One of Us

May 11th, 1996 Posted in Anecdotes, Blog Posts, Essays, Rants

It is about 260 degrees, and I am walking west on St. Clair street in my nicest, blackest suit for a job interview with a powerful executive staffing firm. I say “nicest” suit because it IS my nicest suit, and I take the time to mention “blackest” because it’s a dark-toned suit and, at present temperatures, is pressure-cooking my body for that old-fashioned, “locked-in” bacon-hickory flavor. Within ten minutes, I will have reached the front offices of the executive staffing firm. Within eight, my juices will be savory, and my thigh meat will fall right off the bone.

It had seemed like a good idea to wear the suit initially. People, after all, like to put their best foot forward at a job interview. It was my nicest (blackest) suit. Therefore it seemed like the sensible choice. Upon further reflection, however, it occurs to me that “comfortable-looking man in short-sleeved shirt talking knowledgably about his skills” will probably get a job any day over “sweat-caked mess talking heat stroke-induced nonsense in a nice suit.”

Luckily, I am quickly herded into a sterile grey room. (Not lucky that the room was sterile. Lucky that they were running behind, giving me a few spare minutes to sit motionless and convince my body to stop perspiring the whole of its secretable fluids.)

At almost exactly the time when I’m wondering if I might be able to nip out for a quick smoke, a small, excessively exuberant woman named Nancy Wang enters the room and begins a stream-of-consciousness dialogue that doesn’t stop until the interview is over. As an interviewing technique, it is both jarring and odd. However, she’s in HR, so presumably she knows what she’s doing.

Nancy speaks for a good ten minutes about the company in a fractured form of English that sounds kind of like this: “Anda wen we alvass meecondurala with the mennadary ohna akkary tella banny wa, you know?” Then a hesitant pause and a look in my direction.

“Yes,” I respond confidently. This seems to do the trick. I’m met with a further stream of gibberish, which I can only assume spells success.

“An mebbee you cudda ask medo kessons, irike todo adis tosharakada tingsup!”

A quick mental pause to translate this. And maybe you could ask me the questions. I like to do this to shake things up! Or possibly: I like to do Chaka Khan, tits-up.

“Okay,” I say, wracking my brain to think up questions for a job I know nothing about. I’d been called up about the interview only a few days previous, with nothing to go on other than a stream of muddled gibberish on my answering machine and a phone number. Apparently, a person I worked with ages ago, named Emily, had recommended me. I hadn’t had any clear remembrances of Emily, other than she’d seemed to really like cats, was pleasantly nice in a bland way, weighed about 300 pounds, and cooked me occasional lasagnas that I thanked her for profusely before discarding at the speed of light. Beyond this, nothing. Since I have no concrete memories of the woman, it strikes me as odd why I’d be getting a glowing recommendation out of the blue from her. This becomes clearer later.

Unfortunately I’ve still, up until this point, only gotten the gibberish answering machine message and a phone number. I know nothing about the job. Compounding the problem is the incomprehensible Nancy Wang, who assumes I’m best friends with Emily and must have already talked with her about the position beforehand. Clearly there’s a communication error here. However, Nancy is adamant that we conduct the interview by having me ask HER questions about the job, presumably so that she can learn as little about my skills and work history as possible.

I decide not to start with “Is it bigger than a bread box?”

“So, uh,” I say. “Er, tell me a bit about yourself.” I’m intensely aware that somewhere along the line, this job interview has taken a turn for the surreal. I can only suspect her job bores her so much, Nancy does things like this as kind of a verbal way of jabbing your keys into your thigh or biting the inside or your mouth to stay awake. I’m just glad she hasn’t asked me to do any roleplaying. “Now, you’re the 16th Century Scottish Knight, and I’m Lady Isabelle! You ride up on your gallant steed and ask me about our benefit plan!”

The next half hour involves Nancy mangling the English language in increasingly inventive ways while I attempt to ask her crafty questions that will tell me what the job actually is without letting her know I don’t know what the job is. As I conduct the interview, I slowly glean some rather horrifying facts. Nancy’s answers are spotted with the words “family” and “team.”

In my experience, this is never a good sign. That means this is one of those jobs with an “open concept” seating plan, where everyone switches desks. This is one of those jobs where they pay you by your weekly performance, and have monthly reviews and everyone is single and hangs out with everybody else from work during their few spare free hours in between working. A job where the boss sits next to the mailroom guy and there aren’t any “set” work hours. In other words, this is one of those jobs where you never leave the building, eat sleep and breathe your office, and make insane amounts of money in exchange for all of your free time. In other other words, this is my private conception of Hell.

Nancy takes me on a tour of the building. It’s all trendy ‘open concept’ seating. “We all move around all the time,” she says (I’m translating here, of course). “No one has job titles. That’s where the boss sits.”

“What, in that conversation pit? He works on a beanbag chair?”

“Yes, Jeff wants you to feel you can come to him all the time. We’re all a big family here. Do you have anybody you’d like to recommend, by the way? Anyone at all?”

“Um, what?”

“We’re always looking for new people to add to the family.”

Good God. These people are the Amway of the corporate world.

I’m shuffled into a bright room with a lot of plants, happy inspirational paintings, wide open windows, and seven people sitting motionless working, not talking, not smiling.

“Everyone, this is Jay,” says Nancy.

Grunts.

“Hi,” I say, as I’m led back out of the room. Well, that was a frigid reception. Possibly no one likes Nancy. I don’t rule this out. Most people hate HR folk. Besides, I’ve only known Nancy for a half hour and I’m ready to choke the exuberant life out of her.

“And this is where I work,” she says, leading me into another beautifully decorated room with tasteful lighting, picture windows, low hanging plants, and a further nine motionless people feverishly working in silence.

“Here’s Emily,” she says, motioning Emily over. “I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”

“Jay!” says the woman who apparently is my old buddy Emily. She goes for a hug, notes the look of naked terror on my face, and segues gracefully into a handshake. “I bet Nancy’s been filling your head with all sorts of stuff, huh?”

“Yes, all sorts of words have been coming out of her mouth,” I agree.

“Jay, you’ll love working here. It’s so much better than Staff Co. We’re all like a big family here. I LOVE the people here.”

“Really? Are they all as… gosh-darned FUN as Nancy?”

“Isn’t she a RIOT?” Emily agrees, beaming. With a speed that belies her size, she grabs a picture off of her desk. “This should give you an idea of what we’re all about,” she says, thrusting a picture of a cat at me. “We all get to bring in a picture of our pet! Everyone has to do it!”

“Wow. That… sure is something.” It is then that I notice, no word of a lie, one of my co-workers from Staff Co. filling out forms in the other room. How many people did Emily call? What kind of outfit was this? Why the need to increase the brood with such fanaticism?

“And look at this!” she froths, grabbing another photo. “This is everybody in Barbados last year!”

You all went to Barbados together?”

“Yeah! I mean, we’ll all such a… a…”

“Family?”

“A FAMILY here, exactly. I mean, at Staff Co., it was 8:30 to 5:30. Here, I come in at 6:30, and don’t leave until NINE, and I don’t even notice! It’s like I’m home!”

Alarm bell. Alarm bell. Alarm bell.

“And last month, the boss of the company had us all over for an Austin Powers theme party!” She chuckles at the zaniness.

“To his `lair’!” She adds. More chuckling. Presumably more zaniness transpiring.

“And we all got to dress like Austin Powers!” she finishes, savoring what she clearly feels to be the trump card for the whole anecdote. Behind her, Nancy returns and nods her head in acknowledgement of the madcap tomfoolery that no doubt took place. Then both heads swivel around with alarming speed to get my reaction.

“Mmm,” I say, nodding. “That sounds…”

“…Perfectly horrifying,” I don’t say.

“…Borderline retarded,” I fail to add.

“…Like, um, fun,” I end up going with, trying my best at a broad smile that ends up looking forced and wan.

“I should be going,” I add.

“You’ll LOVE it here!” Nancy says, closing in. I look frantically for exits.

“You’ll be ONE of US!” says Emily.

“ONE of US!” says Nancy.

“ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US,” chant the grey-faced drones in their tasteful IKEA workstations.

“I look forward to it,” I lie, sprinting for the exit.