I wish I knew. Honest.

Don’t get me wrong: I do land jobs, and pretty decent ones too. Until last week I was a Senior Flex Developer for a startup in London. No less. And during the  past 15 years (give or take) I had several good others. So all my job interviews could hardly be quoted as “Epic Fails“.

But every now and then, I suffer from a very strange affliction. On a daily basis I am the reasonably smart guy. French smart guy (which says a lot one would say) but I wear glasses and that totally helps. And jokes aside, I believe I wouldn’t be here, doing what I do if I was a complete fraud and being incapable of putting 2 lines of working code together. I don’t think so.

Well, except maybe when I have a job interview… Preferably over the phone.

Even better: a technical one.

A Technical Job Interview Over the Phone

This is when the metamorphosis begins. It’s not a physical one but it’s still quite noticeable. I’m sure that when this happens The Twilight Zone’s gimmick can be heard somewhere in the background (I swear!).

You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone

And then my brain seems to liquify. It turns into jelly. Or into custard. Depends. It’s more a matter of taste I guess. I arguably prefer custard but I’m not being objective here.

Anyway.

All I know is that I eventually become Jim Carrey, circa 1994, in Dumb and Dumber.

I maybe am a little bit of an idiot

Oh, trust me, this is bad for a job interview. Very bad. It’s just like all I know has suddenly vanished into thin air. Pffft. Gone.

Now close your eyes and imagine yourself as a future employer.

You can do it. Right. Now, would you consider hiring Jim Carrey as a developer?

Nah, me neither (such a funny guy though for those of you who are into visual and delicate, almost feminine sense of humour).

Worse: it looks like the more interesting and challenging the job is, the dumber I get.

Take the interview I had last Friday with Lab49. Lab49 in London is like THE company for a Flex developer. Well, maybe not the only one, but definitely one of the best. This company is literally filled with big guns. Top notches. Guys from Adobe Consulting, MIT graduates and the like. You get in there and you can start thinking you’re doing rather well with your professional life and you would certainly be right.

And one would say: this ain’t no place for a poor self-taught Frenchie who barely speaks English! This guy must be a hell of a dreamer!

And one would probably be right.

But one should mind his own business in the first place (De Niro-like: “You talkin’ to me? You f… my wife?”) ;) This kind of job doesn’t fall from the sky and if you don’t give it a try you’ll certainly won’t get it out of pure luck anyway.

So I tried. Three times actually (Friday was the third – and obviously ultimate – attempt). I must have some kind of pervert attraction for Epic Fails, I don’t know.

One thing is for sure: the temporary mental dysfunction described above expressed itself once again with a rare efficiency. Not my masterpiece in Failure (with a capital F) but still a very honourable performance. Definitely to the level of what was at stake.

In my defense I am a coder, so I code. I don’t talk about it. I do it (well, I talk about it in this blog but stop interrupting me now!). I’ve always been better at developing components rather than describing their lifecycle. I use the whole event system tens of times every day but putting words together to describe how events bubble up, the phone in my hand, staring blankly at the wall before me is just a plain ordeal.

Maybe I should learn by heart Colin Moock’s entire production?

Or should I just drop it and breed sheep in the Alps?

Mmmmhhhh…

Nah, let’s code!

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