Jul 15, 2007 15:19
It was John’s 20th interview. To him it felt like the 1000th. But either way he knew that he was not going to get this job. All the preceding interviews lead to a phone call, “Thanks for interviewing, however, we hired from the inside.” He had come to disappointment very easily. He thought how insufferable his suffering had become because of the lack of employment. Not saying that he wasn’t unemployed but that his current occupation was not that of a man who spent more than four years completing his degree only to be told that he was not going to be hired for the position that he had interviewed for at all of his future employers.
For this interview he didn’t even bother to ware business attire. For this one he decided to wear an old pair of blue jeans, a white Haines T-Shirt and a baseball cap. He completed the ensemble with a pair of old work boots. The same work boots that he currently wears to the job site day in and day out. He really thought there he was stuck building houses with uneducated rednecks and illegal’s. It was one more interview that wasn’t going to yield any profit.
The interview room was a boardroom fit for a small army of suits who, sit and discuss nothing that is relevant to anything for big business. The table was of mahogany, the chairs English leather and the carpet some industrial strength check pattern that gives headaches rather than comfort on feet.
The HR girl, Mrs. Wright, with her retro glasses and gray pant suit was waiting for him outside the conference room. “Johnny?” she said, thinking to herself that this cannot be him with her initial glance and once over.
“Yes. I’m John.” He said with a smile.
“Well, welcome to Hughes Brothers.” She said shaking his hand, hoping that she was not picking up some virus from this mannerly act.
“You do realize this IS your interview?” she said thinking maybe he was under the impression of a meet and greet.
“Why yes I do.” He said with another smile.
He looked himself over and said, “OH, yeah, my attire,” he said with a chuckle, “this is my 20th interview and I figured since you guys are going to call me in a few days and tell me that you are hiring from the inside, why should I go through the trouble of dressing for a interview for a job that I am probably not going to get,” again ending his philosophy with a smile.
She gave him a once over again at the end of his speech. She even pulled her eyeglasses down her nose and glared. “Well, even you aren’t offered the job, you could have at least worn a clean T-Shirt.” She too gave a quick smile at the end of her manners lesson.
“I’m afraid that this shirt is clean. You see, since I have not been hired for a job, I am broke and have to wash me cloths down on a river bank with a smooth rock.” Again he smiled.
“I see.” She said not amused with his antidotes.
They sat a moment and she looked over his resume. “I’m sorry; I didn’t offer you a drink. Would you like a coffee, water, or soda?”
“No thank you, I brought my own.” He pulls out a can of PBR.
“You know that you are pushing the limits with this interview, and it even hasn’t begun.”
“I figured,” he said, “if you are going to waste my time, then I should waste your time.” Again, he smiled.
She went back to her documents and began to explain what the job entailed. John listened a little but recognized the literature from the website.
“Did you write that?” he asked politely.
“Yes I did.” She said.
“I read it on the website. I actually memorized it because this is a job that I have much interest.” He said with a completely serious look that dressed on his face.
“I see.” The HR girl said.
She then pulled out a questionnaire with 10 questions. She explained that these were questions that she found were helpful in the hiring process. “Welp, lets hear them then and I am sure that I will answer them to the best of my ability.”
At the completion of this mundane round of questioning, she said, “I do have to say that those are excellent answers. I don’t believe that I have ever had a candidate answer them the way that you have.”
“Thank you Mrs. Wright, I have had a little practice with interviewing.” He flashed his smile once again.
“And it seems that you have.” she paused, then continued, “I have a few more interviews today and I will make a decision by the end of the week. I will let you know as soon as possible.”
“This part,” he said, “is the part that gives me a headache.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“The waiting game,” he said, “I waited more than a month to hear back from a company once, needless to say, I passed up an opportunity to move to Europe for two months to work for a friend because I just knew that the phone call would come. After waiting for a month and a half to hear back, I had to call them. They had filled the position two weeks after my interview.” A look of frustration came to light on his tan face.
“That’s a shame.” She said actually showing a hint of emotion under her frozen tundra skin.
“I assure you that you will get a phone from me personally.”
“Thank you.” He said shaking her hand in front of all the other collegian young men dressed in suits and business attire.
He darted down the hall and heard, “I bit he didn’t get the job.” One applicant said to another.
The other applicant said, “Yeah, did you get a load of his boots? Jeez.”…
… the days waned into a long drawn out construction project. Day after day he waited by his Nextel for a phone call from Mrs. Wright. It came but not on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but Friday.
“John, this is Mrs. Wright with Hughes Brothers.”
“Yes.” He said.
“I want to thank you again for interviewing with us.”
“Thank you for having me in for an interview.” A little grin came to the sides of his moist lips.
“I’m afraid however to tell you this…”
“You are hiring from the inside...” he paused, “I understand.”
“No actually, John. I wanted to hire you, you were my first choice. But we are closing our doors because we are completely bankrupt. YOU are the only interviewee that I wanted to call. We just got the news this morning. Today is the last day… I too am looking for a job.”
“Sorry to hear that Mrs. Wright,” he said with complacency.
“We all were.”
“Welp, good luck to you and I hope you find something.” He said with a smile.
“You too,” she said with more emotion than ever.
John went back to nailing and thought that he didn’t really have a bad job after all. At least he has a job and that makes all the difference in the world. He finished his project for the day and drove home to find a industry to occupy his time until Monday morning. How life has a sweetness that’s bitter to those who believe they are forever secure in the monotonous life that one leads.
short story