Not worth the trouble

Last week I received an e'mail and telephone call from a community college in Florida to which I had mailed a resume some time ago. They wanted to interview me. However, there were some special conditions. They wanted to do a video interview.

Okay by me. Then they mentioned that the nearest videoconferencing location they could arrange was in Grand Rapids, over two hours' drive away. And the only time they were able or willing to do the interview was at 1:00 p.m. on a Wednesday.

Since I was unwilling to use up a nonexistent vacation day to go driving across the state to sit in a Kinko's copyshop and be interrogated by a rented videocamera, I demurred. We can't do a telephone interview, they said. The video interview is mandatory. Too bad, said I.

This couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I declined to fill out their "voluntary" racial-identification form, could it? Oh well. I never really wanted to live in the Florida swamps anyway.