In a post last week, I implied that the story of how I was initially rejected for a full-time staff position at the Onion was kind of interesting. Judge for yourself.

Picture it: winter, 1997. Cass had graduated from law school at the University of Iowa a year earlier and had passed the Illinois bar, and we'd moved to his hometown, Chicago. In Iowa, I'd worked at a job I hated, doing layout and design for a business-forms company that paid better than any journalism job I could find in Iowa — which was crucial, since I was supporting Cass while his parents put him through school, and we were saving up for the move. But job-hunting in Chicago hadn't gotten me anywhere, and when we moved, I was still unemployed. After a couple of months, I ended up working for the same business-forms company, in a small onsite location at Budget Rent A Car headquarters. I was working out in the burbs, and I had an hour's worth of commute each way every day… When the traffic was good. I was primarily working with career-oriented, driven, shallow, annoying salespeople, to whom I was an alien life form. There were no other designers onsite; I was responsible for maintaining my own computer and software, because no one else had any idea what the fuck I did. We were a form of pilot program; I had no support, no outside network or contacts, whatsoever. I worked in a vacuum; if I had a problem, no one could help me. I hated pretty much everything about it — the work, the isolation, the commute, the environment.

But it's hard to get a job in journalism, especially if you really don't want to work the night shift (which I would have to as a proofreader) or write obits and cover town meetings. I applied for a bunch of jobs; that went nowhere. Then I saw the story in the Chicago Reader about how The Onion was coming to town.

I'd been reading The Onion since early college. The student newspaper where I worked had a subscription, and I checked in with the editor-in-chief every week so I could read it as soon as he'd finished it. We giggled over it together, pointing out particular bits we liked. I was thunderstruck at the idea that they might be hiring in the area.

I flipped through the Reader to the classifieds section. Sure enough… They wanted a local editor. I had the calm, focused demeanor of a caffeinated hummingbird for the rest of the week. Working for The Onion… how cool would that be?

I applied. They called me. I was beside myself. I went in and met a bunch of detached-seeming, vaguely amused people who I couldn't really tell apart. I filled out a quiz about my favorite bands and movies. I went home. I waited.

Time passed. Christmas rolled around. I went back to the family homestead in Maryland for my usual holiday visit. And I clung to the house, afraid to go out, afraid that I might miss The Call and somehow be deemed too unprofessional for the paper. "Well, it comes down to her or one of these three other people who are all salivating to work here. I don't know, flip a coin. Let's just call them in order. What, you've tried three times and can't get through to her? Fuck that, go to number two."

Ridiculous, yeah. But I wanted this job with white-hot wanting, and no scenario seemed too implausible.

My parents knew the state I was in; I'd made it clear enough. So when I did go out with my father for some last-minute shopping, and I came home and went straight in to find Mom, to see if anyone had called, the look on her face told me all I needed to know. I deflated. And she said "He was really, really nice about it. It was pretty awful. He asked for you, and I said you weren't here, but that you'd been going crazy bouncing around the house waiting to hear from them." [That's my Mom… not so much with the discretion and/or tact.] "I said I couldn't take the tension, and asked if you'd gotten the job. And he almost burst into tears on me. He said 'This is so awful, I can't STAND it. We really, really wanted to give her the job, but we just can't. She just doesn't have the musical knowledge we're looking for. We really liked her resume, but she's just not the right fit for the job. I'm so sorry. Oh god, I hate this.' He sounded so upset."

I found this a little hard to believe. Mom, like everyone else in the family, tends to exaggerate to improve a story, but she takes it to extremes never before seen in nature. And honestly, I was bitter. Even if it was true, even if he was apologetic as hell about it, did it matter? Should I feel good that he felt bad about it? Was it any better to be Utterly Categorically Rejected By The Job Of My Dreams by someone who really really wanted me to have the job but couldn't give it to me than by someone who flipped me off and kicked me in the ass on the way out? I mean, it was humanizing and all, but what it came down to was, I was still stuck in a job I hated, with a commute I loathed, in a life I didn't like.

She hadn't gotten his name, so I wasn't even sure who the Angel Of Rejection And Apology was. And I didn't see the point in calling back to ask "Did you REALLY feel bad about rejecting me, or is my Mom rewriting reality again?" After Christmas, I touched base with the A.V. Club staff and was told that while they didn't need me as an editor, they'd like to have me freelance book reviews for them, and to stay in touch for the future. So I did. And nobody I talked to there wept on me about how tragic it was that they hadn't hired me. I eventually decided Mom had spun a note of regret on the part of some nice Human Resources guy into a fish tale for my peace of mind.

It wasn't until three or four years later, when I was a full-time staffer and had gotten to know the other staff members individually, that I realized who she must have been talking about — my new boss, the guy that founded the A.V. Club, and just about the sweetest, most heart-on-his sleeve man that I'd ever met. The more I got to know him, the more I realized that this was in fact a person who could have been deeply upset over having to tell a stranger's mom "No, your daughter didn't get the job."

So one day I asked him, "So… do you remember when I applied for the editor job and didn't get it? Do you remember talking to my mother over the phone at Christmas?"

And he exploded. "Oh my god, that was the worst day of my life. That was the only time ever that I've wanted to leave the office after a day of work and just walk into a bar and demand alcohol until I passed out. All these people who wanted so bad to work for us, and I had to individually call every one of them, and tell all but one of them 'I'm sorry, but you're just not good enough.' After making all those calls, I wanted to go home and shoot myself."

"So did you really almost cry on my mom?"

He blushed. It was adorable. And he muttered something like, "You know, I don't know what it is, but your mom's really easy to talk to…"

He lives in Madison. She lives in Maryland. They will probably never meet. But both of them still speak of each other occasionally, and kindly, and with a certain amount of seeming admiration. Standing between them and seeing each of them through the other's limited experience with the other tickles the hell out of me.

But that's how I didn't get the job of my dreams. There's another story about how later I did. And it also proves that my boss is a big softie. If he doesn't kill me for telling this one, I'll get to that one shortly.

I'm-a feelin': satisfied
I'm a-hearin': Christine Lavin, "Snow! Medley"