I just finished an interview with a very large company. They contacted me weeks ago about an opportunity in their marketing division and were interested in my experience. Sure, I’d talk to the hiring mannager. She called me this morning, and it quickly became apparent there is no position – at least not right now. There are “probablities and potentialities”, but nothing at the moment. We’re just networking right now.

Okay, that’s fine. It’s not like I want to go back to corporate right now anyways. I’m in no rush and quite happy for it to take quite some time while I camp, swim, hike, jump off cliffs and explore dark alleys. Sure, take your time. (Though I must admit the lack of transparancy is not admirable).

Why was I not excited to talk to her? Why did it feel like I had a bathtub drain in my right heel, sucking a vortex of life energy out of me? How come, now that I’m finished, I feel like she – not just she, but the whole $5B business – is appraising me like a steer, having pinched my ribs, inspected my teeth and patted my tummy to check for what I can give them once slaughtered? And as she closed with dangling a carrot (a rotten one, by the way) and reducing any expectations I could have at a long life and hope for the future, for a moment I felt small, not becuase I am but because she seemed to reduce me to either suitable or not suitable for a box on an org chart. Whether they want to give me the box or not, I feel cramped, and contorted.

So if this doesn’t work for me anymore, what does? Who is doing something really cool that I can wrestle and wrangle with, coax and soothe, love and grow? What do I want to do that is all of those things. And how much time and effort am I will to give to it?