Recently, I told you how a bunch of inappropriate emails and a voicemail from Tom DeFalco led me to an opportunity with Cracked.com. If you read those columns, you may remember that I was on the phone with DC Comics when I missed Tom’s phone call. To be exact, I was speaking with Warner Bros human resources to set up an interview for the job of MAD Magazine front desk receptionist.
To say this was my most demeaning DC Comics interview would be an overstatement. My first interview experience with Joey Cavalieri and Joan Hilty was far more soul crushing. Not because of my interviewers — they were great. Rather, the interview made me realize how savagely unqualified I was for the job.
Though not as bad as my first time at DC Comics, this interview with MAD was still pretty fucking bad. As if to prove that I learned nothing from my earlier shot at assistant editorial, I failed to research my MAD Magazine interviewer. Only being a casual reader of the magazine, I failed to even research MAD’s publication history.
At my interview, I should have taken the time to grill the outgoing front desk receptionist. He was sitting right in front of me for a good ten minutes! Instead, I sat silently and looked at the large cardboard cut-outs of cartoon sound effects hanging down from the ceiling while he sat silently and answered a couple phone calls.
I’ll never forget what my interviewer said the moment I sat down in his office: “Hi, Nick. You got any schwag for me?” He wasn’t asking for weed. He was asking for stickers, art, music, CDs, DVDs, or anything I may have brought as a gift. Since that time, I’ve learned that bringing a gift to an interview - no matter how ridiculous - makes an excellent impression.
So, schwagless, I sat there and tried to keep up with the interview. I couldn’t. The guy was asking me questions I was totally unprepared to answer. I barely knew the duties of a receptionist and I didn’t know how to represent myself as a capable individual. Suffice to say that I never even heard back from Warner Bros HR. I called them for weeks only to find out that someone else already got the job.
Here’s what my MAD Magazine interview taught me: 1) Be prepared!!! Research the job and research your interviewer. Practice responses to potential questions. 2) At the interview site, make conversation with anyone you can find. Ask questions about their job and make a friendly connection. 3) Bring some goddamned schwag!!! Cookies, candy, music, illustrations… fuck, even a funny hat! If I’d only taken the time to buy a little something for my interviewer, I could be writing this column from a cozy desk at MAD Magazine headquarters.
And that’s just another reason why I’m going to have to sneak into the comic book industry if I ever want to make it in.
So, I’m looking through old papers I wrote during Senior year and I stumble upon the business plan I wrote for my publishing class. I flip toward the end and I swear to God it says “Nick has been published in Cracked Magazine and established connections with retail outlets in Nashville, Pittsburgh, and New York” Do I have to go an retract that now, four years after the fact?
YES! now it has to say “Nick has been published in Squirrel Hill Magazine and established connections with a retail outlet on Craig St in Pittsburgh.” what’s the deal with Nashville? i spent all of 5 months there. you never even knew me when my parents lived there!!!
you TOLD me to put that in!!
if i ever said that (which is highly HIGHLY doubtful), when would it have been? also, i never EVER would have used the phrase “established connections with retail outlets” so i highly doubt the veracity of your claim. what does that imply anyway? it makes me sound like a dictionary salesman. and i never would have told you to say i was published in Cracked because i never was!!!!!!!!
sometime in the spring of 2005 - it was my senior year. and in my defense (regardless of what the truth truly is (consdering that i showed you this biz plan when i was writing it)), i used to drink a lot - mistakes were made.