unrequited career-love: the saga continues

So today I actually turned down a job offer. This latest red herring began about 3 weeks ago, when I went to a career fair and was asked by representatives of a well-known insurance company, who shall not be named, whether I wanted to come for an informational interview about a job position called "financial adviser". Having not had an interview in 5 years, I said yes ma'am, because things are more exciting when they occur once every half-decade.

After doing some research, I found out that 'financial adviser' amounted to selling insurance of different types. Nothing wrong with that, except for the part where it had nothing to do with anything I was remotely interested in or good at. Still, I would be based in R-town, and also I was lured by the prospect of making a 6 figure income (5 figure as an economist, ain't nothing wrong with that either!). Surely I would be able to afford an SLR digital camera and maybe even a legitimate monthly bus pass, and that would keep me complacent and mobile for awhile. So I went into the interview with an open mind that harboured but two deal-breaker conditions: 1. that I not have to go to people's houses to make sales; 2. that it not be based entirely on commission (economists are naturally very risk averse; hence 1 and 2).

After a very long, informative chat and completing a very long personality assessment exam, it was pretty clear that this wasn't my sort of thing, although the lady who interviewed me was super nice. It was entirely based on commission and I would most definitely have to make deals at private residences, which is pretty creepy and would entail me buying a car before I can afford to get a hybrid (when are they going to start making Jeep Liberty hybrids anyway?). But somehow, the results on my personality assessment exam came back positive anyway (I have financial-adviser personality disorder - what can I say, I'm good at multiple choice questions), and the lady phoned me back to congratulate me and to set a second interview. I had to tell her that I was interested in pursuing other career goals, although it sounded rather foolish to my ears, since those other career goals didn't seem to be pursuing me as lustily, or at all, for that matter. Such is the nature of unrequited career-love: blinding and hopelessly optimistic. How long can this beggar realistically hope to be a chooser?

All is not lost, however. I did score a Starbucks card of an indeterminate amount of >= $5 for taking the personality assessment quiz, so all is actually well, maybe only because of all those awesome little text messages I've been getting from someone today. They make me feel as though my presently unfruitful life may serve some purpose, if only as a vessel through which random thoughtful gestures are registered and cherished. All is well indeed.


Those headlights are the cutest things.