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WORK & MONEY KNOW WHEN TO WALK AWAY, KNOW WHEN TO RUN Published March 18, 1996 Previous columns by Harry Goldstein

I'd been fishing around for another job for a few months and any Web-related job in the Sunday classifieds drew my attention and within a couple of days, my resume. For the first time in my life, I wasn't searching for a job out of sheer desperation, just testing the waters to see if there was something more interesting out there. S ince I needed practice interviewing, I answered whatever call backs I received. It was in these interviews that I was introduced to a friend I didn't even know I had: that soothing voice that told me that I wasn't desperate, that this job wasn't for me, and that no matter how programmed I was to make a good impression, sometimes you just have to press the abort button and get the hell away! The first time the voice piped up was towards the end of an interview with the chief editor of CNN's online services division. I was being considered for the position of staff news writer for the new CNN Financial Network Web site. We sat on either side of an old, dented metal desk in the corner of a large room where the only light came from windows that looked out on a dreary late November day. After apologizing for bringing me to a floor in the midst of renovations, the editor gave his vision of what CNN-FN was likely to become and what the job would entail. As far as I could tell, he wanted an information drone who could pound out copy 8 hours a day, five days a week, without putting any critical faculties to use. This would be corporate propaganda in its most naked form. You can't go through with this, I said to myself. You've got to get the hell away! "So how much does the position pay?" "Excuse me?" "How much does the job pay?" "Uh, I don't know," he avoided looking at me and stared instead at his twiddling thumbs. "I left that information in Atlanta." "I see," I said, trying to skewer his darting eyes with a piercing gaze. "Can you give me a ballpark figure?" "Well," he nervously ran his fingers through his thinning, greasy hair, "it would be more than sufficient, I'm quite sure." "I'm sure," I said, almost mimicking, but not quite. "Well, maybe you can tell me after you've had a chance to look through my clips." "Yes, ahem," he cleared his throat and rose to his feet, leading me out the door to the bank of elevators, "Yes, I'll be looking at these clips and I'll call you next week." He extended his clammy paw for a quick shake and avoiding eye contact, shuffled off down the hallway to another presumably empty office, probably to shred my clips into tiny, tiny pieces. A few weeks ago I interviewed with Pipeline, a major internet service provider that is trying to get into providing content as well as access. This time I had no problem with the basic nature of the company I was interviewing with; it's just that the woman who was interviewing me never clearly articulated which job I was being considered for: the content manager or the newsgroup moderator, neither of which, I realized during the course of the interview, seemed like something I wanted to do. Not being very good at just saying no, this job isn't for me, I accepted a 14 day trial subscription to Pipeline and agreed to post messages on various newsgroups that I might be either interested in moderating or interested in supervising the moderation thereof. As I stuffed the complimentary diskette into my briefcase and fumbled for my overcoat, I blurted out "Eggg-se-lent," in my best Montgomery Burns hiss. The interviewer looked at me slack-jawed and silent. "Egg-se-lent, Smithers," I continued, my internal voice roaring with laughter, "Too much television." "Excuse me?" "I've been watching the Simpsons way too much the last few weeks." I never called them back. They never called me to see what had happened. Excellent. I had saved myself from myself. I didn't want to be a salesman, trying to scare up strategic content partners for Pipeline or a shameless corporate shill for CNN. I want to wait for a job I know I really want and then go on an interview where the only voice I speak with is the one focused on landing the job. Harry Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Utne Reader, American Book Review, Promethean, AltX, word.com, and other periodicals. © 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved