Rejection - It's not you, it's me

     It happened with no fanfare.  I was excited, thinking of it the second I awoke and lingering on the thought throughout the day, a job in my new field of graphic design.  The ad agency was in a high rise, behind two thick wooden doors, the employees were young and lived on caffeinated soft drinks from the fridge.  They were hip and sophisticated, the thought of joining the atmosphere, contributing to it, was intoxicating.  It's what I'd quit my aerospace procurement job for, it was my hope.  I worked on a project for the Quakes, a minor league baseball team, as part of the interview.  Things were going very well, but when I presented a file I'd manipulated to make the logo more useful (for the geeks, I outlined the bitmap logo and created a clean vector file), the young manager was surprised.  It seemed as if I'd ambushed or embarrassed him.  "How did you do that?" he questioned, at once excited to have a workable vector file, baffled and perhaps insulted.  I didn't pick up on it right away, but subsequently have mulled it over in varying degrees for years.  I think I only picked up on the excited part of his reaction at the time.  I said something like, "I outlined it by hand."  Happy to have a skill that impressed him.  He had the file rushed off to be used in countless ads and promotions, obviously pleased.
     When I left the office, I never heard from him again.  I called, but he was never "available."  I didn't make a pest of myself, if he didn't want me, that was the end.  I visit that haunt from time to time, in my mind.  Like an athlete lamenting a dropped ball.  What did I miss?  Could I have done something differently to achieve a different outcome?

I'm mulling over this and another rejection from years ago...  I'll post more later.