[Day 15] The Day I Got Stood Up For an Interview

Hello everyone. And welcome back to the Oren Cohen podcast. This is day 15 of my 30 day challenge. This is going to be a short one because I messed up today and it's already five minutes before midnight. So today in this short episode, I want to share a story. Because the stories are great and we always have something to learn from a good story. Today, I want to tell you about the time I got stood up in an interview and how I handled the situation. So one time as I was waiting for an interview.

The way it works is always the same. I go into the call because I am a highly sensitive person. So I am pretty anxious before talking to people. So I usually just go into the call and wait. Usually people can be on time, but sometimes they can be a little bit late. And I was already aware that this person that I was going to interview. Was going to be a little bit late because they always were. In our previous interviews. Yes, this is a person I interviewed more than one time.

obviously not going to reveal this person's, identity. I was waiting for the person to show up. After 10 minutes or so I was like, okay, let's still wait. Uh, this is not unusual. I usually set the call to an hour. But I can make do if we have less time than that. You learn to be flexible and that's something that I, I would want to share in a different episode. But for now, we're going to focus on. Being stood up. So. I was still waiting. And waiting.

And I think after about 40 minutes of waiting where I'm in the call. Waiting for this person to show up. No emails, no text messages. No DMS over social media, nothing. Simply nothing. I was flabbergasted. What's going on. then, I was like, okay. This is a waste of my time. If I'm still waiting after the alotted time not only am I being a pushover because. What is a schedule. If we don't adhere to it. And also. This is disrespectful to me. There is a certain etiquette.

That you need to learn to adhere to when you interview someone, whether it's in emails, whether it's in the call itself, whether it's just being a nice person. At all. At the time. I was facing the decision of how to react to what just happened. Am I going to blow this up in terms of like, okay, I'm going to be very aggressive in my response. And potentially lose this person because I. React explosively and angrily. And not really giving this person a chance to explain themselves.

Or I could be understanding and. Ask them what happened and, uh, Maybe. Find out that something horrible had gone wrong and people do have scheduling hiccups from time to time. And I am so glad that I chose the latter, because if I was going with the explosive approach, Then I would have lost a person that I really enjoy talking to. So I remember sending an email like, Hey, you didn't show up is everything. All right. Do you need any help with anything?

Like I remember it was something along those lines, like being very gentle and helpful. And the person got back to me a day after or something like that. And apologized and, we rescheduled and that new date worked. so the moral of the story is not to run into conclusions about something like. I could have been very prideful and say like, Hey, how could you do this to me? How could you not show up to the time That we scheduled. How could, how could you make me wait so long? And, it is.

Sort of justified. It is not nice. To stare at an empty meeting on Riverside. Um, while waiting for a person to show up. But. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what other people are going through. As you wait for them. Next time you're facing an interview or, a, meeting. Where. The person doesn't show up and is not really responsive. Take a step back, take a deep breath. And, try to understand what happened before you react to what happened.

We don't know what's up with other people. Especially if they're a person from across the globe. And for me, this was a person from America and I am. Not in America. Kind of rambling on, but the point is clear. Take a deep breath and don't jump to conclusions. I hope you enjoyed this little story before I go to bed. Tomorrow. I'll probably have another story for you, but we'll keep it for tomorrow. And thank you so much for listening. And if you want to learn more.

About content creation and have a deeper. Connection with me via email. Then I have a newsletter. You can find it in the description of the episode. Thank you again so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.