what are my strengths and weaknesses? why do you assume they're different things?

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The first interview I ever participated in was one of my worst. I was applying for a busboy position, the Bic Dispoable Lighter of jobs, but at 17 I didn't yet know that. I had a new girlfriend, hence had commenced the as-yet-unceasing era of needing a constant supply of cash. The manager sat me in the bar of the restaurant, positioning me facing the window such that I was looking into the blinding sun at sunset. So desperate was I for a job, it did not occur to me to move or to ask the favor of shutting the blinds. No, I sat there and suffered through his questions, tears running down my face as my corneas simmered in their own juices.

Interview debacle #2 occurred months later, when I applied a job as a library clerk. My interviewer was a cool middle-aged woman who listened to a lot of Teddy Pendergrass. I didn't know that yet, though. During one of my utterly incoherent, rambling answers, I mentioned having recently moved from home. "...but, you know, I wasn't kicked out or anything, it was more like my mom, um, died, kinda, so it was more like home left me than it was I left home, if you think about it, so it's not like I..."

"Wrap it up."

"Right. Bless you."

I saved my best work for Microsoft. I had just gone to the brink of bankruptcy over a girl, which resulted in the humiliation of my having to borrow money from another girl. And my first interviewer asked me that most original of questions: "Why do you want to work at Microsoft?"

I was confused by the question. "Your checks clear, don't they?"

Over the ensuring years, I would conduct many, many interviews, but two stand out.

Interviewee sitting in my guest chair realizes who I am: "Oh! Were you the contractor who called the manager a 'cocksucker' at the staff meeting and didn't get fired for it?" I've always loved his qualification. Apparently the manager was called that a lot.

Interviewer: "Do you know [name of wretched person]?"
Me: "Ugh, what a cunt."

Yes, I've come a long way since squinting in pain in that restaurant's bar. A long, classy way. And you know what? I was offered every single one of those jobs. Must have been that interviewing class Ohio State made me take.