th, which will be under the guise of scrapbooking as that always makes it look like we’re gainfully engaged while we’re socializing well. Those cruise photos are sure fun to scrap with the latest developments!