Jack of All Trades, Master of Most

Last month, I went for a slew of increasingly exhausting and depressing job interviews. My experiences can be summed up as a combination of "don't want to pay you" and "you're a fresher, you don't have experience in this field." It was irritating to say the least.

One encounter that stood out to me was with an HR person at a small financial firm ensconced in a claustrophobic office. I never even spoke with an actual person in the field I'd be working. Just her. She told me flat out that she (they) wouldn't pay more than 16,000/- a month. 🙄 She also questioned me, with great superciliousness, on how "diverse" my CV seemed to be.

"I get that you're confused," she told me. "I've been there myself."

I looked at the woman in her prim navy blue formals, complete with neatly done hair and polished shoes. (So unlike the chappals I defiantly prefer. And so unlike the faded salwars or tired white shirts the other people in that office wore.) 😝 She was easily the best dressed in the entire place.

And, yes, I could see it. I could see her being the one who was "confused" or "lost." Flitting from job to job because she was obviously too overqualified (read: smart) for all of them. Trying out different things in the hope that something would click. (Also because bills need paying.) Eventually finding herself a comfortable niche where they didn't care enough that she was overqualified, and sticking to it.

The salary she quoted to me was obviously not going to happen, so I left after telling her I'd get in touch if I changed my mind. The gall of a company to so confidently underpay people who are doing work worth way more than that was not lost on me.

I didn't think much of it at the time, other than to grouse at companies for whom "cost effectiveness" somehow equals "underpaid employees." But soon, I start work in yet another field where I am a fresher, and that really bothered me at first. It's the looks I get from HR and other interviewing personnel at interviews that do it for me.

"You do this and also that, and the other thing too?"

They assume that I won't be focused enough on my work, or that I won't stay long, or some other nonsense. They also worry that I'm too overqualified to want to stay with their company (which is usually true, but only because pay is pittance.)

And as I thought about it today, I realized that I do so many different things because I fucking want to. I love learning new things. A gap in my knowledge bugs me to no end. And that doesn't make me "lost" or "confused." Polished HR lady (who can't possibly be more than a couple of years older than I am) may have had a similar experience, but she's interpreted it wrong. She's understood that there was something wrong, or broken in her, which needed to be fixed through conformity. So that interviewers would stop giving her those looks. 

Except that's not true. The better rounded you are, the more your capability increases. Sounds logical, doesn't it? Sadly, it's counter intuitive to our employment sphere. That said, I'm not going to let it stop me. I'm going to study as many random things that have no connection to each other as I can. Life, work and study are all hard enough without bringing somebody else's opinions or experiences into it.