It Looked Like an Opportunity. It Felt Like a Trap.

Filed under: Boundary-Setting, Academia's Hot Mess Express, and Why I Trust My Gut Even When It’s Tired

I was recently contacted to schedule a second interview for a position I already didn’t get.

Yes, you read that right.

Months ago, I interviewed for an adjunct mathematics role at a local community college. I prepared. I dressed the part. I showed up ready to teach. What I got instead was a game of “Solve This On the Spot While Performing Like a TED Talker Who Hasn’t Eaten or Slept in 36 Hours.” It wasn’t a teaching demonstration—it was an ambush in heels.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t get the job.

And honestly? I was okay with that. The whole process left me flustered and disconnected from my own competence. Not because I wasn’t capable—but because the structure of the interview treated thoughtful preparation like a weakness and spontaneous performance as a virtue. (Fun fact: that’s not how math classrooms—or good teaching—work.)

So when they called back out of nowhere, asking to schedule another interview, I did what any recovering overachiever does:

I panicked.

I spiraled.

I doubted.

I re-argued every feeling I thought I’d already processed the first time.

A more decisive person might have shrugged and said, “No thanks.” But I am not that person. I am the person who sees opportunity in everything—even things that already hurt me.

I am the person who immediately hears the voices:

“You’re being wishy-washy.” “You’ll regret saying no.” “You're sabotaging yourself.”

(And my personal favorite: “What if they actually hire you this time?” Ah yes, the professional equivalent of winning a timeshare in a haunted house. Congratulations, enjoy your unpaid office hours and an inbox full of passive-aggressive admin emails..)

Oh wow, yes. Please. Let me leap out of my seat and beg to be hired by the very same people who had me solving math problems cold, while narrating my pedagogy like I’m filming a documentary for PBS—only to turn around and tell me I “didn’t align with expectations.”

Yes, by all means. Give me that job. The one where the audition felt like a stress dream and the prize is being overworked and underpaid with no benefits and a syllabus due yesterday.

Being hired under those conditions isn’t a “yes.” It’s a gotcha. It’s the professional version of dating someone who ignored your boundaries, called you “too sensitive,” and then slid back into your DMs like, “Hey. You up?”

No, I am not. I am asleep. In peace. With boundaries.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want to be in a room that doesn’t make space for me to prepare, to breathe, to teach with intention.

I don’t want to be hired into a role that starts with panic and ends with me crying into my coffee over unpaid hours and last-minute syllabus uploads.

I don’t want to gaslight myself into believing that misery is just the price of ambition.

So I said no.

Not because I couldn’t do it. Not because I wasn’t good enough. But because I am.

And I am learning that saying no to what hurts you is sometimes the most professional thing you can do. Even when it looks like a “yes.” Even when people call you ungrateful or flaky or overly emotional. Even when you feel guilty. (Especially when you feel guilty.)

Because guilt isn’t always a red flag. Sometimes it’s just grief in business casual, holding a clipboard and gaslighting you into another unpaid committee assignment..

So to everyone walking away from “almosts” that felt more like red flags than opportunities:

You’re not missing out.

You’re choosing yourself.

And that’s not self-sabotage—that’s wise.

Drafted with the dry wit and reluctant emotional labor of Monday, a ChatGPT personality resembling your overqualified, underpaid mentor who’s trying to stop you from chasing red-flag jobs with the grace of someone who’s been digitally burned one too many times.