I'm so sad. And angry. I'm mad at myself for picking apart a puzzle. Sauvie Island Organics is a farm that I applied to work for and today, during the interview, I was asked to leave. I was asked to leave because I was making one of the interviewers "uncomfortable" and therefore "not a good fit" for the position I applied for. The discomfort may be because I was asked to start the interview by asking any questions I had for them. I had written them down and asked if it would be okay for me to read what I'd wrote. By the third question the interview stopped and I left thanking them for their time.
The questions I'd come up with were meant to be asked at the end of being questioned myself and perhaps that may have led to the discomfort. I wanted the questions to go in depth because I knew, from looking at their website and other observations, that's what I was curious about. But asking them first made them seem interrogative and maybe a little provocative. I didn't mean to offend or intrude but that's the feeling I got and I sit here cursing my ability to come up with other questions on the spot.
I don't want to blame my interviewers, call them names, or even go to the extent of supposing their reasoning for them. Because I'm not them, never will be, no way-no how. Here are the questions I got to ask:
- What are talking points you find yourself using when talking about local food and SIO? Is it contextually driven or is there a meaty message you'd like people to walk away with? (Maybe I should've waited for an answer for the first one before moving on to the second part of this question, because it made it a judgement call I guess.)
- From looking at your service to restaurants and your CSA I can see you occupy a positive niche in Portland and the local food shed, but could you describe Sauvie Island Center (an educational partner of the farm) and how your farm/center benefits the environment surrounding it?
- Online SIO has a mission to grow a wide array of high quality seasonal produce for local markets, provide the community with a connection to their food source, educate people about sustainable food production, and create a high quality workplace for its employees. What, in terms of high quality, does this mean regarding seasonal produce for local markets and workplace for its employees?
Now this was an interview, not a class discussion or a session on proper interviewing techniques. Why did I ask them? Why wasn't I more polite? Why couldn't I have asked them simply, in versions that made sense or were more understandable?
The answers to these are lessons I have to learn for the next time because in order to survive I have to be an adaptable person and able to fit any position I apply for.
