I just found this old notebook I was taking to interviews when I was trying to figure out what to do after nannytown. And ya know, in retrospect, they should BE so lucky, but I was so fucking clueless as to what I wanted to do and why they should believe I could do it well, besides, “Um, I am really smart?” that I basically botched every employment-related interaction with people over 30 between the years of 2005-2008.

The best (worst?) was interviewing to be an intern for James Patterson. Now, I’m sure at least one of you loves him. That’s fine. But you need to read better books because I had to read my first James Patterson book for this interview and he is unequivocably shitty. Like, I am conscious of trying not to offend anyone here, but if you even try to defend reading James Patterson, even if I want to sleep with you really badly or strike up a work-related strategic partnership, again I will say: his books are crap. We all know it. He probably knows it. His publicist knows it. No, actually, I know her and she probably won’t appreciate this.

Anyway, these are my notes, probably written on the train up to Grand Central to interview, where I tried to rationalize why I wanted to work there:

does really well— the best? when it comes to selling books?

really encourages reading? Page turners!!

????

I remember in the interview I said, “Um, I dunno, it would be cool to get a feel for the…biz?”

Being young and not knowing what you wanna do is totally the worst sometimes.

I mean, when I was 22 we didn’t even HAVE Gary Vaynerchuck.