I wasn’t so sure. If I can be honest for a minute, I really can’t stand standardized tests like the one they made me take. None of them are worth the paper they’re printed on. To this day, I have never heard nor seen what my results from that day were, but I’m sure they paint a picture that looks nothing like me. They never do. They can’t. There are too many layers to the whole thing.
What do I mean? Well, let’s take that one statement I remember. I suppose some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual. Now, how was I supposed to answer that? Do I agree or disagree with that statement? Well, given all the nested layers in that statement it’s hard for me to know if I agree or disagree with it because it’s not clear to me what I’m agreeing or disagreeing with -- or more precisely what the damn test is going to assume I’m agreeing or disagreeing with.
Let’s just pretend I agree with that statement. Now, what does the test think I just agreed with? Does it think that I agree that I am an intellectual? Or that I am a bit of an intellectual? Or that some people consider me a bit of an intellectual? Or that some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual? Or that I suppose that some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual? Because those are five different things that I may agree or disagree with. Maybe I agree that I am an intellectual, but I disagree that some people consider me one. Maybe I keep my intellectualism private and don’t talk about it in front of people, least of all a bunch of losers at work who aren’t going to trust me if they think I think I’m better than them.
So how am I supposed to respond to this statement? Do I read it at its absolute face value? Do I agree or disagree with this statement: I suppose … some people … may consider me … to be a bit … of an intellectual. Well, guess what? I disagree with that statement. I don’t suppose that some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual. But had you asked, and I suspect what you are really asking, if I thought of myself as a bit of an intellectual, then I would have agreed with that statement. I do. I do think of myself as a bit of an intellectual. But I don’t suppose that most people think of me that way.
But wait, I’m not done. Because then there’s the whole nonsense of just agreeing with something or strongly agreeing with something. Don’t forget about that. What is that supposed to mean and what am I supposed to read into that? Truth be told, there isn’t much that I strongly agree or disagree with, least of all the kinds of things that show up on these idiotic personality assessments. Like maybe if they said I like torturing helpless animals I could safely say that I strongly disagree with that statement. But the kind of equivocating crap that they load these assessments up with, I personally don’t see how anyone can have strong feelings about any of it, one way or the other.
But they clearly want you to have strong feelings about these things -- at least about some of them. If not, the choices wouldn’t even be there. They clearly think it’s important to know what you strongly agree with compared to what you just agree with, for what reason it’s not clear to me. What difference does it make if I agree or strongly agree that people think I’m an intellectual? Does strongly agreeing with that statement mean it is more likely to be true, or just that I think it is more likely to be true, or that I think being thought of as an intellectual is a very important thing?
And what about the number of strongly agrees or disagrees that show up on my scorecard? How is the test going to interpret that? Is it good or bad to have strong feelings about a lot of things? In my book, that’s not necessarily a good thing, as people who feel too strongly about too many things often swing too far and too quickly in whatever direction those strong feelings take them. Is that how I’m supposed to calibrate my responses? Pick some things to feel strongly about, but not too many?
Hey, I just realized. Maybe you can help answer these questions for me. You must use these stupid assessments in your line of work. Do you know how they work?
What? Oh, I see. State secrets, huh? Don’t let the test subject know how the grading system works. It stops being a valid test then. I get it.
What? Oh, you’re curious, aren’t you. Well, I did what I always do when someone puts me in their Skinner Box. I assume, probably without justification, that the scientist knows exactly what they are doing and that every word has been carefully chosen and calibrated to elicit exactly the response they’re looking for, so I play along. I stick rigidly to the absolute meaning of the words on the page in front of me, and I determine my level of agreement or disagreement as honestly as I can.
I suppose some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual. You know what? I agree. I suppose some people may consider me to be a bit of an intellectual. But I don’t feel strongly about it.
So that’s what took me forty-eight respectable minutes to do. Pamela then shook my hand, told me they would reach out again once my results were scrutinized, and sent me on my way. There was still several hours before my flight. I went back to the hotel where I had stored my bag, and had lunch in their lobby restaurant before picking it up.
“What can I get you?” the waitress asked me. She was an elderly woman, at least as old as my grandmother with her silver hair tightly permed and her eyebrows shaved off and inked in with grease pencil.
I didn’t even look at the menu. I told her to bring me the BLT, with a slice of avocado, if they had it, and a cup of the French onion soup. To drink? Unsweetened iced tea, with a slide of lemon.
I remember sitting there in a kind of blissful silence, willfully instructing my brain to quiet itself, to quit reading so much into everything I saw, and when the food came I ate it mechanically, slurping the soup and letting its warmth coat the back of my throat, and then chewing the sandwich, carefully isolating the taste of each ingredient on my tongue before swallowing and taking another bite.
When I was finished I picked up my bag from the bell desk and then caught a cab to the airport. In the cab I tried to call home, ready now, I felt, to have a conversation with Jenny and to tell her everything that had happened, but the phone just rang and rang, no one, not even the answering machine, bothering to pick it up.
At the airport I stood in the requisite lines and did the requisite things, picking up a bottle of water and a candy bar after clearing security and before settling down on one of the uncomfortable chairs in my designated gate area. There was still a good two hours before departure.
When my phone buzzed in my pocket I thought for sure it was Jenny calling back, but the number on the screen was unfamiliar to me.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Alan?”
“Yes?”
“Alan, this is Steve Anderson calling. How are you?”
Steve Anderson. It actually took me a few seconds to place the name. He was the chairman of the organization I had just interviewed with.
“I’m fine. How are you, Steve?”
Why the fuck was he calling me? Did I leave something behind? Did I accidentally set the building on fire as I left?
“Great. Say, are you in Logan airport right now?”
I stood up, suddenly intensely paranoid that I was being watched, that this was some kind of elaborate trick. “Yes. Yes, I sure am, Steve. Just waiting for my flight home.”
“Great. Say, Frank Zeidler is here with me, and we’re both in the Emerald Club. We were wondering if you would have time to come talk with us.”
“The Emerald Club?” I was still wildly scanning the area around me, desperately looking for the uniforms or the men in black who had come to detain me. “Sure. I mean, I guess so.”
“What time is your flight?”
I told him and Steve reassured me that they would have me back at my gate in plenty of time, and then he told me where I could find the Emerald Club and that they had left my name with the attendant at the front desk, and then he said he would see me in a few minutes, and then he said goodbye, and then he hung up.
I didn’t move for at least three minutes. Both my heart and my mind were racing, each trying to stay ahead of the other one and win a race that would end in either a stroke or a heart attack. Eventually realizing there was nothing else for me to do, and that I had already kept them waiting minutes longer than I should have, I began moving in the direction Steve had indicated. After six steps I had to go back for my carry-on and briefcase, and then I started moving again.
When I arrived at the Emerald Club it was just as Steve had promised. I had never been in one of the executive lounges at an airport -- such things were unavailable to anyone but Mary or Don in the company -- and I had no real idea what to expect when the frosted glass doors whooshed apart for me. Inside it was something like a hotel lobby, with a central teak wood table supporting an enormous floral arrangement dominated in whites and purples. Behind it stood a lattice like screen, apparently of the same teak, separating the lobby from the inner sanctum of the lounge itself. To the left and right were polished wooden counters in the same general stain, and behind each stood an airline employee, one man and one woman, each smiling happily and uniformed in something between crew and flight attendant.
“May I help you, sir?” the woman asked me, and I approached and gave her my name.
“Oh, yes,” she said, moving out from behind the counter. “Let me store those bags for you and I’ll show you to your meeting room.”
I stood like a coat rack as she took my carry-on from my hand and my briefcase from my shoulder, attaching a tag to each and then pressing the stub into my hand, giving me a look like it was her hotel room key.
“Won’t you please follow me?”
I did as instructed, catching a mischievous smile from her male colleague as we passed and entered the lounge itself. A broad set of windows looked out on the tarmac, a few planes moving slowly between gates under a cloudy sky, and inside a scattered collection of desks, chairs, and sofas, many of them occupied by men and women in business suits and with phones pressed against their ears. We seemed to skirt the edge of this common area and soon came to a row of private offices and conference rooms. One had its door standing ajar, and my guide instructed me to enter it with a graceful wave of her arm.
Inside I caught Steve Anderson and Frank Zeidler talking to each other. They were each seated in a pair of comfortable chairs -- the pair, a sofa, and a coffee table seemingly the only furnishings in the small room -- but upon seeing me, their conversation abruptly ended and Steve leapt to his feet.
“Alan!” he said. “Welcome! We’re so glad you could join us on such short notice. Can I get you something to drink?”
I looked and saw a clear-glass refrigerator under a built-in counter with a collection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks inside. “Sure,” I said, forcing myself to adopt a jovial tone. “What are you guys having?”
“We’re drinking Amstel Lights,” Frank said. As before, his voice was like a tire deflating. “It’s about the best thing they have.”
But not too jovial. “That would be delightful,” I said.
Steve retrieved a third Amstel Light from the fridge, opened it with a bottle opener conveniently placed on a small banquet tray also holding a small ice bucket and a few glasses. Handing me the bottle, he motioned for me to take a seat and I did on the edge of the small sofa closest to them.
“Cheers,” he said, “holding up his own bottle and tipping it slightly in my direction.
Frank joined in on the toast and the three of us took a sip of beer out of each of our bottles. Despite having been in the fridge, mine was on the warm side and tickled my nose as the bubbles went down my throat.
“So, Alan,” Steve began. “You’re probably wondering what the kabuki show back in the office was all about.”
He paused, probably waiting for me to take the bait, but I didn’t. Something told me to just keep my mouth shut. I put my beer down on the coffee table. I smiled. I nodded.
“It’s Thompson,” Frank cut in sharply. “Much of what happened today was for his benefit. He’s been with the organization a long time and it’s important that he feels he has an active hand in the transition.”
Now that was something I should bite at. “Feels?”
“Touche,” Steve said, acknowledging their subterfuge. “We won’t hire anyone he hasn’t blessed, but the hiring decision is ours, not his. We respect his service, but Thompson long stopped looking forward and now only seems capable of looking backwards. We need something very different for the future.”
And with that, with the ice thus broken, Steve and Frank talked for the next ten minutes, each in turn almost as if reading from a prepared script, talking to me about their vision for the organization, how it needed to change, and the kind of person they were looking for to help make that change happen. My mind was strangely quiet, locked firmly in absorption mode, trying to soak up every word they were saying and keeping its wheels from spinning too quickly. Listen, some small inner voice was telling me. Listen carefully, but just listen. Don’t speak until they ask you to.
That time came quickly enough.
“Look, Alan, I’ll be honest with you,” Steve said, the tone of his voice enough to let me know he was summing up. “We’ve talked with several candidates, and we like the potential we see in you. It has been extremely helpful meeting you in person, but we’re not ready to move forward just yet. We’d like you to spend some time thinking about the things we’ve said today, and then we’d like to schedule a call with you. We want to hear your ideas. What you can bring to the table. What you can do to help us get to the place we want to be.”
“Do you think you can do that?” Frank said.
“Absolutely,” I said, easily, more easily, I hoped, than I felt inside. “I would welcome the opportunity.”
“Grand,” Steve said, as he and Frank stood in unison, forcing me to join them. He shook my hand. “We’ll be in touch. Sometime next week, my assistant Julie will reach out and get something on our calendars. From here on out, you’ll be working directly with just Frank and me.”
“Great,” I said, not knowing whether that was great or not.
+ + +
“Dragons” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. For more information, go here.
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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