Turn off the voices

I had my first job interview yesterday. I felt confident about the job. I know I’m qualified and I figured I would do okay with the question and answer part of the interview.

The owner of the company told me I seemed too quiet and shy to do the job properly. “I need to you to go out and speak to the press and make phone calls and I just don’t see you doing that very well.”

I almost laughed when he said that. “I don’t know why you feel that way. I do those things all the time and I do them very well.”

It made me think about how people perceive me. I guess I do come across to strangers as a quiet, insecure person who doesn’t like to make a fuss about stuff. But those who know me realize that I don’t mind making a fuss if I need to.

I asked Robby, “Is that what people think about me?”

He laughed and said, “I definitely don’t think that. I’ve been looking for your off switch since you first opened your mouth.”

We laughed about it and he told me that the right job would come along and that I didn’t need to change to get a job.

I don’t know if my quiet nature is a sign of weakness or not. But I’m just not that in-your-face kind of person. I guess I could have walked into that job interview and pretended to be this loud, pushy force to be reckoned with, but I would have felt silly acting like that. It’s just not who I am.

I probably won’t get that job. But I’m not sure that I really want it. I can’t spend the next few years trying to convince people I am someone I am not.

It has taken me many years to figure out who I really am. I am secure in the fact that I can be forceful and aggressive when I need to be. After all, I’m that lady who cut down trees in the middle of the night to protect my children on the street. That example probably wouldn’t have gotten me the job though.

I don’t know what example I could have given at the interview to prove to him that I am not some shy mousy wall flower. I guess I didn’t feel the need to go out of my way to prove him wrong, because I’m tired of trying to explain myself to people these days.

I know I do the best I can and that I always try to do the right thing. I also know that some people will never see myself the way I see myself. They just see what they want to see or what they expect to see.

I try to be okay with that, but there will always be that part of me that wants to show people they are wrong about me.  There will always be that part of me that kind of believes what people say about me. There will always be that voice in my head that says, “you suck” and “you’re stupid.”

Hopefully I can continue to move forward and not dwell too much on the negative words that continue to come my way from job interviews and people in my personal life. Hopefully some of the those voices will just go away and give me some peace and quiet for once.