Denver at Dawn Business requires the perception of invincibility. Potential clients will run for cover at the first sign of blood. The road work must continue. I arose at 4:00 am to catch the first flight arriving in Denver along with a spectacular dawn on the Front Range. The airplane seat fit me like an old worn glove. The isolation of flight is comforting to me. The world is unplugged for a couple of precious hours. No phone, no news, no complaints, no complications. I get an opportunity to ignore everything.
I walked out of the pick-up door at the precise time my ride pulled to the curb. The travel gods are smiling on me. The two hour drive in the foothills to the University was enjoyable, learning unique aspects of mountain ecology along the way. We had just enough time to tour the facilities and make mental notes. Our interview was number three of five. First and last are considered the prime slots, but third interview slot just before lunch was to our advantage. If our team put on a good show the selection committee would probably talk about us for an extra hour during lunch, putting the others at a disadvantage.
Eight members of the committee shuffled in and scattered themselves around the plain room. I had 10 minutes of the 20 allotted to the team. I easily fell back into the zone. Twenty years of experience was coiled and burst out in a confident and convincing diatribe. The selection committee looked like bobble heads indicating the message was hitting the target. Finishing exactly on time, I tossed the ball to the other team members. Good team dynamics interjected with humor and empathy moved the interview into high gear.
We moved onto the dreaded 20 minute prepared question part of the interview. This is where the committee tries to trick the team with inane questions which better illustrate their lack of understanding than intelligence. We absolutely nail four of seven and aced another two. The seventh question was from the student representative and was so bad we couldn’t answer because we didn’t understand it. All things considered we had a very good interview, probably A-. The committee shook our hands and milled out of the room. We decided to grab a late lunch before the two hour run back to the airport.
At the airport I waited. Plugged in the ipod and watched the terribly lonely ghosts glide past. Stone cold faces drained of life looking blindly at the floor as the death march proceeded. I felt a little like I was home again, even if home was dysfunctional. It was like visiting your brother in jail. He depresses the hell out of you, but he’s still your brother.
The day finally ended at 10:30 pm, just over 18-1/2 hours later when I open the door of my house and pulled out some cold leftover food from the refrigerator. Not once did I break from character. Not once did I really tell anyone what was on my mind. The mask of invincibility was never removed. The real test is if the University calls back and says we won the interview.
The call was short and sweet; we did not get the job. We were “Homered”, which means the selection committee wanted a local “Homer”. A local architectural team that has never done a similar project and was not qualified was selected by the committee. The selection committee was convinced because they were local; they could be on site every day to fix the problems that an unqualified team would create. What a farce that educated people would believe that being local is more important than knowledge and experience. It’s like selecting a brain surgeon because he doesn’t have as far to drive to get to the hospital. I can’t understand how these are university administrators that pride themselves in making informed decisions, don’t recognize the primary thing they sell, knowledge. All I can do is shake my head and smile at the ignorance. Don’t ever believe that Universities with all the pretense of enlightened process don’t have any better judgment than the average phone scam victim. It’s a shame the students don’t deserve more than ‘Homer”.
