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This is the true story behind the conception of one of our best-selling posters. I had been working at the city zoo for a couple of years and had my eye on a better position. I knew the person that was interviewing me (I would describe us as being more acquaintances, than friends) and, more importantly, I understood the essential attitude of this department as well as the zoo in general. Realistically, I knew my chances of getting this position were minimal, but you'll never get anywhere if you don't try. For the most part, the interview went about as I anticipated; but one question really threw me off. The gentleman interviewing me asked where I saw myself in five years. This was very odd to me for two reasons, the first being that the question itself is so ridiculously cliché that I couldn't believe he'd even ask that. But, more significantly, it was my understanding that this kind of question is designed to gauge ones level of ambition. This was odd considering that everything in this work environment seemed designed to squelch ambition to the point where having any significant motivation or grand plans was laughable, as well as taboo. There was nothing in this workplace to indicate any desire for employees, on any level, to possess anything but the most basic level of ambition required to come to work on time (we're talking about a city zoo, a nonprofit organization). This put me in a very interesting situation. I had to answer a question intended to determine if I was adequately motivated and ambitious, in a workplace which seemed to be wholeheartedly against such ideas. I would have thought it was a trick question, but I'm sure that my interviewer wasn't that smart and definitely didn't have such a sense of humor (I suspect the opposite; he was actually delusional enough to take himself that seriously). To this day, I still have no idea what the correct response to that question would have been in that particular interview. But for the brief moment that I paused to think about this, an image flashed through my mind that was very telling. This image was a symbolic representation of what I considered to be the only acceptable answer to that question (to me and for me). I couldn't have articulated this idea very well in that interview, even if I had wanted to (and it would have been insane for me to have tried, for multiple reasons). But as I was walking away, I remember thinking about it and understanding that this image which had popped into my head represented what my real answer was. In the end, I may not have managed to get the job; but I did get a really evil poster idea out of it! - False Prophet |
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