performance situation

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 of the “I” self and the “Me” self and give two entirely different answers. Since I feel more connected with my “I” self than I do with my “Me” self I tend to feel intensely fake and lying if I give “Me” self answers that I know the interviewers want to hear. I feel disgusted with myself for attempting to be this fake person for the interviewers all for a job that in reality I’d probably rather not even have. It is like I am abjectly prostrating myself before these strangers and saying all the words they want me to say as though it were some religious rite of ordination and I would not be admitted into the great Hall of labor unless I showed myself willing and able to recite the right words that they want from every “Me” self. Because I have such revulsion, I do not even bother to learn the right words that my “Me” self is supposed to say. It is like my “I” self refuses to allow the “Me” self to have any ground or say in the matter at all.
For example, in the earlier interview I am thinking about, it was for a post in a library, and the interviewer was the library manager. The only reason I was being granted the library was because my friend worked there and she had put in a good word for me. Otherwise, the manager would have interviewed someone else. I assumed my friend had good enough standing with her manager that the interview should not really be a barrier and, after all, the job position was not really an important one that required any great skills—it was just shelving books and sorting trucks. Anyone could do it. So during the interview with this manager, whom I had never met before, I made no pretense of having a “Me” self that was distinct from my “I” self. I fully let my “I” self dictate how my “Me” self would conduct itself.
The first question I was asked by the manager was this: “How would you describe yourself?” I thought about it briefly and said, “MM, five-nine, brown hair, brown eyes. Kind of thin.” She looked at me like I was joking, waited for me to go on, and when I did not, she just laughed and sighed, and moved on to the next question. “What would you say your strengths are?” I said, “I’m pretty laid back.” She said, “Okay. What would you say your weaknesses are?” I said, “I’m pretty laid back.” She laughed again but it was more of an okay-let’s-get-this-over-with laugh, and that was that. I did end up getting the job but I don’t think it had anything to do with the interview answers I gave.
I have had other interviews that went much worse, however; the main reason being that I was unable to resolve the tension between the “Me” self and the “I” self. That happens when the situation is one wherein I really do want the job so I become paranoid about presenting the “right” self to the interviewers.
Now I am back in the current interview situation, and having gone over all these thoughts in my head, I still feel slightly uncomfortable. I understand what role they want me to play but I have difficulty in making myself appear like I play that role. Maybe I am struggling with the concept of the generalize other. Maybe I am not really even aware of the role that is required of me for this management position. Perhaps that is the problem. My “I” self laughs to scorn at such roles and titles and is far too self-centered to think that any of these roles are meaningful. In truth, I am only applying for the job because I need a job and my “I” self knows it. My “I” self does not care at all for meaningless titles and my “Me” self is now cowering in fear that my “I” self is going to go into this interview sneering at the questions and giving silly responses that tank my chances of landing the job.
The interview begins and the questions come hard and fast. And the last moment, my “Me” self gets subbed in and my “I” self comes off the field, throwing his helmet and sulking on the sidelines. I watch in dismay as my “Me” self fumbles every answer, just as I feared he would. My “I” self is simply stunned and stupefied at the coach’s decision to play the “Me” self even after giving a great pep talk in the locker room about how the “I” self was going to go out there an dominate. The coach lost his nerve at the last minute and sent the “Me” self onto the field and now the interview is going terribly and the “Me” self looks like he should be sent back to the locker room immediately. He does not deserve to be on the field: he is unprepared and has no idea how to conduct himself, what to say, what plays to run. He is clearly inexperienced. My “I” self says, “See? See?” to me the coach. I gulp. I know. I have destroyed my chances of getting the job. But perhaps it is all for the best. My “I” self has already lost interest in the game and has gone off to explore a field nearby. He seems over it at least, and 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.
References
Becker, H. (n.d.). Becoming a marijuana user.
“Mind, Self and Society.”