I’ve had a number of job interviews during my lifetime.

Some of them are pretty straightforward, needing only to establish simple, straightforward information like, “Can you mow our lawn?” or “You’ve sold shoes before?”

Others were more typical, involving dressing up, doing my best to say all the right things and passing a current events quiz (non-journalism people definitely miss out on that fun…seriously).

But there’s one that definitely sticks out as memorable.  It happened on a bench.  Next to a carousel.  On the National Mall:

This was an interesting conversation for several reasons.  Obviously being next to a carousel was different, but imagine it actually running and a horde of little kids gathered around.  On the other end of the line, my then-future, now-former boss was driving after picking up her son from daycare.  He chimed in at times.  I felt like he and I had a good rapport.

For the record, I don’t remember knowing exactly when this call was coming, and happened to be checking out some museums when it did.

In the end it went well, establishing either that it’s easy to sell yourself when you’re sitting next to a colorful, spinning disk of pure joy or that Jacksonville, Fla., is a really kooky place.