The Interview I Wasn’t Prepared For

M Mehran

I have been through interviews before—phone screens, Zoom calls, panel rooms with too-bright lighting and too-fake smiles—but nothing prepared me for the one scheduled at 9:00 a.m. on a rainy Tuesday in November.

It wasn’t the weather that made me nervous.
It was the fact that this time, I needed the job.

Not wanted.
Needed.

Rent was late. My savings account was a joke. My parents had already said the sentence no adult wants to hear:

“Maybe you should come back home for a while.”

So I ironed my only blazer, practiced answers I hoped sounded confident, and arrived thirty minutes early—because desperation is very punctual.

The building surprised me. It wasn’t glass and metal like I imagined. Instead, it was small, quiet, almost old-fashioned, with a handwritten sign on the door:

“Please ring once.”

No logo. No receptionist. Just a bell.

I hesitated, then pressed it.

A woman in her sixties opened the door with a smile warm enough to melt the rain off my shoulders.

“You’re early,” she said.

“I—yes. I thought it would be better than being late.”

“Sometimes,” she replied, “people arrive early because they don’t know where else to be.”

I forced a laugh, pretending she was wrong.

She wasn’t.


---

The waiting room looked nothing like a corporate office. No motivational posters. No glossy magazines about success and productivity. Just shelves filled with books, many without titles on their spines.

There were no other candidates.
No background music.
Only the soft ticking of a wall clock and the fast heartbeat inside my chest.

After a moment, the woman returned.

“We’re ready for you.”

We?

I followed her into a small room with two chairs and a single round table. No panel. No notepads. No laptop recording everything I said.

Just one interviewer.

He looked up from a folder when I entered—kind eyes, quiet face, the sort of person who didn’t need authority to be respected.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“Thank you for having me.”

My voice sounded practiced, like something I borrowed instead of owned.

He didn’t ask for my résumé.
He didn’t ask about my strengths, weaknesses, or where I saw myself in five years.

Instead, he asked:

“Who taught you the meaning of work?”

I froze.

This was not in any list of common interview questions.

“I… I’m not sure,” I said slowly.

He nodded, as if uncertainty was the correct answer.

“What brought you here today?”

“I’m looking for a job.”

“That’s what you need,” he said gently. “I’m asking what you’re searching for.”

My throat tightened.

I wanted to say stability.
I wanted to say purpose.
I wanted to say that I was tired of feeling like I was always catching up to everyone else.

But all that came out was:

“I don’t know anymore.”

He didn’t write anything down. He didn’t look disappointed.

He just sat with the silence like it wasn’t uncomfortable at all.


---

Then he slid a blank card across the table.

“On this card,” he said, “write one thing you stopped believing about yourself.”

My hand hovered above the pen.

I thought of who I used to be—someone who filled notebooks with ideas, someone who didn’t apologize for taking up space, someone who laughed without checking if it was appropriate.

Somewhere between moving out, paying bills, and pretending not to be scared, I misplaced that version of myself.

I wrote:

“I stopped believing I was capable.”

I expected him to take the card.

He didn’t.

“Keep it,” he said. “You’ll need it later.”


---

The questions continued, but not the kind that measured skills.

“Tell me about a time you failed and didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt.”

“What do you wish people understood about you?”

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

Each question felt less like an interview and more like someone turning on lights in a room I had been sitting in for years without realizing it was dark.

Somewhere between the third and fourth question, I stopped trying to sound impressive.

I started sounding like myself.

I talked about fear, and how it often wears the mask of being “realistic.”
I talked about dreams I folded into smaller shapes until they could fit into a life I didn’t even want.

The interviewer listened—not like someone evaluating me, but like someone witnessing me.


---

Finally, he closed the folder.

“That’s all,” he said.

My pulse jumped. “Did I… get the job?”

He smiled in a way that made the room feel suddenly warmer.

“This wasn’t an interview for a position,” he said softly. “It was an interview to see whether you were ready to start again.”

I blinked. “Start what?”

“Your life,” he said. “The one you paused.”

The woman from earlier appeared in the doorway.

She handed me a simple envelope.

Inside was neither a contract nor a rejection.

It was a note:

“Come back tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Not for a job—
for a place to become yourself again.”

Underneath was a second line, written in unfamiliar handwriting:

“Bring the card.”


---

When I stepped outside, the rain had stopped.

For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like I was failing.

I felt like I was beginning.

Because sometimes, the most important interview of your life
isn’t the one that gets you hired—
it’s the one that reminds you
you’re still worth choosing.