Thursday 28 July 2016

Why I can't watch The Job Interview...

There are some TV shows I find it stressful to watch.  The news, obviously, because some days it's just all bad.  At the moment you almost need a restorative cup of tea at hand just to be able to sit down and watch it.

Then there's MasterChef, when they go into the professional kitchens.  I'm fine when they're cooking in the studio, despite Gregg and John's constant shouting which really isn't necessary.  It doesn't add to the tension, it just makes me reduce the volume.

I don't even mind when the cooks are hurriedly preparing lunch for hundreds of people, and the queues are building and nothing's cooking on time, they're dropping things on the floor and the pastry's burning.

No, I really hate it when they're being shouted at in a Michelin-starred establishment and it's all going a little bit 'Pete Tong'.

I've tried to figure out why I feel like this.  It could be because I worked in the kitchen of a pub with a chef that made Gordon Ramsay look positively mild-mannered and pleasant.  I may be mentally scarred - in fact, thinking about it, I've never been able to eat a prawn cocktail since, and as this was one of the signature starters of the day (yes, it was a few years ago) it's probably that. 

With this in mind, I also can't bring myself to watch The Job Interview.  With my prestigious track record of messing up in interviews, I just think the flashbacks would be too much for me.

When I get really nervous, I either lose the power of speech or say the first thing that comes into my head - neither of which is particularly helpful.

In one interview when I was asked 'where do you see yourself in five years time?' I actually responded, 'not that old one!' because, frankly, I'd been asked it in every single interview I'd attended up to that point. 


This was sadly not appreciated by the interviewer, but it did make the accompanying HR lady laugh out loud.  No, I didn't get the job!

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