Today is the first time in my life that I am looking through CVs with a view to recruiting someone.
It’s slightly uncanny. I actually logged in to write about something else (and hopefully I will after this) and a song came on from my songlist. It was Beth/Rest by Bon Iver. It took me back to – Oh God, when? – 2012 or so when I had a long spell of rejections from interviews. I had felt that my self worth had taken a hit and my status was dropped by a few rungs. I had no luck. I remember listening to this song whilst up a ladder painting some window frames with white gloss paint, wearing old jeans with holes by the knees and loose round the waist and an old fleece. I remember feeling unbelievably lost with the cool breeze blowing against me and through the holes in my trousers. The melanchonic song, with its tinny piano and staccato off-beat, made me pause and look to the horizon and hold the stare, sigh, as the my eyes watered from the wind and the paint dripped from my brush.
Those same eyes looked through some of the CVs today. I had a modest pile on my desk which is surrounded with pictures of family, team photos and holiday destinations – positive memories. I allowed myself to briefly think about the way I was treated in those unlucky interviews. Was it unfair I thought. Would I behave the same way – high on cortisol and drunk with power to choose someone’s fate, to treat people however I wanted? No of course not. I wanted to treat these people with respect and gratitude. I looked through their CVs with an element of empathy and forgiveness. Empathy, knowing that not everyone has had the fortune to achieve unrelentless and unfettered success, and forgiveness knowing that, yes, I could easily tell when there were a gap or a cover up or a bit of bluffing, and also knowing that the when we’re sat in that small interview room, there’s an element of fate.
I’m reminded of the tarot card with the symbolic ‘wheel of fortune’. Someone will be wrapped in purple velvet cloths, drinking from a golden goblet and will be elevated atop a gigantic wooden wheel, which is slowly rotating in front of a pink sky and someone else will suddenly slip off that wheel and whether or not I like it, my hand turned that wheel.