A graphical representation of my current situation

It went like this. A month or so ago, I was made aware of a new, to this country anyway, insurance company seeking a full-time investigator. I submitted an application online and two days later I received a call from Mindy (not her real name) from their Human Resources department. Seems they liked my application so much,they wanted to do a phone interview right there and then.

At the time I was having luch with a friend at a cafe but stepped outside. 45 minutes later I was feeling quite chuffed with myself and the way the interview had gone that I went and bought a homeless guy sitting in the cafe lunch.

I'm a generous guy!

Mindy had stated that they had aleady received overwhelming expressions of interest in the position, to which I replied "so why call me?"

Valid question, I thought.

Seems they liked the fact that as I am currently predominantly involved in insurance investigations, I could hit the ground running etc etc.

Anyway, Mindy told me that I should hear back within a week or so as to whether I made it onto the short list. And a week later I heard from Mindy stating just that. They were conducting interviews on 3rd and 4th of November and would like to invite me to attend.

Great!

One catch. Interviews were being conducted in Big City and they would not, unfortunately, be paying for my travel costs. It would have to be on my own dime.

????

Pretty sure that the general ettiquette when invited to interview for a specialised position out-of-town, is that it is the potential employer who covers the costs. When I last had a similar opportunity, a very long time ago, not only did they arrange my flights but also collected me from, and returned me to, the airport. 

"If you can't make it up to Big City," Mindy cooed, "we can always do an interview by Skype."

Yeah, like declining to attend an interview in person for a $100,000pa salary package position isn't going to hurt my chances...

No worries, I told her. I'll be there.

And then I realised I was going to be in Capital City on that date. Had already made the travel arrangements. So now had to curtail my other plans and booked additional flights to and from Big City on the 3rd giving me about 5 hours to get to the interview and back.

I let Mindy know and she was super-excited that I would be coming up.

Anyway, I attended the interview and it went fine, I guess. Yep, that was it. Fine. Certainly did not walk away feeling that I was a shoo-in for the position, even though I knew I could certainly do the work without any issues whatsoever.

What I didn't like was that the 'short list' of candidates was six.

Six?

Now I'm not suggesting that a large multi-national company has any moral obligation when it comes to interviewing but when asking someone to travel up the length of the country, not to mention changing already established plans in another city altogether - and all on his own dime - maybe it would be just good manners to let said person know that there are going to be a number of other applicants considered.

If I had known that I was going to be competing with five other contenders, not the usually accepted short-listed quota of two, I might have reconsidered the whole trip up and opted for the Skype interview instead.

Particularly since the whole exercise was costing me more than a whole month's supply of groceries and tasty foodstuffs.

Well, it's pretty obvious that I didn't actually get the position.

Adding to the injury is the insult of being out of pocket in the bargain.

Kind of like a kick to the balls.