Wednesday, April 08, 2009

It's a double-sided coin

I got some answers today as to why I didn't get the spot of president. On the one hand, it makes me feel better to know what it was. On the other, I feel down because maybe I could have done better. It was all about the interview - or almost all. The guy who got it was "outstanding". I was not. Apparently I was not even close enough to outstanding to make them choose me to have a more appropriate balance. This makes the 5th white male in a row and 8 out of the last 10. Females make up 49% of the membership. He represents a geographic region whose members make up less than 2% of our membership. So I'm reading into all this that I wasn't even close enough to make them say "hey - they're pretty close, it's time for a woman, go with her." I could have done a better job. I could have worked on responses to some of the questions I was sure they would ask. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I probably shouldn't beat myself up over it. Who knows if I could have prepared more. I prepared more than I did the year before. And now - this really puts into question what happened the year before. Was I maybe good enough - but they felt last year the other guy was close enough to me that they should choose him for balance? I'll never know. I should stop all this - but it's hard to let go of a dream.
One of the women in the next class is really pissed off about them picking another guy. She raised some good points about the process - one being that laying it all on one interview is a pretty narrow process. She's right. What's really wrong about that is that your body of work while on the Executive Board means very little - so what's the point? I wouldn't have been able to not work hard, because that's not my nature, but it hits home when the guy who got it last year got it because he had a good interview. He had been pretty much a non-entity in his 3 years on the board, but one interview and he's going to be president. It sucks - just sucks.
I need to let it go and move on.

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