A Job Interview Goes Awry

    I arrived promptly at the Anonymous Consumers office at eight forty-two in the morning, over a whole quarter of an hour earlier than I needed to be. I was sure that the dedication and interest demonstrated by my early arrival was sure to be noticed. However, stepping from the bright sunny morning into the buildings’ dim interior, my arrival failed to generate any noticeable enthusiasm.

    I stood by the entrance and surveyed the room. Anonymous Consumers was dominated by one large room. The walls were covered in pale green bathtub tiles. In each corner was a private office, with windows that looked inwards but none to look outside. A gorgeous and bored looking woman sat at a desk at the far side of the room. She seemed to have cultivated every aspect of her appearance to resemble Xenia Onatopp as much as possible. In the center, nine assorted persons sat around two long cafeteria style tables. No one seemed to notice me.

    I assumed that Xenia was the probably the person I needed to speak to. Low classical music emanated from the radio on her desk, and I detected the clinging odour of marijuana as I approached. She briefly looked up from her High Times magazine and, with an indeterminate eastern European accent,  asked if I was there for an interview. I said I was and, with her thumb, she directed me towards the assortment of others.

    I took a place among the others. I didn’t like them. Every one of them had upstaged  my early arrival. Of course they had. They were mostly old people. Getting up early is what they do, and they do it well. You can’t beat them at their own game.

    In addition to the elderly folk, there was a decidedly unimpressed native guy, a blonde girl engrossed in scratch and win tickets, and a weird looking, scrawny dude. With his oversized glasses and wrinkly lips, I mistook him for one of the ancient women at first. Us young folk spent the minutes in awkward silence while the old women whispered amongst themselves. The two old men sat apart from the old ladies, and silently cast disapproving glares on their gossiping.

    Finally, the sound of a toilet flushing echoed through the room and the bathroom door started to open. From behind it stepped a familiar figure. All the old ladies gasped, the Indian raised his eyebrows slightly, and the weird dude’s eyes seemed ready to pop out of his head. Only the girl didn’t react at all, but that might have only been because she hadn’t looked up yet. All the rest of us, it seemed, had met this man before. I had met him just one day previous. He‘d come to my house to use my phone.

    His pink eyes locked with each of ours in turn. In no way did he give any indication that he recognized any of us.

    “Good morning, everyone.” he said. “You can call me ‘Mr. Books‘.”

    “Hey, what the hell.” said the blonde, now looking up at the albino. “You were in my house.”

    “That’s right. I was in your house. I was in all your houses.”

    The native man glared intently as he said “You ate my last chicken pot pie.”

    “And, if I recall correctly, I thanked you for your generosity, Marvin, and now I do so again.” said Mr. Books.
   
    “I didn’t give it to you, you just took it!”

    “What’s in the past is in the past. Let us now look to the future. An employed future!” Books said, gesturing dramatically to the sky.

    “I just want to say that I think I deserve this job more than anyone else, because I really need it.” said the blonde.

    “Well, I have good news for you, Andrea. You’ve got the job. You’ve all got the job. There is no interviewing to be done here today. I’ve already interviewed each of you.”

    “In our homes.” I said, and Books nodded sagely.

    “Correct! I went mystery shopping for employees. It’s what I do, and now, it’s what you do, too. Welcome aboard!”

    The old ladies chattered wildly. The old men turned to regard each other. Andrea clapped and squealed. The weird guy remained still. I couldn’t tell if he even understood anything that had transpired.

    My mind was racing. Everything had happened so fast. I had a job now and with it, a chapter of my life had just closed without any warning. I felt a twinge of sadness that I hadn’t had the chance to bid farewell to the old me, and now it was too late. He was gone, forever. Already I could hardly remember what it was like to have been him.

    At the same time, it felt good to be this new me. Employed! Can you imagine? I envisioned myself doing work. Mystery shopping, I guess. These visions were pretty indistinct and fleeting, actually, because I really didn’t have much idea of what I’d actually be doing. Not that it mattered. I’d been looking for anything, and what I found fell well within that criteria.

    “This is bullshit.” said Marvin. He had returned to his unimpressed demeanour.

    “Marvin, please. There are ladies present.” said Mr. Books with a dark scowl.

    “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” Andrea replied. If she hadn’t been looking at her lotto tickets again, she might have realised, by the horrified expressions on the old women’ faces, that she wasn’t the one being defended. But Marvin wasn’t about to be silenced.

    “This is some kind of crazy fucked up operation you got going on here if this is how you run things. Does the Better Business Bureau know about you guys? Or the police? Because there’s something not right here. It’s like one of those shady operations that are actually just scams to make a lot of money to fund a crazy fucked up party, and then they close up shop and disappear over night.”

    Marvin let his gaze settle on each and every one of us before he turned towards the door. But before he had even taken his first step, Mr. Books caught him by the arm.

    “Marvin. Let me tell you a story.” Books said.

    Then he did tell a story. A good one, too. I liked it. I won’t tell it to you, though. Not until the next time. My time here is up.