Fear of stickers

I had a job interview today. It was a curious experience which didn't start altogether well. I arrived at the desk and was immediately freaked out by being asked to wear a sticker with my name on it. I have a slight phobia about stickers. It's not so much that I'm scared of them, more that, for the whole of my life, stickers have made me feel sick. I particularly hate them on fruit or cans of coke and was especially freaked out by them as a child. The irony, of course, is that children in particular, are often offered stickers as rewards. Dentists love handing them out. Charities offer them in return for donations. I hate the way that they curl and then attach themselves to other things. When I'm doing NYMT auditions, they can be useful to know names, but during the dance call they all fall off, get attached to people's hair, or end up stuck to the floor. It turns my stomach.

So, when I was handed a sticker today, I immediately attached it to the book I was holding so that it was out of harm's way. I once met a girl who had a similar problem with buttons. She used to replace all of her buttons with safety pins. Being repulsed by buttons is probably more problematic than my issue with stickers. It's really hard to get away from buttons.

When it came to the actual interview, I was a little disconcerted to be referred to as "Mr Benjamin." The fact that I use my middle name almost invariably causes issues. My first name is actually David, but I don't think anyone other than doctors and dentists have ever called me that. Often, when filling out a form, I feel obliged to be honest and write "David Benjamin." It always causes an element of confusion but it's rare to be called "Mr Benjamin."

The other disconcerting thing about the interview was that the woman asking me questions was blatantly giving me marks out of three every time I answered. It was deeply off-putting. I now know that I blanket scored 2 out of 3 for every answer I gave. Middle for diddle. Average all the way. It's not particularly nice to feel like that in an interview. There are surely better ways of getting the best out of people other than crushing them with scores? Perhaps take time to mark the candidate at the end of their interview?

Anyway, perhaps I'm just being a little grand. I may well have had so few job interviews in my time that I don't realise that this is the way that everyone recruits these days.