Except for the poverty, unemployment is great. You can get up late, watch crappy TV all day, and grocery shop when the lines aren’t aggravatingly long.
Well, it was great for about the first two months anyway. Then I started to notice that my brain was kind of rotting away. I was having trouble formulating sentences. I realized my world had become too narrow when I started stressing about emptying the dishwasher. It was the only thing I had to get done on a regular basis. To feel more secure, I would create a priority list: 1) empty dishwasher… 2) write tomorrow’s priority list.
Really I decided to start looking for a job so I’d have somebody to talk to, but I should have thought things through a little better. Interviewing is certainly not a medium for fascinating conversation or, for that matter, honesty. I am stretching the truth about my background or lack thereof while they are conveniently leaving out the downsides of the job, such as 26-hour work shifts and fluorescent lighting that has been known to cause severe facial ticks in 40% of their employees.
My most recent interview was conducted by a man who should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Stick Up the Ass. This guy made it look like it hurt to be happy. He didn’t laugh at any of my jokes – I mean, let’s face it, you’d have to be dead not to laugh at my jokes - and he was asking seriously stupid questions. Like, “Do you consider yourself an ethical person?” An ethical person would answer yes; an unethical person, due to a lack of ethics, would also answer yes. I mean… duh.
My favorite question is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” There is no good way to answer this. “I want to be the president,” is no good because that gives them the impression that you will not be happy to be a lackey for the next 10 years, which is what they secretly have planned for this position. “I want to do the same tedious crap I’ve always done,” is no good either, because then they will think you lack the initiative to do the really awful grunt work, which is what they secretly have planned for this position.
At least interviewing here is a little less complicated, albeit less interesting, than it was when I lived in New York City. Since I usually had a bit of a walk to and from subways, I wore my sneakers and carried my heels in my bag, just like you see in the movies. Then I would change my heels in the elevator. But no matter how fast I was, the elevator doors always opened up to reveal me leaning over, balanced on one foot, with one heel on and my dirty socks tucked under my armpits. Once when I performed this little ballet in a packed elevator, a good looking suit remarked, “You’d make a terrible Superman.”
Also, people in New York tend to forget certain interviewing laws and guidelines, which is to say, they didn’t know there were any. In one interview I asked if any of my five (yes five) interviewers had any more questions for me and one executive piped up, “Have you ever been a man?” I think he was trying to be funny. The others at least had the decency to look horrified. They offered me the job, probably because they were afraid I’d sue them if they didn’t.
While this second type of interview could in fact land you in court, it does seem to me that employee turnover would be significantly reduced if we could ask the questions we really wanted to in job interviews. Like, “Do you foresee having any problems working for a manic-depressive alcoholic?” Or, “Are you against kissing your boss’s ass in order to get promoted?” And in return I could ask, “Are the rest of the employees here as dull as you?” or “Do company benefits include Krispy Kremes in the coffee room?”
I guess it’s a toss up. You can have interesting interviews with crazy law-breakers, or really boring by-the-book interviews that make you want to quit before you even get the job. In any case I doubt anybody who has read this article is going to be inviting me in for an interview any time soon.
But if you happen to be looking for a lazy smart ass who likes to talk about herself, isn’t shy about pointing out your shortcomings or those of the company, and doesn’t really like to work past 3 on Fridays, please let me know. Because there’s absolutely nothing to watch on TV and I’ve already emptied the dishwasher.
© 2004 Karen A. Bertiger
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