Jonathan Dodd’s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I once went for an interview for a job. This, you must understand, is something I’m quite familiar with, because of the gypsy nature of my employment. I was warned by the agent beforehand that the manager thought I was ‘over-qualified’ for the job. I had responded with my thoughts that it was very convenient for me and I didn’t mind taking a rest from the sometimes-over-hectic situations I find myself in at work.
Anyway, since the manager there had agreed to interview me, I thought he had taken that into account. So I arrived and the interview went quite well, I thought. I was asked questions about my normal level of responsibility, in some detail, and I kept wondering when they would say “But you’re not going to be doing any of this stuff, you’re just going to be doing fairly humdrum stuff instead.” But they never did.
Because they would like to hear my answers
I noticed that the people who I would be working for directly seemed very interested in my answers, and since I always approach interviews with the idea in my head that they presumably think I could do the job and that they would ask me questions because they would like to hear my answers, I just answered them as fully and truthfully as I could. The were nodding and smiling too, so I thought I was doing all right.
I began to think that they might be thinking ahead and that I could be more use to them than they had suggested. The interview ended and I went away feeling that I gave it a good shot and was in with a reasonable chance of getting it. I could certainly do the work they were initially asking me to do, and I had said I was quite comfortable working at that level.
No experience in that area at all
It turned out that they gave the job to the other candidate, who had no experience in that area at all. The reason they gave the agent was that they still thought I was over-qualified. I’m still racking my brains over this, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. Unless they felt so unqualified to do the job there in the first place, and could only tolerate having someone there who knew even less than they did.
I then wondered how they would have got their own jobs in the first place, unless someone above them had deliberately picked them because of their incompetence. And then I stopped right there, because down that road madness lies. I have to chalk it up to experience.
I didn’t fancy their jobs anyway
So. I now know that there are jobs out there for which I am actually over-qualified. I feel a little sad about this, because the qualification thing doesn’t mean that much to me. I started having bosses who were younger than me many years ago, and it never bothered me then. I’ve also worked for people who had no idea what they were doing, but even when they refused to admit this, there was an unspoken understanding that I was keeping them afloat. I never minded this either, because I always did the work I was asked, and I didn’t fancy their jobs anyway.
Unfortunately I also understand that there are lots of jobs for which I am truly unqualified. Rumour has it that many years ago jobs were easier and less dependent on so-called qualifications. People often learned on the job, and companies expected to provide for some training for their employees. There was less competition for the jobs that were available too. A well-written job application and a good interview could open up all sorts of possibilities. I suppose this still exists here and there, but I don’t seem to work in that sort of area.
A term of subtly-hidden insult
I originally felt a delicate frisson of pleasure at the idea of being ‘over-qualified’. Like there was actually something in this life that I might find easy and unchallenging, which I could breeze into and be universally admired by everyone around me, the true invocation of the square peg in the square hole, a perfect fit, a sense of belonging. Little did I know that it could become instead a term of subtly-hidden insult.
I’ve now been a victim of the legendary ‘back-handed compliment’. I always knew of this in a conversational sense, in small-talk, very much the area of subtlety and comfortable interplay between friends who know each other. The way that ‘over-qualified’ happened to me reminded me more of the other kind of ‘back-handed’, which I was more familiar with in my childhood, watching Saturday afternoon wrestling on TV with my dad.
This wasn’t real wrestling
I became familiar with various wrestling terms through the enthusiastic commentary, which entered into the show with knowing glee. This wasn’t real wrestling any more than Westerns had anything to do with real cowboys. But I didn’t know that at the time. I was too young, and innocent. I loved the good guys and the bad guys, the dirty tricks and the outrage with the cheating that went on behind the referee’s back. It didn’t even need to be in wrestling.
I always became confused between the terms, and nobody ever explained them to me. Not least my dad, who loved it in the same way I did. I sometimes think it was the only thing we enjoyed together, simply and without complication. There was a thing called a ‘forearm smash’’, usually employed in a dastardly way by the bad guys, and I got it mixed up in my mind as a ‘back-hand smash’. This may or may not have existed, but it was there, in my mind, and it wasn’t ever going to be dislodged.
Getting a back-hand smash in the throat
I always associated the ‘back-hand smash’ with bad intentions and sneakiness, and the way I felt when I didn’t get that job was as if I had been one of the good guys, getting a back-hand smash in the throat while the referee was talking to an official at the other side of the ring. I also didn’t pay attention to the other thing, the forearm smash.
Somehow the other thing that got mixed up in my preadolescent mind was the old phrase ‘forewarned is forearmed’. The idea that knowing something’s going to happen doesn’t necessarily stop it, it just makes it worse, got a grip too.
So I should have been forewarned by the back-handed compliment, and I was forearmed because I wasn’t forearmed. Where was the referee?
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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