If you read my last post — yes, the one where I ruined a job interview because I took 50mg of edibles the night before — you’ll be pleased to know I’ve improved!
I did another interview this month, and this time I was completely sober.
…and yet, I still managed to mess it up.
Apparently, I came across as too robotic. “You’re good at your job,” they said. “But you seem very mechanical. No empathy.”
Which is both valid and horrifying.
Here’s the thing: I’ve become a product of my environment.
I don’t work at a fancy hotel. I work at a motel — and not the cool retro kind with neon lights and quirky charm. No. The kind where the “continental breakfast” is a box of stale cereal and a prayer.
It’s chaos management disguised as hospitality.
I don’t talk much about the actual job on here, just the relationships I have with my team — because honestly, the job itself is hell on earth. It’s a constant game of whack-a-mole with problems that never stop popping up.
I spend my days fixing things I didn’t break, apologizing for things I can’t control, and trying to make guests feel okay about a place I can’t actually fix.
My version of empathy has basically become:
“Yeah, this place sucks, but I’ll make your stay suck slightly less.”
So when I walk into a high-end resort interview — a place where everything actually works and they charge $300 a night — my default setting doesn’t fit.
Because there, empathy isn’t about crisis management. It’s about connection. It’s about saying, “I’m so sorry that happened,” not “I already unclogged the toilet, you’re good.”
Basically, I’ve been trained by dysfunction. My emotional bandwidth has been rerouted into problem-solving, and my tone has become pure triage.
Because even though my current job is chaos incarnate, you cannot bad-mouth your workplace in an interview. No matter how bad it is.
You can’t tell a luxury resort manager, “Sorry, I don’t remember how to properly apologize to guests because I’ve been too busy waiting for the roof to collapse.”
That’s not “relatable honesty.” That’s “thank you, we’ll be in touch” energy.
So when they gave me feedback about empathy, I just said, “Thank you for the feedback.”
And only afterward did I realize… I never actually said “I’m sorry.”
Which, yeah — kind of proves their point.
So that’s where I’m focusing now: bringing back warmth, reconnecting with actual human emotion, remembering that people don’t just need problems solved — they need to feel cared for.
Because maybe I can’t fix the motel. But I can fix how I communicate.
So yeah — maybe I sounded like a robot. A tired, overworked, coffee-fueled robot with a service heart and dead eyes.
What I learned:
- Your job environment rewires your empathy.
- Fixing problems isn’t the same as feeling them.
- And apparently, being competent can still read as cold.
So, to recap:
- Interview #1: failed because I was high.
- Interview #2: failed because I was basically a Roomba in human form.
I can’t wait to see what personality I bring to Interview #3 — maybe a fun blend of “emotionally available” and “slightly unhinged but hireable.”
Until then, I’ll be here at the motel, unclogging something, rethinking my tone, and trying to remember how to sound like a person again.
