My First Job Interview

Vahe H. Apelian

Robert Glockler and I in Orlando, Florida 

My first job interview in America remains the more memorable among the many first-time experiences I had in the New World, after I landed in the J.F. Kennedy Airport on July 9, 1976, as another immigrant. The Bicentennial Celebration had barely ended. 

The interview was with the American Cynamid Corporation, which has long folded away. According to Wikipedia it was a leading American conglomerate that became one of the nation's top 100 manufacturing companies during the 1970s. Apprehensive as I was to be punctual and yet not too early, I lingered around the building and presented myself to the receptionist just few minutes before the appointment time. I was asked to wait, but the wait was getting longer than I thought it would. An ominous sign I thought to myself. Who, I wandered, would take genuine interest, and offer a job to a newcomer like me who is not a local graduate and has no local work experience? Let alone to the fact that I had no experience in the field I wanted to make a career – pharmaceutics – other than relevant education.

I was immersed in my thoughts when a very distinguished looking gentleman stepped out and met me. He apologized for the delay and escorted me to his office and had me seated on a chair across his desk. He then welcomed me in Arabic to my total surprise. I asked him how is that he has learned Arabic. Adding further excitement to my initial surprise, he told me that he was born and raised in Lebanon and that his father was a longstanding employee of the American University of Beirut (AUB), my alma mater.  We started chatting about Lebanon and AUB to break ice, but I remained distracted at the sight of his nameplate on his desk facing me. It spelled his name, Robert Glockler. The last name appeared very familiar to me, even though it is not a common name one would ordinarily encounter. Looking back, I wander if my natural inclination to wander off had not become all too evident by my distraction to my detriment.

Let me deviate from the interview in the next paragraph.

My late maternal uncle Dr. Antranig Chalabian had collaborated with Dr. Stanley Kerr’s in the publication of his book titled “The Lions of Marash”. The Kerrs resided in Trenton, NJ. It turned out they socialized with the Glocklers. Henry Wilfrid Glockler was an employee of the American University of Beirut and was deported at the onset of the World War I into the interior of the Ottoman Empire because he was a British subject and Great Britain had declared war against Turkey. He thus had become an eyewitness to the atrocities committed against the Armenian subjects of the Empire. He had his eyewitness accounts penned down. The manuscript that was written in 1918 had remained dormant in Henry W. Glockler’s archives. Upon the recommendation of Dr. Stanley Kerr, he had sent his manuscript to Antranig Chalabian who had it edited, found sponsors, and had the memoirs published as a book.

Having made a connection to the name on the nameplate I was facing, I digressed from the conversation and in the spur of the moment blurted out if he was, by any chance, related to Henry Glockler. From the looks of his face, it became apparent that he was caught by surprise. He told me that Henry was his father and wondered how was it that I had heard of his name. Without going into the details, not mentioning that I had accompanied my uncle to the printer’s shop, nor did I mention that I had read the book, I said instead that Antranig Chelebian is my uncle. He responded something to the effect that it was a small world indeed and that he had heard so much about him from his father.

“Interned in Turkey 1914-1918” by Henry Wilfrid Glockler was published in 1969 by Simon Simonian’s Sevan Press in Beirut. It is 154 pages long. The book is “Dedicated To the thousands of innocent Armenian men, women and children of Ourfa, Turkey, who perished amid the horrors of the infamous [Armenian] genocide of 1915-18.”

My interview with Robert Glockler took a new turn. The formalities for the job interview gave way to a new discovered familiarity. He invited me for lunch at the company’s cafeteria and I stayed with him in his office long after that.

Not too long after my interview, I got an invitation to the company’s research facility in Princeton, NJ. When I presented myself there, I found out that all the department heads were lined up to interview me for a job opening commensurate with my education and the level of experience I had. I am sure that Robert Glockler had made that possible for me. I do not know how my interview went. Almost right after the interview I noted to the company that I received a job offer from the Schering-Plough Corporation, that ceased to exist as well. This time around it was thanks to Henry Apelian, a relative, who was the director at the company’s international division. He had recommended and presented me for an interview. I was offered a job that set me in my career path.

My first job interview in America became a source of comfort for me. My immediate and extended family members were still in Lebanon. I was away from home and by myself, but I felt that I was not all alone.

Decades passed and my career during the following more than three decades spanned in pharmaceutical companies. 

In January 2013, I had an article posted in Keghart.com regarding my first job interview. I had titled the article “Memorable Interview’. A few months after the posting of the article, I received an email. At first glance it did not dawn on me as who could the sender be. The name  did not seem familiar. Reading the email, I was stunned to find out that it was from the very person with whom I had my first interview. The sender of the email was Robert Glocker. In the email, he had noted to me that friends had brought the article to the attention of his brother. His brother in turn had sent him the link. After reading the article he had tracked down my email and contacted me letting me know that he was very pleased to read my article.  

Having thus connected, we continued corresponding with each other. I found out that he had retired and moved to Florida with his wife. 

One thing led to another and in December 2014, we met in Orlando, where we had gone for an end of the year family vacation. It was Robert who drove to meet me. Our paths had crossed once and that was thirty-eight years ago. But we acted as if we were old friends who met with each other to catch up on things that had transpired in their lives during the past many and many years. I thus ended up spending a memorable day with Robert as old friends would.