Interview Preparation and Burnout

I felt utterly burnt out and exhausted today. I guess I did go through quite a bit yesterday, more emotionally than in practical terms. I didn’t get up until something like 1pm today, and it was an effort to stay up. It was still two hours or more before I was dressed (admittedly I did have a long text conversation with E in there). My brain feels switched off. If it was running on Windows, it would be blue screened. Somehow I have three working days — three days curtailed by burnout and Shabbat and Yom Tov preparation — to prepare for my cataloguing test and interview on Wednesday.

I found a discrepancy between what the job agency are telling me about the job I’m applying for and what the job specification says. The latter says the job is full-time and permanent; the former says it is four days a week for four months. That’s a big difference. I guess it’s something to ask about at the interview, but it does have ramifications for whether I would take the job, although not in a clear cut way. I don’t think I could do full-time work (I’m not sure I can manage four days a week, let alone five); on the other hand, I’m not sure I want to walk away from my current job if I’m going to be job-hunting again in four months’ time, even if it would get me back into the library sector.

The job description is massive, and I worry how I could keep up with it, particularly open-ended professional development, including attending and presenting at conferences and seminars (that would assume this is permanent, of course). I still feel my cataloguing skills are very rusty. I haven’t really used them since 2018.

I tried to prepare for the interview, but didn’t manage much more than re-reading the job description, looking at the organisation’s (large) website and jotting down a couple of questions to ask. I procrastinated, and make myself depressed looking at the Jewish news sites.

I just felt physically ill today, so burnt out that I can’t go on. I just felt overwhelmed, by my life and by the world (and, yes, I know that there are far worse things going on in the world than in my body and my head, but I feel what I feel and knowing cognitively that other people are struggling much more does not change that or make me feel any better).

I was going to look over my notes of prepared answers for frequently-asked interview questions, but there seems no point as it won’t sink in. I really needed a mental health day, but the next week is going to be a crazy mix of interview stuff and religious stuff. My parents said to relax, that the job isn’t really right for me at this time, either as a four month stopgap or a year at full-time. I’m glad they realise that. It does take some of the pressure off.

I do worry that the job agency will say something at some point about how few jobs I’ve got with them (two short-term contracts, I think, in nearly three years) and see me as some kind of bad “investment” (bearing in mind that to the agency, I’m a product they’re selling, not a paying customer). But I guess I could feel just as justified in criticising them for the same reasons. Of course, I don’t want to turn up for an interview or a test and totally make a fool of myself because of my mental health and autism. But it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done either of those things either.

In the end I did a tiny bit of preparation, but didn’t relax the way I wanted to (if it’s even possible for me to relax at the moment, the news being what it is).

Other than interview preparation, I went for a half-hour walk and proof-read and sent my devar Torah. I wanted to start on my devar Torah for next week, as I won’t have much time for it next week and I know roughly what I want to talk about, but I just wasn’t able to do so. I just felt awful.

I did Skype with E in the evening. We had a long chat, over an hour, and that really helped. We spoke a bit about my interview, but also about a lot of other things. Our conversations tend to range from the serious to the jokey. I feel so comfortable talking to her, it seems so special. There aren’t many people I can connect with like that. I feel really lucky that we’re trying to make this work again. Hopefully we can get it right this time.