The Me Self and the I Self
Performance Situation at Work for an Interview

The interview setting for this performance situation is meeting room at the workplace where I am interviewing. Three people are conducting the interview: two are department heads and one is the HR manager. Each is looking at me in a way that makes me very uncomfortable, as I feel that no matter what happens I am going to be judged on superficial criteria that will not actually reflect my true level of commitment, motivation, or work ethic.

The people across from me are sitting behind a long table, and they have various papers and folders in front of them as though they are compiling data that is very important. I wonder briefly at the data they think they are able to obtain from interviews like this that will help them to make up their mind about the best hire. I also think briefly about how many others have come through here and sat in this chair and subjected themselves to questions about their character, their ability to lead, what they would do in a certain situation, and so on. I wonder how many of them prepared the “right” answers ahead of time and how many of them said the same “right” thing to their interviewers. I wonder what I will say because I have not prepared at all.

The level of strangeness is significant. I would say it is great even because I do not know them and they do not know me, and yet we are going to pretend that we are going to get to know one another well enough that they will be able to make a decision about whether I am the best person for the job. In my mind, I know I would be a good hire. I do not believe, however, that there is not a better person out there who might be even greater at the job than I am. So I have mixed feelings about how to present myself. This is where the conflict between my “I” self and my “Me” self comes into play. I think back on my past experiences with interviews wherein my “Me” self and my “I” self refused to cooperate. I can already feel the tension rising and the problem of my two selves refusing once more to coordinate. They both want to assert themselves, but in my core I know my “I” self is the stronger self and that if I force the “Me” self forward it will only fumble the ball and my “I” self will be gnashing its teeth on the sidelines, cursing out the coach for putting in the weaker player against such formidable opponents as the interviewers across the way.

I think back for a moment to an earlier interview in my life and wonder if it is going to go the same way. As I said, I always feel a great deal of conflict in performance situations, particularly in a job interview because I am aware of both the “I” and the “Me” selves that Mead describes—the “I” being my personal self, my Identity self; and the “Me” being my learned behaviors self, my social self. In my earlier job interview, I genuinely struggled to reconcile these two selves because I want to be authentic—i.e., reveal my “I” self—but at the same time I understand that my interviewers just want to makes sure my “Me” self is appropriately functioning and present. Another problem is that I am often confused by the questions they ask because I could answer them from both the perspective...…I am content to go catch up with him to see how he is doing.

The whole process feels almost like I am on a drug. As Becker (n.d.) states, “One symptom of being high is an intense hunger” (p. 9). I have this hunger—but it is not for food. It is like for freedom, a hunger to get away from the present and to be free from the prying and judging eyes of the interviewers. My “I” self rejects their prying eyes and rejects the substitution of the “Me”self as well. It is as though my “I” self refuses to consent to answer questions—and maybe that is why I made the last minute decision to try to play the “Me” self. Maybe I knew that in spite of the pep talk my “I” self was not really going to do any better.

Clearly, there is a great deal of conflict in my locker room and the coach (myself), my “I” self and my “Me” self have some work to do to sort out how we are going to move forward from here. The “generalized other” needs to come in and sort us all out perhaps. Some direction and guidance is needed at any rate. As is stated in “Mind, Self and Society,” there is a need to get “into the experience of the self” (p. 1)—and what I need is to guide that experience with better understanding of where my place is in the world. The self ultimately has to play a part and cannot exist wholly independently of others and my “I” self needs to realize that. At the same time, my “Me” self does not need to feel so scared of saying the wrong thing. If the two can come together more I think it would work well for all of us.…