Banished to Boomer Island: tales of a menopausal Gen-Xer for hire

I’m getting pelted by ‘low-hanging fruit’ and trapped in a vortex of ‘deliverables’. Can I get a Google Generational Translator?

We’re 45 minutes into the job interview and I’ve heard the word “literally” 27 times. And don’t even get me started on “pivot”. I’m about to pivot my 53-year-old keister out of this freakin’ interview. Literally. Never mind that I need an interpreter to understand 75% of what this communications director has been talking about since we started the interview.

I applied to this opening for a “creative services manager” two weeks ago, confident that my more than two decades as a graphic designer would qualify me. Following a rocky 2.5-hour call with HR (that I mistook for the actual interview), followed by a perplexing assessment test (that had nothing to do with the job description), my optimism is waning.

My interviewer today schooled me right out of the gate, disarming any shred of middle-aged confidence I had mustered prior to joining the Google Meet. “We don’t call them interviews,” she said. “We prefer to call them ‘conversations’.” I never got that memo. Good grief; whatever we’re calling them, I’m exhausted. Between the launching, branding, trending, whiteboarding, leveraging, deep-diving and all the circling-back, I need a nap.

What happened? I feel like a Gen X-Sleeping Beauty who woke up in an alternate metaverse – unemployed, menopausal and illiterate. I’m anxious enough about interviewing without having to extract meaning from her corporate psychobabble. Can I get a Google Generational Translator?

She’s pelting me with “low-hanging fruit”, and “stakeholders”. I’m trapped in a vortex of “analytics and metrics”, “deliverables and assets”, “content and strategy”, and if I had a dollar for every time she says “campaign launch” I’d be a millionaire and wouldn’t need this job.

“SEO.” “KPI.” “CRM.” “B2B.” “LTV.” WTF? She ambushed me with “keywords” and left me for dead in an abandoned “wheelhouse” of inhospitable acronyms while she fires questions at my wounded, middle-aged ego.

“What brands do you follow on Instagram? Tell me about your feed.”

“My feed?” If she only knew. I contemplate full disclosure – that my feed has been mostly commandeered by facial yoga, baby koalas, droopy-eyelid exercises and menopausal belly-bloat supplements – but I decide that she can’t handle the truth.

As our “conversation” continues, my face is morphing from beet-red to deep purple as I summit an epic hot flash, ducking out of the frame to stick my head in the freezer for some relief. She’s too self-absorbed to notice, prattling on about “culture and teams”, “identity, collaboration and process”. Do they ever stop talking about working, and actually work? I slide back in front of the computer, rubbing myself down with a bag of Trader Joe’s Frozen Chicken Gyoza. “Sorry! I’m having a hot flash … it’s the menopause.” Uh oh. Cold stare. Radio silence.

As far as I know, the word “menopause” hasn’t been banished from millennial polite society, but she looks so traumatized – like someone just told her there’s a potential nut milk shortage looming on the horizon, or that they’re banning TikTok. Aren’t they? I’ve reached my boiling point and I’m going rogue. “In the spirit of transparency, I have menopause.” I can’t help myself. I add, “Yep, it’s a ‘hard pivot’.”

She glances down and starts typing. Either she’s looking up menopause on Wikipedia or I’m getting canceled. Too late; I’m pretty sure I canceled myself 10 seconds into the interview after accidentally joining the Zoom link twice, resulting in two of me onscreen, reverberating loudly. “HR didn’t mention I had a twin?” I laughed nervously, trying to rebound from my first fumble with a bit of humor, but she wasn’t amused. I chuckled while she sat motionless, slurping her matcha through a reusable straw and glaring, poker-faced and silent. Geez, tough crowd.

“When are we going to talk about the actual job, the one I applied for?” Her awkward silence confirms my suspicion that she’s putting me out to pasture. Thank God. I’ve already been banished to Boomer Island (I’m Gen X, but we’re all the same to them), so why not go out with a bag of frozen dumplings on my forehead and a wacky question she can Slack her team about when she updates my status to “Clueless Boomer”. I’m Gen X! Gen X!

This isn’t going to end well, but at this point I don’t care. I’m parched, hangry and so hot I feel like my eyeballs are going to pop out of my head. (Never mind a walk-in closet, I need a walk-in freezer.) More importantly, I’ve been covertly trying to pluck a stubborn hair out of my chin for the last 20 min and it’s driving me bonkers; I need to let that beast out of the cage.

Interview over? God, I hope so. I’m happy to pull the plug on this misery and get back to more pressing matters, like watching Ted Lasso or making toast. I’ll willingly board the next ferry to Boomer Island. At least there’ll be gluten and dairy there, and I can get a job. End Meeting.