you don't strike up conversations in emotional wastelands

did a radio interview recently for 3zzz, my first for a long time now.

What I like about playing an interviewer on radio is the expectation to make the interview exciting.

You feel it, the interviewee feels it, so you both work under this great pressure of making the chat interesting for all the listeners out there.

Even the nervous guests, i find, fight hard against their nervousness to present attractive titbits of themselves because they willfully buy into the idea of the exciting interview.

Now let's move away from the studios and into a plain undecorated meeting room, which suspiciously feels like it could also be used to interrogate suspects. There's a bookcase without any books in the room, and just enough space to push the chair back so you can stand up.

And the interview begins.
It's clinical and precise, what is this, who, where; and never lingers enough on a subject for you to probe what your interlocutor feels about it. No, you get shot down, and next item on the list.

The tricks you use in the studio:eye contact, mirroring, affirming, which could scrape some emotion from the dullest of subjects, does not stand a chance here. Your advances are
crushed like a can in middle of a busy highway of disapproving looks.

So no, don't crack funny anecdotes in front of potential employers