Laughter

It doesn't look like I will get this job. After our initial conversation with the man that I would be working for a couple of weeks ago, I was led to believe that I had "good chances." I had no idea what that meant, of course, but now it transpired that there are "many strong candidates" and he said that I "shouldn't get my hopes up too much." He said some good things as well, but I couldn't hear those. Naturally, this upsets me. I would - will - feel humiliated and incompetent, even if it is likely that, at least on paper, there could be many candidates who are, indeed, more suited to the position simply because they have spent years working in this area, whereas I have only been here for a couple of months. (I actually, completely inappropriately, looked at all my competitors' CVs, but there has to be some benefit to having your foot in the door. There are a couple that are better than mine but for the most part I wasn't impressed. Sadly, I don't get to decide...) This won't make my feelings of inadequacy go away, and the worst part is that although I need this job, I don't even really want to work for this man. I still think that it is a good organization with many smart, competent, and impressive people, but he does not happen to be one of them and that is a huge problem. I want my bosses to impress me, I want to think that they are what I aspire to be. Many of the partners at the law firm were frighteningly sharp and competent, but I never, not for a second, had the desire to emulate them. So I can't even remember what it was like to work or study for someone that I respected and admired.

All day yesterday I was anxious and sad; Romy kept trying to cheer me up saying things like "where there's a will, there's a way" and going on about how I really shouldn't want to be there. (She is leaving in a week's time, her consultancy contract is up, and she will return to her life of "debauchery", i.e. sleeping til noon, getting stoned, playing poker all night with the occasional cat-sitting stints in between.)

In the end, culture saved my day. As a good, self-proclaimed intellectual I bought tickets to various readings and events at the New Yorker Festival. Last night, my brother and I went to a reading by Ian McEwan and Nicole Krauss at the beautiful Angel Orensanz Foundation, which is converted 19th centurty, neo-gothic synagogue that looks more like a church, on the lower East Side. Readings can be disappointing, but this one was exceptionally enjoyeable. The New Yorker is such a professional organization, everything, from the lighting and sound to the number of words uttered by the host, was spot on. And, if not the professionalism, but accidentally sitting next to Ananda, an American woman who spent some time interning at the Hungarian Helsinki Committe a couple of years ago, and whom I know vaguely through Marta and various other friends from Budapest made me feel at home.

McEwan was insightful, witty and entertaining speaker, to boot; and Krauss, who is a successful young writer and married to Jonathan Safran Foer, the young American writer of the day, was funny and sweet. I also got to ask the last question of the night (on behalf of, and encouraged by, my brother, really) about his opinion of the movie adaptation of Enduring Love, one of my favourite book of his. He gave a long answer, agreeing with me that it is very difficult to turn his books, which are mostly centered around internal monologues on various moral dilemmas, into movies. As I asked the question, I said that I didn't like the movie at all and the audienced laughed. I didn't mean to be funny and I wasn't, it was merely a straightforward statement of opinion.

Then I remembered that a couple of years ago at one of our U.S. Law Group retreats at the law firm, I was asked to be on a panel to discuss the "integration of the U.S. Law Group into the larger British firm" or some such irritating topic. This request took me aback, I had not slept in days due to overworking and was not looking forward to spending some of what little time we had in Rome thinking about what I could possibly say. So I didn't. I just went up and said it as I felt it and the audience, which included every American partner and associate at the firm, was roaring with laughter the whole time. Some partners even came up to me to congratulate me despite the fact that what I actually had said was mostly critical of them. Then, as now, I wasn't trying to be particularly funny; and I think that then, as now, the audience masked its discomfort and surprise at this unusual candidness with inadequate laughter. This is a particularly American phenomenon. For them it is important to paticipate and ask questions, to have a discourse, but it is not necessarily ok to pass judgement on the aesthetic merits of a work of art, or intangible integration policies for that matter.