In 2009, things were at an all-time low. Then, Aaron got an interview...
Art by Pete Whitehead
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
Transcript
Aaron Calafato: Let me paint a picture for you. So many of you have been here: chasing a job or an opportunity, needing something in your career, working hard for it, and maybe you're in the final interview. It's one person between you and this opportunity. They're standing across from you, sitting across from you, or on a Zoom call, and you just have to nail this interview. If you do, things could change forever for the better. If you don't, they could change forever for the worse. You could have serious regret, a serious blow to everything that you've built and worked towards. We've all been in that moment, and I have a similar story I'm about to share with you.
It happened to me back in 2009. Actually, it's one of the first stories I shared on 7MS. At the time, we only had a core group of listeners. So for many of you now, since it's been several years, there are so many more of you. This might be your first time listening to this, but here's the thing: there's going to be an ending to the story, the original ending. But wait until the very end because I have a bonus ending, some more context, and a reveal of what actually happened. And you'll see what I'm talking about. This all makes sense. So make sure you listen to the first ending, go through the little outro that I do, and wait until the very end for this new updated bonus ending to a story titled "The Interview." Enjoy.
My dream was to be an artist, an actor, a creative living and working out of New York City. I wanted it so bad. I had been living out in New Jersey for a few years, and I had some success, but not enough to sustain a career. And in 2009, things were not looking good. Things were pretty bad. The economy was collapsing. My student debt was piling up. Jobs were vanishing. There literally were no jobs. Banks were collapsing. It was chaos, that whole thing that was happening in our entire country. It was a global economic crisis, and in my personal life, it was a pressure cooker because the bills were adding up, and I knew that if something didn't happen soon, I'm working a dead-end job at a hotel doing room service off the Jersey Parkway. My fiancée is fresh out of grad school. She's working as a social worker. We're barely hanging on. She's the only one really making money. And if something didn't happen soon, I was going to have to pack up my bags, leave, and go back home to Cleveland a failure. And I didn't want to go home a failure because, in my framework, this was the only way to live this dream, and I couldn't give up on it. What would my life be like if I gave up on it? What would I do if it didn't happen? What would that life look like? So something had to happen, and I had a strategy. I decided that I was going to apply to every theater and arts organization in the area for 2 weeks straight. I figured if I got a salaried position at one of those institutions, it could be a pathway, a next step for this dream.
And so I did. I didn't sleep for 2 weeks. I'm just clicking and sending emails, hundreds of emails going out. And as they all go out, I'm getting back hundreds of emails, except when I'm opening them up, and I see them pop up in my inbox, they are all rejection letters. And rejection letters all sound the same. They say something like "To whom it may concern" or "Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for your interest in this position. However..." And when that word, that "however" word comes up, your stomach drops. It's the worst feeling in the world because you start off reading with hope, with belief, and then the "however" thing happens and the stomach thing happens, and it was that over and over again for nearly 2 weeks to the point where I was done. And I said, we're going to pack our bags, I'm done. I'm giving up. I'm tired of this.
And by the end of the 2 weeks, I got one email that I opened and it looked different. And I read it, and it wasn't an offer for an interview. It was an offer for an interview at a prominent theater and arts organization in Manhattan for a salaried position in the marketing department. This was it. Unfortunately, they wanted me to come in in 2 days and unfortunately, I only had $95 in my bank account because we had paid all of our bills. I had nothing left. I only had enough money to purchase a really bad used suit and a one-way ticket to Manhattan. I figured I'd figure out some way to get back home to New Jersey. It didn't matter. I just had to be there. I couldn't miss this interview.
So I get my cheap suit and I buy my one-way ticket. And the night before I don't sleep and the morning of, I eat a dry piece of Wonder Bread toast and some really bad coffee that I made because I was in a rush, and I didn't want to be late. And I get on the Jersey Transit at the Little Silver train station. And I remember barreling towards Manhattan on the train and swaying back and forth. I'm just looking at all the people with me in my train car. And I see their fists clenched, feet tapping, people's heads bobbing to the music they're listening to in their earbuds, people reading their newspapers and scrolling down their phones and looking out the window and reflecting on their lives, people biting their lips and pursing their mouths. It's this nexus of neurosis, and I'm just part of it. And the next thing I know, I'm sitting in a café in Midtown Manhattan waiting for a guy named Mark. Mark's going to be doing the interview. He's from the marketing department. And as I'm sitting in the café, I realize I only ate two dirty pieces of Wonder Bread in the morning, and I'm starving, and all around me are cinnamon rolls and egg and cheese sandwiches and wraps and the coffee, all the coffee being brewed and being pressed, the dark rich coffee being poured into giant mugs and the steam rising on the top of it, and people drinking it, and it's warming their insides. And there I am, just trembling with nervousness and hunger, but I had to push through it. I had something important ahead of me.
And at that moment, a guy walks in, he looks like a Mark, but he also looks like a guy who just is looking for someone, and we make eye contact, and it is Mark. And Mark, I gotta describe this for you, I'm observing Mark in his circumstance. Mark is very calm. He has this aura of just being content and calm. He kind of glides into the café. It almost was annoying how calm he was. And he comes up and he goes, "I haven't eaten breakfast. Aaron, I'm going to go to the counter. Would you like to come with me?" I said, "No," because I didn't have any money. So I let Mark go to the counter, and I'm waiting for him, and he buys a cinnamon roll the size of his head and a mocha with a pile of whipped cream on top of it. And he sits across from me. He starts conducting the interview. He's doing it while he's drinking his mocha and the whipped cream's in his mustache.
And all of my attention and all of my passion are in these questions and my answers. And then meanwhile, Mark is eating his cinnamon roll and picking it apart with his fingers and it's sticking to his fingers, and he's just putting each little piece in his mouth. And it's almost like he's disinterested. Like, he doesn't care. And I realized in that moment an insight into circumstance. Here's the reality. Here's the world I was living in. In that moment, that interview for me, in that café with Mark, was the most important moment in my creative life. One of the most important moments in my life right there. For Mark, that meeting, that interview, was just another cup of coffee.
And we finished the interview, and I did everything I could. And I felt like I did well. He thanked me, and he kind of glided out of the café. And I realized a couple of things, one, that I would pretty much do anything to fight for my dream. And I was proud of that, but I also had more pressing matters because I had to figure out a way to get back home.
Aaron Calafato: Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this week's story. I just wanted to take a couple of seconds to tell you how important it is to me and how committed I am to making sure that 7 Minute Stories is an authentic space where you and I connect through the art of storytelling without any dependency on ads or advertisements or anything like that, that we make this thing a 100% listener-supported podcast. And you can be a huge part of making that possible by going to 7minutestoriespod.com. That's the number 7 minute stories pod.com. And when you're there, click the merch tab on the website and buy yourself an awesome t-shirt or an amazing hoodie. And I know we're going to keep adding more stuff to that merchandise page. So keep checking back with it. I appreciate you all, and I'll talk to you next week.
Aaron Calafato: Hey. You made it all the way to the end, and you're probably realizing now why I have this additional bonus ending years later. When I originally told the story, I'm sure there were some people that liked it and were like, "Yeah. I like the way you ended it. You left on a cliffhanger of ambiguity. What you really did was focus less on whether you got the job or not, but more on the social dynamic and the power dynamic of the moment in which you realized where you stood in the scheme of things when you're one that needs something and there's someone on the other side of the table that has something, that there's a gatekeeper. And what as humans, we experience on either side of that dynamic, both sides have complications, but man, it's really tough when you're the one who needs something. We can all identify with that. That's what I wanted to end on, and I think it was a great ending. But I also, since that story came out, I've had people still who are new listeners who go back into the catalog. They're like, "Great story, but, like, did you get the job?"
So, I figured, okay. This actually inspired me to do this ending here. I figured, okay, I'll tell you just 4 or 5 years later. So question, did I get the job? The answer is no. I didn't get the job. Also, how did I get home? Had to call a friend. They drove in from New Jersey, picked me up in Manhattan, and I was just so blessed to have them drive me all the way back. I got home safe, but I didn't get the job. And I got a rejection letter 3 months after the fact. And that rejection letter was really the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the signal that I needed to leave New York and go back to Ohio because I had run out of money. I was so in debt, and it signaled failure for me. Not because I didn't love home, but that I didn't achieve what I set out to achieve. And I went home to Ohio feeling like I failed.
But here's a silver lining. The frustration from that rejection and some other ones that happened right around that time, that last-ditch effort to live out this idea of a dream of being a performer in New York, it gave me the anger and the fuel I needed to make a very important decision, which was I decided right after that and on my way back to Ohio that when I recalibrated my career from here, I was going to do it on my own terms and I wasn't going to depend on anybody. I wasn't going to depend on casting directors or agents. I, as an entrepreneur, was going to shape my own destiny. I was either going to fail completely, but on my own terms, or succeed and build something on my own terms, but not relying on someone else to give me the opportunity. And that really solidified the solo storytelling and the storytelling I do here on 7 Minute Stories as a career choice, as a choice of not only art form and an expression, but that I'm leading that vision on my own independently. And you know what? At the time when I didn't get that job back in 2009, I thought my life was over, but it was a huge blow. And I thought it's over, but it gave me exactly what I needed. So at the time, yeah, it was a terrible moment. But in the fullness of time, upon reflection, the fact that I didn't let it snuff out my dream, it was actually exactly what I needed to kick me into another gear. And here I am now. So I think it all worked out. So that's the ending and really the beginning of what I'm doing here, and here we are. So thanks again for always tuning in to a new episode of 7MS. I'll talk to you next week. Take care of yourselves.
