Patrick Walsh: April 2004

Mere days after I told my boss at Kaplan that I would be working there "for the long haul" and accepted a promotion, I was called in for a second interview at NBC. 

The second interview, or panel interview, for the NBC Page Program is designed to make candidates as nervous and frightened as possible. Roughly seven candidates are seated on one side of a large table. Three or four managers/judges sit on the other side - Apprentice style. Questions are put to the group, and everyone has to answer every question. Sometimes you're the first to answer and you have no time to think about your response. Sometimes you're the seventh, and by the time it gets to you all the good answers have been taken. It is rough. The whole process culminates with each candidate giving a two minute presentation to the group. The judges can let all seven candidates in, a few of them, or none of them. 

The night before my panel interview, I wrote up a carefully worded monologue detailing the adventures I went through to get to my first interview. I memorized it, then read it into the mirror about a thousand times. I timed myself again and again until I had it exactly at two minutes. I rehearsed each inflection, each facial expression. 

At the panel interview, I was sweating like a son of a bitch. I generally don't get nervous about public speaking, but this interview was to decide my future. Would I be kicking off a career in television or spending the rest of my days at an office with strict censorship codes for holiday billboards? I walked in and looked around the room at my enemies. 

There was a lot of tension in the room. I had heard stories of people breaking down and sobbing in these panel interviews, and I could certainly see why. For the first round, the question was "Give an example of a time you exhibited good leadership." I told a cute story about when I was a substitute teacher for a kindergarten class. Some girl talked about how "As the president of her sorority blah blah blahdee blah I'm so hot and professional blah de bloo." All candidates gave very standard answers, and everyone did pretty well. 

The second question was "Describe a time you had difficulty communicating with someone and how you handled it." The judges announced that the first to respond would be the gentleman at the end of the table. He clearly wasn't prepared to give his answer, but he had to start talking immediately. He looked panicked. The interview was about to get a lot more interesting.

The gentleman started his response like so: "My roommate in college was a real asshole." 

Now keep in mind, this was an environment where everyone was very carefully choosing each and every one of his or her words. Everyone was on edge. And this guy busts out the profanity.

There was an audible gasp here, a nervous chuckle there, but mostly just stunned silence. The gentleman's face fell. He cleared his throat. One slip of the tongue, and he knew he had just blown it. To make matters worse, he had just started a wildly inappropriate story, as you'll soon find out. Valiantly, he pressed on. What happened next has been discussed for years, no one sure if what he did was self-sabotage, the actions of a broken man, or just an innocent mistake. But...hoo boy. Here is what he said next:

"So he was a real jerk and like, he used to bring girls back to our room and be loud at like four in the morning when I was trying to sleep. So one night, he was being really loud and I asked him to please shut up. And he threw a used condom at me!"

Every jaw in the room hit the table. There were silent screams to my left and right. No one could believe what had been said. This was a dead man walking. One of the judges leaned forward in her chair.

"Excuse me," she said.

"Yes?"

"Excuse me."

"Would you like me to come up with another answer?"

"You need to either come up with another answer right now or excuse yourself and leave."

The gentleman apologized and came up with another answer, but his words were shaky and didn't make much sense. The damage had been done. Somehow, he stayed and finished the entire interview. I'm thankful to this day he was there, because after a mishap so great, I became much more secure in my own abilities! I knew there was no conceivable way I could fuck up as badly as this kid had, and so I became much smoother and more confident in my responses. 

It finally came down to the two minute closers. One of the judges busted out a stop watch and announced that each candidate would be cut off at exactly two minutes, whether he or she was done speaking or not. The sorority girl stood first and gave a very long, very professional speech. She had gone to an Ivy League school, she was hot, etc. Very prim and proper. She talked and talked and then, when she was in mid-sentence, the judge clicked his stop watch and cut her off.

"Thank you, that's two minutes."

You could tell this girl had never been cut off before. 

"But...I'm not finished."

"That's two minutes. Thank you."

"But...I only had a few more sentences left! Could you please just let me finish what I was --"

"Next!"

The girl collapsed into her chair. The tension in the room went up another notch. These guys weren't playing around.

One of the candidates played The Beatles' "Nowhere Man" on guitar, changing the words so it was about NBC. It was about as insane as it sounds. Since I was sitting next to her, she asked me to hold her sheet music. I was sweating on the paper, and my hand was trembling so bad, I thought she was going to scream at me, but I held it as well as I could. 

Another girl had designed Broadway Playbills for a fake show about her life. They were extremely professional, expensive-looking, and well done. The judges were looking at them as though they were looking into the face of God. I started to get freaked out. Everyone had put so much work into their presentations and all I had was a speech. After several displays of audiovisual delights, it was my turn. I stood up and launched into the story of how I had run to catch the bus for my first interview and landed on the sawed-off stop sign post. I told about how I had clutched my sport coat tight to avoid revealing the massive wound in my side. The manager who had interviewed me while I nearly bled on his office floor was there, and I joked around with him about it. I told the tale with charm and grace, and everyone laughed when they were supposed to laugh.

I closed with a joke about tetanus that cracked up the room. And as I finished my very last word, Stop Watch Guy clicked the stop watch, looked me in the eye and said:

"Two minutes. Exactly. Nice."

"We Are The Champions" was blasting in my ears as I sat down. I felt like an American hero. When the interview ended, they told us we should hear about the job soon. All the candidates rode down in the elevator together, an extremely awkward ride. The guy that told the condom story asked me to get a drink with him and I turned him down. This was clearly a man that had a lot of drinking to do that night and I wasn't in the mood. I was too wound up to go and sit in a bar. I never went back to Kaplan that day. I just popped into St. Patrick's cathedral for a quick shout-out to JC, walked the city until I was exhausted, and took the bus back to Jersey City. I didn't sleep at all that night.

The next morning I went back to Kaplan and filled out paperwork stating that I was accepting a full-time position in "Student Services" with a raise and benefits. At least I'd be covered if I didn't get the NBC gig. But I wanted it. I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything before. Each second I didn't know was agony. And the bastards would keep me on hold for a month. 

tags: story of my life  new  york  nbc  work  temp  

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