Obligatory this was years ago, but the state of the union address the other day reminded me (you’ll see why).

So, back then I’m a 21 year old college senior desperate to have a first job lined up, and I’m a bio major but thinking that public policy might be the career for me. So I find this organization that trains and directs environmental organizers, yknow, people who plan and run the movements that push government and industry to go green. It would have been the start of a very public career with a lot of public speaking. So I, with my research biology background, send in an application thinking maybe it’ll be my first step into a political career.

Fast forward a few weeks and I’ve had a bunch of rejections from similar roles, so I get extremely excited when I see a congratulations email in my inbox. It’s an interview offer! In person, whole-day group interview in Chicago with a bunch of other “promising future organizers”. I instantly accept and start making my plans.

In my haste, I do not notice there is an entire half of the email below the margins of my screen. If only my scientific education had taught me how to scroll down.

On the day of the interview, I instantly get my first clue that I missed something: everyone but me is wearing a suit. I have shown up in my usual interview attire that I call “field ecologist fancy”, a dashing combo of the one flannel that fits me perfectly and my one pair of jeans with no mud on them. Everyone else, full-on suit.

So the leaders of the interview tell us about what’s going to happen, and it’s a whole day of activities: we’ll be doing some street canvassing, some mock fundraising calls, some practice event planning and……what was that? Delivering our…prepared speeches?

Had I only scrolled down.

Turns out I had not seen a part of the offer at the bottom of the email where, in addition to it saying there was a dress code of “business attire”, it also said to prepare a 10 minute speech on an environmental issue of my choice.

So I’m understandably nervous, but hey, I’m a problem solver. So I decide during the practice event planning to run to the bathroom and quick grab my laptop and write the speech on the toilet. I figure the worst that’ll happen is they’ll think I had to take a poorly timed monster dump.

So I start to quickly put together a speech about endangered species protections and honestly it’s going alright for the situation, but in my haste and inexperience with speech writing I throw in a terrible opener. I think to myself, “what things do professional speech makers open with?” and come up with the classic, “my fellow Americans…” I know, I’m not happy with it as an opener, but the rest of the speech is actually pretty decent under the circumstances, like solid B-. So I have a speech and some hope that it’ll go over fine. But what I don’t have is any time to practice.

The problem is, I know how to give a speech better than I know how to write one. Or I guess, better than I know how to scroll down on an email. I know that you can’t go up to the podium and just read off your paper, you glance down at your paper every once in a while to remind yourself what you wrote, then you look up at the audience as you deliver it.

So up I go to that podium, underdressed for the occasion and just having returned from a half hour bathroom break, and begin. “My fellow Americans, I’m here today to talk to you about one of the most fragile pieces of our biosphere…”

I go on for about a minute, but then I don’t remember what’s next. Glancing down, I haven’t practiced enough to immediately remember the next line. So, in the time it takes me to read the next line, my mouth fills the silence with what it had on hand: “my fellow Americans, this issue…”

A minute later and it happens again. Need a second to remind myself of the next phrase, and my brain can think of no space fillers other than “my fellow Americans”.

Over and over this happens. I watch the faces of these 21 year olds in suits as they have to stifle smiles as I address “my fellow Americans” for the fourth, no, fifth time. The guy running this portion of the interview is stone faced as I tell my fellow Americans about the dangers of small wildlife populations. Reminding them for the eighth time that they are my fellow Americans, I go into my hastily remembered statistics. Like Obama at the state of the union I bring everyone together for the ninth time, telling my fellow Americans about the success of the endangered species act. The other interviewees are either beet red with second hand embarrassment or stifling laughter. I finish off strong: “my fellow Americans, this issue cannot be ignored”.

I said "my fellow Americans" a total of ten times in a six minute speech. Ten times. I looked no one in the eye the rest of the day. Weeks later a rejection letter will arrive that I did not need to wait for. Needless to say I have not pursued a public speaking career.

My fellow Americans, scroll to the bottom of the email.

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TL;DR: I got an interview offer for a public speaking job, but didn't scroll to the bottom of the email to see that they required me to write a prepared speech. On the day, I hastily wrote a speech, but with no time to practice, every time I got flustered all I could think to fill the silence with was "my fellow Americans"