phone interviews

I just finished my TFA phone interview, and it put me in mind of my first attempt at presenting myself as a candidate for a job from a distance... Last year, when I was in Italy, I had to interview over the phone for an internship at MASS MoCA. The day of the interview, I went up to Fiesole with my mother, a really fun trip that I will probably write about later, maybe tomorrow. Anyway, I got back to my apartment in Florence less than 20 minutes before I was expecting a phone call, and ran around the building until I found a courtyard where my Italian phone seemed able to keep a few bars. I waited, sitting on the curb, hugging my knees, staring at the blank grey face of my cellphone, waiting for it to light up.

The call came in, and I fumbled with the buttons, tried to answer as professionally as possible. I managed a 'Hello?' and the voice on the other end, a girl's voice responded, 'Hello?' She sounded as far away as I felt, muffled and inquiring. We both started talking.
'Is this...'
'Hi, this is...'
'My name is...'
'oh, hi!'
'I'm calling from...'
'whoops'
'can you hear me?'
and then, of course, the phone went dead. I panicked, horrified at the still, dark face of my ridiculously chunky cell phone, the ineptitude of the arcane black characters that populated the useless screen. Another call came in, MASS MoCA trying again. I appreciated the persistance. Again, we could hardly strike a rhythm for the conversation. Our voices, both feminine, both young, seemed mirrors of each other, turning in the same direction, futilely colliding whenever we tried to come too close.

Finally we kind of got it, though the whole conversation was punctuated by 'I'm so sorry, could you repeat the question?' and 'what was that?' at the end of the call, she asked me, ' so how long is your brother visiting?' I was so confused. I don't have a brother. He certainly wasn't visiting me. After a pause, I asked, '... my brother?'
'yeah, your brother. Didn't you guys just get back from Fiesole?'
'Oh! no, that was my mother. my mom. my mom's visiting. I only have two sisters.'
'ooohhhh, I'm so sorry, I must have misheard...'
'no, I'm sorry, I...'
'this phone, it's just...'
'can barely hear...'
'...international calls, you know.'
we laughed, commiserating, and said goodbye. For a while afterwards, I sat in the courtyard, one arm around my tucked-up shins, tapping my chin with the cell phone. I realized: I had absolutely no idea how that interview went.

Don't forget: international calls are hard to make and phone interviews are awkward.
Also don't forget: smile while you're talking and hope for the best.