AWKWARD SILENCE
by Eman

Oh shut up! Let me get to the point here before you get all weird on me. The pregnant Pause, awkward silence, crickets, dead air or whatever you like to call it can kill! Hey I’m married and I know if Mrs. CCIE Agent makes a comment or asks a question and I don’t respond, that silence is to her sounds like, “YES” or “You’re right dear”. Think back to that first time you met your future mother-in-law. The future mother-in-law was silent when you said hello. Stares you down without a sound and you notice others in the room cowering. She just called you a #@&@&%$# to your face without using any words. Some people can communicate that way, kind of like ESP or something. If however, you are in an interview, you better keep the pregnant pauses or awkward silences to a minimum.

Awkward silence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An awkward silence is an uncomfortable pause in a conversation. The unpleasant nature of such silences is associated with feelings of anxiety as the participants feel pressure to speak but are unsure what to say next. It is commonly preceded by an ill-considered remark or an imbalance in which one of the participants makes minimal responses.

OH SHUT UP!

I mean it don’t make me come over there. I have heard so many things in my many years as the CCIE Agent™ but I have to tell you the one that irks me most is the CCIE in an interview, who won’t shut up until they run smack into the AWKWARD SILENCE. Rewinding while enveloped by the dreaded awkward silence I am sure the interviewee in question wishes they could take it back. Yup, just reach out and snatch that bit of time and erase it so that the conversation could be like it was before they stepped in the poop. So when they complimented the interviewer on the photo of the lovely horse they had on the desk, only to realize it was their daughter, just that little snippet of time, maybe only a 10th of a second, leaving them only to wish for a black hole to suck them out of the room, so life could continue as it was. It was going so well too, until that one little thing they said.

“So how did the interview go”, I ask.

“It was great, I think I have the job”, I am told.

I call the hiring manager and ask, “How did the interview go?”

Well it was ok until he started calling my daughter a horse! (“What?” My mind screams) Yup he said I had a fine looking horse where do I keep it…

Talking while nervous can be a lot like driving while sleepy. You can lose control for just that one moment….CRASH you’re dead. Just like that your history chump, nada, nothing, done!

So please for crying out loud SHUT UP! The picture on the desk is a radical example but let me use one closer to home. The interview is going like this;

So you have worked for IBM who was you manager?

Oh he was Joe Lazyeye from Kansas.

Oh I never met Joe what did you think of working for him?

He was a jerk a real jerk and he never understood what I was doing so he never gave me a promotion and when I wanted to shoot him I decided it was time to look for a job.

……AWKWARD SILENCE

So do you have any questions for me?

Not right now but if I think of any can I have your contact information?

Sure just ask the receptionist for my card on the way out. Thanks for coming in to interview with me.

WHOA, I mean it SHUT UP! Never, I mean never, even if your boss was Charles Manson or Michael Jackson, speak poorly about your old managers. Keep it professional and short and make it positive. Even if you hated the boss so much you wanted to choke him out and run a blade across his neck and chew his liver, (sorry I get carried away) don’t turn negative in an interview. Save the mayhem for the resignation, I mean you can resign and verbally run the car over the boss again and again and again until they become pulp, simply by saying nothing! Remember the mother-in-law example? She simply kept her mouth shut and called you a #@&@&%$# without words. (Sends shivers up my spine to think of it!)

So what is the point of this article? Hell if you did not get it the first time what makes you think you’ll get it this time?

SHUT UP!

Get back to work damn it!