Reality TV: since when did passion have anything to do with deserving a job?

Unless something goes horribly wrong with my financial arrangements (and that’s obviously a very big “unless” these days) I will never have to face another job interview. Bliss!

Because, if television is anything to go by, I would have to bang on about how extraordinarily passionate I was about whatever the job entailed, or tell the interviewer that I deserved theposition solely on the grounds that Ireally, really wanted it. I just couldn’t do any of that. Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to interviews I’ve never had any qualms about pointing out how stupendously well-qualified I am. But I’m not sure blazing passion and overwhelming desire are necessarily that desirable in a candidate.

In all the job interviews I’ve conducted I’m pretty certain I have never asked anyone if they were passionate about, say, political programming or web design or interactive TV. Or asked them to convince me that they’ll commit suicide if they don’t get the post. An expression of interest backed by solid experience and a modicum of charm were generally sufficient to earn the candidate serious consideration: I like to work with efficent but balanced people, me.

But that doesn’t wash on programmes like Masterchef or The Apprentice.

“So tell me,” Greg the Baldie Greengrocer will shout at a contestant as they try to drizzle jus artistically over a plate where 83 ingredients have already been arranged to resemble a  particularly over-the-top Ascot hat, “just how passionate are you about cooking?” The reply is invariably that it’s the most important thing in their lives – in fact they wake up thinking about food and go to bed thinking about it  having spent the intervening hours obsessing about it. Greg then smiles goofily and nods his head in approval.

I long for one off two things to happen after Greg  asks the “passion” question. First, wouldn’t it be wonderful if, just once, a contestant said, “Well, Greg, I’m obviously quite keen on cooking, or I wouldn’t be here, and I think I could be an outstanding chef, given the chance, and I’m a hard worker. But, you know, there are more important things in my life: family, friends, poetry, art, stamp collecting, making music, religion, watching sport – all of these matter as much, if not more, than whether the veal cutlet I’m cooking is slightly overdone, or whether plum vinegar complements a tarragon sauce.”

I can imagine Greg grabbing them by the throat and shouting, “Out now, you passionless tosser!”, pausing only long enough to stuff his face with whatever the contestant has just cooked.

Or, when the contestant delivers the standard “it means more to me than life itself” response, what if Greg were to slap them across the face and bellow “You sick, sad, pathetic obsessive bastard! – aren’t there enough emotionally and culturally inadequate chefs in this country already? It’s only grub, mate!”

As for The Apprentice, when “Lord” Sugar asks “why shouldn’t I fire you?” wouldn’t it be great if the contestant were to reply, “Actually, come to think of it, I’d rather clean toilets for a living than work for someone as charmless and leadenly unfunny as you. Besides, you were a friend of Gordon Brown’s. How sad is that?”

Or, if the tycoon receives the standard “because I’d kill my first-born for the opportunity to have my spirit crushed by someone as deeply repellent as yourself”, wouldn’t it be wonderful if “Lord” (I assume it’s a nickname rather than a title) were to shudder and say, “Know what – I’m not going to fire you because you so spectacularly cocked up the task I gave you, but because you seem to be labouring under the delusion that wanting something badly enough means you should have it”.

Well, I can dream.

Talent, experience, discipline, commitment, resilience, emotional intelligence and clear-headedness qualify people for most jobs: wanting to be good at something isn’t the same as being good at something, and  as long as people don’t positively hate their work, they can save their passion for leisure pursuits and significant others. 

I wonder if this modern obsession with how we feel rather than what we do explains why our state schools are so expensively ineffective.