If you're going to fail...

I haven't told you a story about Marianne lately.  Here's one:

The Wells Rural Electric Company sent a few kids each year to REC camp when we were in high school.  I think the purpose of it was to have fun and maybe learn some leadership skills?  I don't know, because I never went.

Marianne went and loved it.  She was even sent to a conference in Washington D.C. relating to it all.  Who knows what it was?  What it boiled down to for me was that Marianne had had this great experience and went on these great trips and I wanted to go too.

You had to be interviewed and then selected to go to the camp.  I prepared carefully for my interview and tried my very hardest to channel my successful older sister.  I anticipated questions and tried to decide how Marianne would answer them.

During the interview, I tried to be Marianne.  I answered questions like I thought she would.  I smiled a lot.  It seemed wonderful.  After the interview, I told Marianne all about it.  I felt 100% confident that I would get to go because I had acted like she would.

Then I didn't get selected.

Which felt terrible.  For one thing, I wondered if I'd have been more successful if I'd just acted like myself.

I learned that if you're going to fail, it's probably better to fail as yourself.

It turned out that while Marianne could do a brilliant Marianne, I could not.

The next year, I wanted to apply for a job working at the Wells Rural Electric Company for the summer.  It was a coveted office job with an interview in the exact same room with the exact same people that had interviewed me the year before.

I had the dates wrong and was ill prepared the day of the interview.  I didn't have time to try to act like Marianne.  (Plus hopefully I was a little smarter.)

I answered the questions like me.  The best I could.  I probably didn't smile as much as I had the year before.

I got the job.