Humor: A blast of Monty Python at my job interview

A blast of Monty Python at my job interview

Next time I go for a job interview, I plan to take along my sousaphone.

Well I could not do any worse than the interview I went to the other day, where I serenaded the selection panel with the Monty Python Flying Circus theme, could I?

It was a serious interview for a serious job at the University of Canberra and I was in the middle of seriously answering a serious question when the mobile phone in my pocket began to ring.

Oops. Oh dear. I forgot to turn it off before going in.

I know this is terribly bad form.

In my defence, however, I must say I ALWAYS turn my phone off before boarding planes, visiting hospitals and going into plays and movies. And I have not accidentally burnt down any petrol stations.

In my further defence I have to say it very rarely rings anyway. I have embraced mobile phone (cell phones to Americans) technology only because it is very convenient. I like to stay in touch in case the lottery office should ever decide to call and tell me that I have just become a millionaire. Or perhaps it might come in handy during a job interview one day when I am asked a tricky question and am permitted one phone call to ask a friend for advice.

I remember a time, not many years ago, when the average mobile phone was the size of the average house building brick.
Now you can get mobile phones that fit into the palm of your hand.
Mine is a bit older and a bit bigger but it does fit nicely into the left-hand pocket of my trousers - well, much better than the old house brick did anyway.

The ring tone on my phone is the music made famous as the theme music for Monty Python's Flying Circus TV show. Yep, the wacky much-less-than-serious comedy group which featured John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. And dead parrots, ministers of Funny Walks and wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.

"What was THAT?" I half-expected the chairman of the panel of three to ask in amazement the other day. "Come on, what was that? Own up. It was the theme music from Monty Python's Flying Circus, wasn't it? You do know, don't you, that this is a serious interview?"

"Um, yes," I'd say, cowering. "But I can explain. Honestly."

Yeah right. There is a law that my brain switches off at all interviews and it is only an hour or so later I think of all the clever answers I should have given to difficult questions.

But if I ever forget to switch my mobile phone off for an interview again, and it rings again, I'd say:

"Monty Python? Oh, no. Well, um, yes. But it was originally John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell march."

Goodness, I could fill in a bit of the interview time speaking about on Sousa (1854-1932), an American marching band conductor and composer who wrote more than 100 marches, including The Liberty Bell.

He also wrote 10 operas, a number of musical suites, three novels and a full length autobiography as well as a great number of articles and letters-to-the-editor on a variety of subjects. He was also a good trapshooter and a champion horseman.

"That so?" the chairman of the panel would say. "But how is that, um, relevant to your prospective employment here?"

"Multi-skilling, sir," I'd say.

"Pardon?"

"Multi-skilling. John Philip Sousa is also credited with inventing the sousaphone in 1898 and you never know when you'll need an employee to play one."

Again I would speak with authority. The sousaphone, a variant of the traditional tuba which was designed for concert orchestra, was adapted for marching bands.
In 1908 the bell of the sousaphone was altered to face directly forward and that design is the sousaphone still in use today.

"Remarkable," I would expect the chairman to say. "And you know how to play one of these instruments?"

"No, but I used to play a mean version of The Good Old Duke of York in very B flat on a recorder in grade seven. How much harder could this be?"

For the record, the person who called during the interview was not from the lottery office.

Shame about that.

I have a feeling I will not get the job and am going to need an employment alternative.

C'est la vie. I read the other day that Albert Einstein once applied for a position as a high school science teacher and was rejected too. So I cannot feel too hard done by.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it