I didn’t get it and I’m remarkably happy

Quite frankly, I’m stunned. I still fully expect to have an emotional release (i.e. tears) sometime soon, but I just finished a feedback interview from the hiring manager. Actually we finished the discussion about an hour ago, so I’ve had some coming-down time already, which I spent drinking coffee with DH.

Hiring manager gave me good feedback. He also gave me bad feedback. But mostly he gave me enough information to realize that I had made quite a few errors in judgement. Mostly I misjudged how happy I would be in that job. I was counting on being well-aligned with him, and his manager supporting the strategy. Turns out neither is true. The upper manager, who I thought supported the strategy, actually gave the hiring manager a head count reduction year over year. When I did the job, I increased head count and had a workable vision to make it a competitive differentiator.

There was also a BIG difference in job interviewing between what I knew in the States and what hiring manager expected. Here, he fully expected me to cross what I describe as the line between bragging and modesty. He flat out expected bragging. Turns out, his style (and maybe German professionals in general?) is that you go into the interview, review your resume/cv, and check off the list of qualifications. Then the next step is to present your vision for the group and what you would do if you were driving the strategy. That floored me. I was bending over backwards to show teamwork and modestly display my leadership. Totally wrong manuever.

The hiring manager is also not nearly as interested in achieving in this job as I assumed he was. I couldn’t believe how much I projected my enthusiasm for the job onto both hiring manager and his boss. The facts are that boss has always “supported” the function, but has never had success with it. The hiring manager took this job because it was the first one he was offered after he was told his previous department would be dissolved. He expects to be over in sales somewhere within 3 years, which is not enough time to do what really needs to be done to be successful.

This was totally my mistake. If I had made that level of judgement in gambling, I would have lost a bunch of money.
Oddly enough, I see strong parallels between this job hunt and my ED. I put myself into an agonizing position based on faulty information, and just got lucky enough to not get stuck. That reminds me of the many years I ate to compensate for every emotion, without ever realizing the trap I’d built for myself.

Every day I go forward learning how to treat food normally. Now I also know much more about how to go forward in my current job and make it awesomely more fun and successful. It’s the same learning, and requires the same fixes:

1.  One step at a time, I learn what I should do differently
2. I start practicing the ways to do things better
3. Let go of things I don’t need any more
4. I recognize my progress and keep encouraging myself