An interview at Walter Reed
Finally, the dust has settled. I've got to say, when I reflect back on last week's trip to DC I am aware that every now and then it pays to be neurotic.
Let me back up a bit. Rewind to a scene that finds me waking up, bleary-eyed, on a couch in a cabin in the hills of West Virginia. For whatever reason I didn't sleep well and was arising from my holiday slumbers at 8ish. (I don't think I my head hit the pillow before midnight the whole time I was away for the holidays.) At any rate, I got up uncharacteristically early, showered, and found myself in a booth at the Panera Bread Co.--coffee in hand and laptop in front of me--contentedly web-surfing by 9 AM on Tuesday the 30th. A half-hour later I got the call from Walter Reed. My onversation with Ms. Shitforbrains arranging the interview something like this:
HER: "Hi, Mr. Gable?"
ME:"Yes, this is him."
HER: "We wanted to set up an interview for January the 7th at 1 PM."
ME: "Can I call you back to confirm? I'd like to see what my schedule is like that week so I'll know if I can fly out to make it."
HER: "Well, we're kind of running out of time. Besides, we can set up a phone interview."
ME: "I'd like to interview in person if I can."
HER: "Well I need to know pretty soon. Our schedule is filling up fast."
ME: "Ah, well then 1 PM on the 7th it is. I'll do it. I'll fly out there."
In retrospect, it's uncanny that the office manager caught me during the one hour of my vacation when I was coherent, sitting in front of my computer, and thriving with the kind of alertness that too much caffeine can give you. The rest of the time I was muddling around in a technological black hole while e-mail was silently accruing in my inbox like snow in a Maine winter. It was almost a miracle.
It was also almost a miracle that I found a flight from LA to DC for $277 on a weeks notice. Similarly, it was also almost a miracle that I was able to score a couch to sleep on from an old running buddy who lived minutes away from Reagan National Airport literally the night before I flew out. Mike even loaned my a car to get around town! Usually when I fly by the seat of my pants like this I usually get pretty bad skid marks, but apparently not this time.
Ms. Shitforbrains was not to be outdone, however, and she remained mostly unresponsive to multiple voicemail messages, e-mails, and other desperate pleas for favors such as, oh...an itenerary? or directions? or where to park? I left my friend's house at 9:30 AM for a 1 PM interview hoping that all of these things would just work themselves out. One hour and fifteen minutes of DC traffic and one hour of fruitless parking space searching later, I showed up at Building 6 for my interview. And yes, you're right. I had to figure out (1) that the Department of Psychology was in Building 6, and (2) where Building 6 was. Somehow I managed to show up an hour early, whereupon Ms. Shitforbrains promptly asked me, "Do you have copies of your letters of recommendation? We don't have them. Oh, and do you have copies of some of your other application materials? We don't have those either."
Amazing. Absolutely stunning. Apparently at Walter Reed, the civilians don't know their heads from their asses. Ms. Shitforbrains used every bit of that hour to cobble together a rudimentary collection of data for the interviewers to see, while I sat in the waiting room and practiced deep breathing.
Things got better from there. The actual interview went well. The psychologists who interviewed me geared in a somewhat psychodynamic direction, and I think I was able to score points off of that. I think my responses regarding the whole religion and psychology discussion were well received as well. I came away energized. Part of it may have had to do with all of the cool technology some of the staff had for educating warriors in transition on biofeedback. At one point I was shown to a seat in the egg-shaped noise-cancelling chair and given a small heartrate monitor to clip to my ear. The graphs the appeared on the monitor in front of me then began tracking my brain states, solely based on heartrate variability. That was really cool--it could tell when I was calm and when my thoughts were racing simply bases on HR data from my earlobe! Furthermore, the supervising psychologists seem to really support the idea of me getting my own analysis, which would be really sweet. All in all, I'd say it was a good site for internship.
The rest of the trip was gravy from there on out. Mike also lent me his rail pass so I could waltz around the national mall to my heart's content the next day before I flew out of town. Very sweet! I would soooooo love to live in DC. Could it be possible? We'll see... but if this trip is any indicator, then it might actually happen.
Let me back up a bit. Rewind to a scene that finds me waking up, bleary-eyed, on a couch in a cabin in the hills of West Virginia. For whatever reason I didn't sleep well and was arising from my holiday slumbers at 8ish. (I don't think I my head hit the pillow before midnight the whole time I was away for the holidays.) At any rate, I got up uncharacteristically early, showered, and found myself in a booth at the Panera Bread Co.--coffee in hand and laptop in front of me--contentedly web-surfing by 9 AM on Tuesday the 30th. A half-hour later I got the call from Walter Reed. My onversation with Ms. Shitforbrains arranging the interview something like this:
HER: "Hi, Mr. Gable?"
ME:"Yes, this is him."
HER: "We wanted to set up an interview for January the 7th at 1 PM."
ME: "Can I call you back to confirm? I'd like to see what my schedule is like that week so I'll know if I can fly out to make it."
HER: "Well, we're kind of running out of time. Besides, we can set up a phone interview."
ME: "I'd like to interview in person if I can."
HER: "Well I need to know pretty soon. Our schedule is filling up fast."
ME: "Ah, well then 1 PM on the 7th it is. I'll do it. I'll fly out there."
In retrospect, it's uncanny that the office manager caught me during the one hour of my vacation when I was coherent, sitting in front of my computer, and thriving with the kind of alertness that too much caffeine can give you. The rest of the time I was muddling around in a technological black hole while e-mail was silently accruing in my inbox like snow in a Maine winter. It was almost a miracle.
It was also almost a miracle that I found a flight from LA to DC for $277 on a weeks notice. Similarly, it was also almost a miracle that I was able to score a couch to sleep on from an old running buddy who lived minutes away from Reagan National Airport literally the night before I flew out. Mike even loaned my a car to get around town! Usually when I fly by the seat of my pants like this I usually get pretty bad skid marks, but apparently not this time.
Ms. Shitforbrains was not to be outdone, however, and she remained mostly unresponsive to multiple voicemail messages, e-mails, and other desperate pleas for favors such as, oh...an itenerary? or directions? or where to park? I left my friend's house at 9:30 AM for a 1 PM interview hoping that all of these things would just work themselves out. One hour and fifteen minutes of DC traffic and one hour of fruitless parking space searching later, I showed up at Building 6 for my interview. And yes, you're right. I had to figure out (1) that the Department of Psychology was in Building 6, and (2) where Building 6 was. Somehow I managed to show up an hour early, whereupon Ms. Shitforbrains promptly asked me, "Do you have copies of your letters of recommendation? We don't have them. Oh, and do you have copies of some of your other application materials? We don't have those either."
Amazing. Absolutely stunning. Apparently at Walter Reed, the civilians don't know their heads from their asses. Ms. Shitforbrains used every bit of that hour to cobble together a rudimentary collection of data for the interviewers to see, while I sat in the waiting room and practiced deep breathing.
Things got better from there. The actual interview went well. The psychologists who interviewed me geared in a somewhat psychodynamic direction, and I think I was able to score points off of that. I think my responses regarding the whole religion and psychology discussion were well received as well. I came away energized. Part of it may have had to do with all of the cool technology some of the staff had for educating warriors in transition on biofeedback. At one point I was shown to a seat in the egg-shaped noise-cancelling chair and given a small heartrate monitor to clip to my ear. The graphs the appeared on the monitor in front of me then began tracking my brain states, solely based on heartrate variability. That was really cool--it could tell when I was calm and when my thoughts were racing simply bases on HR data from my earlobe! Furthermore, the supervising psychologists seem to really support the idea of me getting my own analysis, which would be really sweet. All in all, I'd say it was a good site for internship.
The rest of the trip was gravy from there on out. Mike also lent me his rail pass so I could waltz around the national mall to my heart's content the next day before I flew out of town. Very sweet! I would soooooo love to live in DC. Could it be possible? We'll see... but if this trip is any indicator, then it might actually happen.