[wjrb]

Hey, my first "career" was also in theater!

Strong agreement. I can confirm for other readers that the day I realized this --- "Oh, rejection means nothing!" --- was a weird day. It takes a weight off.

And it is true across every other field. There are way more factors external to the "you" of the decision, and they're given more weight than the "you" of the decision. This is one of those cases where you only need to experience the "other side of the table" once for it to click.

Companies that are more humane in their hiring practices (even just actually send a rejection email vs. ghosting) deserve a bit of credit, because caring for the applicant is not a KPI.

[eszed]

Hey! Good to meet a fellow artist. I made it to 40 before I sold out. You?

One thing outsiders don't understand is that, for actors, auditioning IS the job. Getting cast, and working on a show, is a joy (some more than others, of course!), but the rest of your life is nothing, nothing but looking for work.

The were two things that made that "it's all cool" shift happen for me. The first is that once I'd been in the industry long enough I could pretty much guarantee that when I went in for an audition I'd see someone I knew, or at least with whom I had an immediate second-degree connection. Auditions stopped being a grind, or mainly about courting rejection - instead, they became an opportunity to hang out with some cool people for a while. I started looking forward to them!

The second was realizing that choosing and performing my audition pieces was the only time that I was in complete control. No one was telling me what to do or how to do it: I could make my own choices, and take whatever creative risks I wanted.

I think both of those approaches made me a much better auditionee than most. My batting average was a lot higher than most of my peers - even some that I thought were better actors.

I don't know how well those insights generalize. I've never (thank god!) had to do leet-code, but I'd hope that (though maybe only in a second screening?) taking a creative approach - if you can talk about it sensibly, and pivot if it doesn't ultimately work - would impress fellow engineers. I strongly believe that adopting a "what can I learn from this experience, and these people?" mindset is a good way to reduce the pressure you'd otherwise put on yourself.

[latexr]

> I made it to 40 before I sold out.

Do you mean you sold out in the arts or in the sense that you changed careers? If the former, I’d be curious to hear (well, read) the story since that’s not an admission one typically encounters.