I'll tell you about this time I applied for a promotion. AKA the most frustrating experience my whole career. This is really long, I'm sorry.
I was working part time, in a position that should have made me a shoo-in for the next full time position that opened up. One did, and I applied.
So, I interviewed with my supervisor, and I was super confident because I figured, they know me. They know my work. If I don't get the position, it will NOT be because of the interview... but I knew that there was someone else applying that they really liked.
So, he pretty much only asked me a few questions, and I'm really inexperienced with interviews and I thought it kind of sucked. Oh well.
The next thing that happened was that the OTHER supervisor, the one I'd have been replacing, came up to me on a Friday evening and said, "Heidi, I'd like to meet with you. Are you available next Tuesday?"
"Uh, yeah! What's this about?"
"It's about the position. ☺ "
"Oh really! Well, cool! I guess we'll talk Tuesday then."
Pause. I think about it.
Me: "Hey, wait ... uh ... is it good news?"
"Oh I can't tell you that! That's what the meeting is for. ☺ "
So I let it go, but I spent the entire weekend biting my goddamn nails, because I had no idea what to make of this. I was a complete wreck. It couldn't be bad news, right, because how f*ed up would that be, right, to time it like that? But on the other hand, if it were good news, why wouldn't they just tell me? WTF?
So Monday comes around, and I asked the supervisor lady if she wouldn't mind meeting today because I'm going crazy. She says sure.
So we sit down, and she says "So basically this is a second interview."
Whut?
That had literally never occurred to me. She could have f*ing told me that she intended to interview me. That's really really really annoying.
So I'm a complete WRECK from driving myself crazy all weekend long. And her questions were super weird. One of her questions was "Once back in February, you had to ask me for help on xyz. What are you going to do now that I'll be gone?"
Me: "I don't remember the incident you're talking about, at all."
Her: "I don't really remember the details either. But the point is, what would you do?"
Basically it felt like a whole bunch of questions about why it is that I suck.