Hub is My Weakness

One more episode about discussions with Hub and then we’ll move on to other considerations.

The whole thing came about from a conversation I had the other day in town with an individual that used to be our H.R. lady at the place where I worked. Her retirement and my retirement have flattened the formal echelon that was in place during our working careers. We now can converse as equals. So with all things equalized, with no risk of insubordination, I wanted to ask a question that has long been haunting me.

I waited for the opportune moment then asked her if she remembered a particular time when I had applied for a job transfer and promotion. She did indeed remember it. “I felt so good about that interview,” I said. “Do you recall why I didn’t get the job?”

“Indeed I do,” she said. And so that’s when I finally got the straight goods on what happened. But before I tell you what she said I need to tell you about a conversation with Hub the day before that interview.

The evening before the interview I mentioned to Hub that there is one question that interview panels so often ask and I never know how to answer. The question – “What are your weaknesses?”

That’s when Hub explained something to me that was pretty profound. He explained that if I have weaknesses, and I am aware of those weaknesses, with that awareness I give special focused determination to those things. And in doing so they become my strengths. On the other hand if I have strengths I am aware of, these become weaknesses because they are things I do with less caution and care.

So in my conversation now with the previous H.R. lady, she said to me, “Roberta, Do you remember when the interview panel asked you to identify your weaknesses and your comeback was a convoluted, yet very profound explanation of weaknesses vs. strengths? Well, that was the discussion that lost you that job.

The interviewers were struck dumb by this accurate and unheard of concept. And at the same time, in later private discussions the Managers within that department were worried they might have difficulty staying out front of that kind of analytical mind.”

That’s what the former H.R. lady told me. So now I know. It wasn’t me after all. It was because of Hub that I lost that promotion. Hub is my weakness.

Good thing I’m retired for all time. How do you think a recruitment panel would react if I were to explain that the only weaknesses I have are the interpretations that stem from my husband’s philosophical ponderings?