Who Me?

Had a mini-professional epiphany yesterday as I was being interviewed for the Oxnard Police Department Financial Manager position. First of all, I was surprised I was even there to begin with. I recall during the first interview I was incredibly close to not even going, then when I showed up at Human Resources and took a look at my competition I was close to leaving then. All these older men in suits talking to each other about their positions as CFO or Business Manager or some young good-looking fellow that just graduated from USC with an MBA. I was close to leaving…I was almost embarrassed to walk into that interview. I knew I wasn’t qualified for the position but I decided to stick it out and at least get some more interviewing experience.

Finally an interview where the questions seemed to be tailored to what I wanted to say. I brought up a lot of items in my opening monologue that ended up being part of the prepared questions they were going to ask me. Things such as tending analysis, incorporating seasonality into a budget, as well as my experience in marrying the operational to the financial aspects of budgeting and forecasting. It turns out I was second out of nine, therefore I made it to the next round of interviews.

So back to my mini-epiphany. I’m in the second interview yesterday listening to the Chief of Police tell me about how I’d be essentially at the level of Commander in the Oxnard Police Department and I get this immediate internal reaction…kind of like a mental earthquake. Me? A Commander in the Oxnard PD? Do I really want this? Is the grass going to be greener working here? I don’t know but part of me was hoping I come out number two in this process. It would make things much easier. I was just pleasantly surprised to be two of nine.
One must always be careful of what they wish for.