the adult prodigy project

entry

I didn’t get the job.

Every sign on the month-long, four-interview road to that Copy Editor position said that the job was in the bag. It was mine. I’d never walked away from an interview feeling more confident than I had after that last one. By then, the process had gone from the initial feeling like an interview to being a seamless conversation. That Managing Editor and I were bonding. Straight up. 

And then I didn’t get the job.

I walked away from the rejection letter — to be fair, the kindest one I’ve ever read — thinking I was at peace with the thought that there had been a better candidate for the position. In a previous life, as an actor going on myriad auditions, I’d learned the art of doing my best and then fully disengaging from any outcome. ‘What is for you cannot miss you’ has been a mantra of mine for a long time.

But a few days later, something started nagging me. Like “Nah, Sis, something’s up. That was not your imagination.” And the reasons for the feeling started crystalizing and scrolling through my mind. I remembered the subtleties I’d picked up on as we talked. 

• She DID roll her eyes slightly when she mentioned the “couple more people we still have to talk to,” and yes, that WAS her hand on her heart when she said “But give us about a week, and I really hope to be talking to you again soon.” And that WAS her head nodding at the same time. 

• I was beyond qualified for the position. She told me how well I had done on the assessment test, how difficult they had purposefully made it and how impressed they all were with my performance; how the rest of the team really “dug” me and couldn’t wait for her to meet me.

• We talked about nerd-niches, and she asked me what mine was. When I told her it was language, and how I’d get hung up on details like why ‘scarcity’ is spelled without an ‘e’ between the ‘scar’ and the ‘city’, she HAD laughed and said that I needed to meet Derek*, another member of the team who had the same type of obsession.

• The laughter between us had been deep and genuine. She HAD said “Wow, I really enjoyed talking to you. This was fun. I laughed a lot.” 

I left the Zoom meeting feeling triumphant, with Maya Angelou’s voice in my head repeating her famous quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” On all fronts, that job felt like it belonged to me.

I’m not wired in a way that would have me judge a person’s professional competence based on their age, and it had never happened to me before— not that I knew of anyway. So it didn’t even dawn on me that it could have been ageism, until it was the only thing left standing in the field of possible reasons. That nagging feeling landed me at “What if after all that, it was a simple Google search, and them finding out my age that called the whole thing off?” 

And it makes sense now because I’d been searching for about a year, and scenarios like this one had played out a few times, but never so clearly.

I’m still grappling with these feelings. I mean, I’m not new to discrimination. I am a Black woman living in America. Me and discrimination, we know each other intimately. But the discrimination that I’m used to tends to show up early in the game. Racism and sexism, they don’t need to take their time. And they definitely don’t take you or themselves through four interviews of any kind. Even in micro-aggressive forms, they’re still right there for you to see and recognize almost immediately. But this added layer here?  This ageism is a whole other locale.

It’s like 🗣”Welcome to Ageismville, the inevitable destination. You don’t have to move a muscle to get here, the calendar will bring it to you. You don’t have to see or know the way here; after all, there’s no leaving. Ageismville is now your new, permanent home. So settle in, and again, Welcome.”

And I’m like “What, The, F🤬🤬🤬ck???”

👀 Who else lives here? Feel free to introduce yourselves in the comments, new besties.☺️