MY FIRST JOB INTERVIEW NEARLY KILLED ME! (Segment No. 5)

Remember, this story is serial style, so if you want to read it from the beginning make sure and click on the earlier segments.

Job Offer

Well we were done. I did not want to see anything else and he did not want to show me anything else. We both just wanted out of the mine. We made our way along the track and we were pretty much silent as we did. He got us to the elevator and we got in it. It was spacious, and it was completely empty. I just stared at the rocks earth wall of the shaft as we passed it and the elevator took us up. These are deep mines, and these kind of elevators travel for a long time before you get to the surface. It certainly felt like a long time to me. I remember feeling quite a rush of relief when we got to the surface, which was strongly augmented when the doors opened up and we stepped out into the sunlight and fresh air again. He led me over to the lockers and I gave him my boots, and vest, and helmet, and carbide light and then he took me over to the original interview room and we said our goodbyes. By this time I had gained some semblance of my composure back, and so when the interviewer came into the room I smiled and greeted him as if nothing had really happened. I remember he said something like “how did you enjoy your trip in the mine?”

Now this mining company (probably this interviewer) flew me out to New Mexico from California. They rented the car for me in Albuquerque, and I knew that I needed to get back to the airport in Albuquerque again with the rented car and catch a flight back to California. And I kind of wanted it to be on their ticket. So I knew that I really did not want to tell him, “Wow, you guys almost got me killed down there!” Nor did I want to tell him that they could take their idiotic job offer and stuff it into a deep dark shaft! So I was trying to appear calm, and pleasant, and interested. I replied, “Oh, it went fine. I found the whole thing to be an interesting experience.” And of course it was interesting in a grotesquely life-and-death sort of way.

So we continued to talk about the job offer and the pay scale and the possibility of moving up to the surface and beginning to do Geology work later on – all of which I could not have care less about at that point. And I remember thinking to myself, “Why do they have this job opening?” I mean, that experience that I just had obviously did not go very well for me. Do other interviewees have similar experiences? Or, once they take the job, do they have fun little circumstances like that every week, and a month or two later quit? With those kind of hours and that kind of work, and that kind of pay, I wondered if they had a high turnover of geologist. Is there a lot of attrition at this kind of job? Do entry-level geologists who take this job actually hang around very long waiting for that “golden opportunity” on the surface to finally materialize? So I said in a casual, confident way, “Why do you have this opening? Why are you hiring now? Have you expanded the mine or have you promoted your last geologist to the surface?”

And he said to me, “Oh, well, the last geologist that we had got killed in the mine.”

I kid you not! Those were his exact words! He said it just as casually as could be. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I’m pretty sure I concealed most of my shock at his statement. He said it so flippantly like it was no big deal. And I’m thinking, “You’re interviewing me you idiot! I’m a geologist! You’re interviewing me for this job, what the hell are you saying?” So I said pleasantly, “Oh, really? What happened to him?” wondering all the time if he got run over by an ore train! And he said, “Oh, well he went into an area to do the muck logging where they had just blasted, and the blast used up all the oxygen and he was asphyxiated.” He said it in just a casual little statement sort of way. And I thought, “Hmmm, when can I get in that rented car and drive away from this madhouse.” But I said, “Oh, that’s too bad.” And he replied, “Yes, but it will be a good opportunity for someone else to get a chance to work in the mine.”

And from that point on I basically was not listening to a thing he said. Somewhere along the line he asked if I would be interested in the position, and I said something like, “I really needed a little time to think about it”. And then finally we were done. I got in the car, I drove off the mine company property, I got on the freeway, and I remember saying to myself, “I am never, ever coming back to this place again. I never want to see it. And I never, ever want to have anything to do with uranium mining.” I finished driving to Albuquerque, caught my flight to California, drove back from LA to my house in the high desert, and then I called him up the next day and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to accept the position that you offered me.” He was actually upset to hear that I was turning him down, I think because I had left him with an impression that I was at least somewhat interested in the position. But I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned they could find some other sucker to kill down in that hellhole. And I did eventually get another job, my first not-geology-but-almost-geology technician job. I took a job with another company that offered me the lure of a geological position if I would only do a years’ worth of technician work. So I took the technician work with the vague hope of someday gaining the coveted geology position. But in the end, I did not wind up working at that place for long either. Instead, I went back to college to get a MS degree in geology. And with the help of a Master’s degree credential behind me, I managed to cut the time down that I eventually did have to spend working as a technician to only six months before I got my first full-time job as a geologist!

So that’s it. That was my first job interview in geology… And I survived it!