250
I got a call for an interview the other day. To a company I’d applied to back in November when I was originally put out on the street.
Although I am gratefully rehired, I took the call out of curiosity. Loved the interviewer. Loved the company. Love the location, the product, you name it.
Too bad I came off as a total idiot.
Accepting the call while at work was my first mistake. Hard to be in your mental happy place when it’s not necessarily your physical happy place. But I tried.
Then, she said look. You’re a director. This is mid-level. It “only” pays (she named a figure just below my current range).
“As a director,” she said, “you are probably making, like, what? About $250,000?”
When I hung up, I burst straight into tears. Their mid-level is what I’ve aspired my whole life to achieve. The director level should really be 250? Sweet Baby Jesus. Fuck you, LVP, for saying I was “expensive.” When YOU were making exactly that.
The job was a good fit but not a great one. I have all the editorial experience and then some that they could ever dream of. The marketing, I’m rusty at. Rusty, not brain-dead.
Although it probably didn’t help that, post-250, I might have let a lot of things come tumbling out of my mouth that I shouldn’t have.
Yeah. Totes awks.
In any event, I haven’t sent a thank-you. I have the letter written in my mind. She already said she loved my cover letter. I know exactly how to follow up.
But I’m not ready to let go of that spark of hope that I had for one brief, shining moment that maybe just maybe there’s a fun change just ahead of me. Especially if my sneaking suspicions are true that LVP might come back. Forget fun — I’ll just be wishing for bearable, if that prediction comes true.
Two-fifty. Damn. I will never get over that.