The Interview That Wasn't
Mystery bookshelf in Knoxville, TN, bookshop, copyright 2023 Joseph D’Agnese
In another week or so students all over the nation and world will start donning their gowns and mortarboards and march joyfully into arenas to collect their diplomas. A rite of passage that never gets old. Today at SleuthSayers I’m reminiscing about one of my first job interviews. It was for a job that I would have liked in the book publishing world. I didn’t do many of those when I was fresh out of school. I was so focused on landing a job at a magazine, since that was the focus of my college study. But this job—which I didn’t get—would have been special. It was the only one that had the potential to speak directly to my interests at the time: to read as many mystery novels as possible. It was only years later, when I had the presence of mind to reflect on it, that I realized how little of an impression I probably made in my early interviews. Foolishly, I thought my resumes would say it all. Yeah—they didn’t. My lack of personality, my inability to speak up, spoke far louder.
Here is part of what I’m talking about today at SleuthSayers:
A foolish kid walks into a job interview, realizes that this opportunity represents his fondest wish—to work in the world of mystery fiction—and what does he say?
To the human resources woman? To the outgoing editorial assistant? To the great Jon-Kon herself?
Does he utter a single thing about his interest, nay, obsession, with mysteries? Does he mention his favorite authors? Does he reference his subscriptions to the digest magazines? His growing stack of Armchair Detectives? The beat-up first edition of a Philo Vance hardcover that he found at a flea market that still has an intact oh-so-cool foldout map of the murder scene?
Nope.
Not a peep. Not a word. I entered their offices as a complete zero and exited shortly after without raising that number a whit.
You can read more at my article, which is entitled:
As a bonus, you’ll find a link to a TikTok video starring my nephew doing what he loves at his first job out of school. It’s worth the price of admission, and features an encounter with a celebrity to boot—so go check it out.
Usually, when I do these SleuthSayers posts, I like to plug one of my own books. My own short story output is nowhere near that of my fellow SleuthSayers, who are prolific story masters, but I have about 35 shorts out in the world. You can grab 30 of them via three of my mystery collections, dubbed Daggyland, available at all the usual suspects.
If you’re a completist, you will want to check out the shorts in Arm of Darkness, which I like to call my “Daggyland Dark” collection.
