First Job Interview in Australia – Congratulations (Part 1)

This is the difference between surviving and living…

We booked domestic flights like we would book an Addison Lee. This would’ve been an absolute struggle in the UK, for numerous reasons!

The past five days had been filled with small decisions that have large outcomes in our lives. Oh, and lots of panic!

On Thursday 4th April, we sat at Zarraffa’s Coffee shop as usual, with our children, continuing the now mundane tasks of applying for jobs and responding to emails. A call interrupted my YouTube video!

“Hello?”

“Hello, is that Mr Ahmed Jalloh?”

“Yes, speaking!” – Yes, I was now in full professional telephone voice mode… oozing with the Queen’s English

“Hi Ahmed, my name is _____ and I’m calling from _____ Primary School and _____”

At this point my mind went numb – I’ve had these calls before!

“Oh, Hello, how are you?”

“I’m well thank you. We’ve had a look at your application and we would like to offer you an interview!”

“Oh wow – erm, wow… that’s great! When?”

“We would like you to come in on Monday (9th) at 8:50 am!”

“Erm! Monday? 8:50? AM?”

I looked at my phone to trying to work out which 8:50am, Monday 9th she meant, knowing subconsciously, she was talking about the Monday that was four days away and the 8:50 that was around 56 hours away. At this point I had walked outside the coffee shop to get some quiet, then I started to panic. Brain shower! My brain fired 100 thoughts simultaneously like when you turn on the garden sprinklers and all that came out of my mouth was,

“Errrrrr!”

My subconscious was trying to answer all these questions: Is Monday too soon? Would you get the job? Would they like you? Are you even a real teacher now? What would happen to the children, when you go on the interview? Does this mean we have to move to Canberra earlier than planned? What about the car my family had offered us, would it be fixed before Monday?

In this panic, I searched through the window for Ruth’s eyes and signalled for her to come out, because this was a grown up decision and as you would’ve read in our other blogs, we usually make grown up decisions together! She didn’t know what I was asking her to do. I guess frantically flailing my arm in the air does not constitute as a ‘come outside now – I need you’ signal. So, I tried to speak to the lady again and this time, I managed more than random sounds!

“Errrr, Monday?”

I stopped myself telling her that I can’t make it as I was in Brisbane – a 13 hour drive or 3 hour flight away and managed to say something sensible!

“May I call you back in 10 minutes, as I need to speak with my wife?”

“Well, look, would it be beneficial if I sent you an email with all the details? Then you can respond to that and let us know your availability as soon as you can?”

“That would be great!” I smiled and instinctively did that curtsy dip that I always do when I’ve received good news! Beaming, I looked through the window again!

Ruth smiled and knew I had an interview! We are psychically linked that way! She can almost read my expressions to the T.

The celebratory high fives quickly turned into questions! How will we get there? How much does it cost?… the earlier shower of questions were back but this time it was Ruth asking me and me panicking because I had no answers! But in true Ruth Jalloh fashion, the focus was now on knowing the who, what when, where and how of the interview!

Now, we just had to wait for the email to confirm!

Thank you for your generous and thoughtful gift of time. You could be anywhere else at this moment but you chose to be here reading our blog and for that we thank you.

The Jalloh family

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