I know how you feel JB!

A few months ago, I applied for a job. There is always something you feel when applying for a job. You may feel confident, but not too confident. You may feel overconfident, perhaps when you should not. You may feel nothing. You may feel scared and tail in between the legs, thinking you will not be successful. Whichever you feel, you have feelings. You still go to interviews and answer questions to the best of your ability. And like is the case in some interviews, the chairperson asks: Do you have anything to say or ask? I have heard this, may be 50 times: When are the results expected out?

Now, let me go back to my issue. In the days preceding interviews, I reviewed my work since I started work in 1998. What lessons have I learned from that time? What times would I classify as bad, which have helped me learn something? What times have been glorious moments to share my ‘success’ stories? Who have been leaders I could emulate? What things are anti-progress? So I prepared the best of my ability and presented myself for the interviews.

The interviewing panel was extremely generous. They gave us food. Now you are asking what I mean by ‘us’. Well, I mean my colleague who was also coming to the same interview for the same job. We met in the waiting room and chatted our way through. He ate. I ate. We drank bottled water and he went in first to be grilled. He came back confident and wished me good luck. Of course this was confusing. I also returned the favour. I did not know what that meant in real terms.

I was interviewed and waited for weeks to hear the results. The results came. It was just the way my colleague had prayed about the interviews. Before going to the interviews, one of my friends came by and said (which I appreciated), “Could we have a moment of prayer together?” How could I say no. He prayed and I am eternally grateful for people like these. His prayer finished like: “My Lord, this must be according to your will and not our will.” And that is where the problem lied. A prayer I had wanted was: “Let this young man succeed.”

I was not successful in the interviews. It is extremely humbling when this happens. I had moment afterwards where I thought the interview team had made the gravest mistake in their lives. How could they score my answers poorly when I answered the questions the way I did? All these questions are unhelpful and are similar to what President Banda is going through. When we fail, please let us not blame the selectors. It is the candidate who fails. JB, just like me, failed to deliver. Let the best person rule.