The Interview

Before I left for my interview yesterday, I consulted my personal Chinese torture expert. He looks a lot like Dr. Zhang Lee, the Taiwanese torturer in the first season of the series Alias, if you know what I mean. He handed me the only pair of shoes in my closet that would be appropriate for the day, a pair of heels that had not ever experienced the extra twenty pounds I've been "blessed" with. He also forced me to wear my contact lenses. I've been trying to get used to wearing them again, but they are not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, and I have to wear granny glasses to see anything close up.

I drove to my destination, and finally found a parking spot after nervously negotiating numerous one-way streets named like men. I knew the building I needed to go to, just there on the corner. Big iron gates surrounded a plaza I would have to cross to reach the front door, walking on these things they call shoes but which felt like vise grips crunching the bones in the balls of my feet. I walked up to the first gate I saw, and realized that to enter here, you must have a key. I tried again, with the same result. Finally I found a gate that had a doorknob, opened it, and found myself inside a peaceful concrete and aggregate plaza.

I pretended I was Michelle Dessler from the 24 series. My hair was fashioned like hers, my suit was similar to the one she wore in Season 4 (though a bit larger), and I could listen through my imaginary earpiece to get instructions from CTU headquarters. They told me to proceed to the 3rd floor, they would watch my back. I was sure there was a sniper on the roof.

The lobby of the company was decorated in ultra-modern... for 1999. Large carpet squares with wiggly vertical lines formed tile patterns. alternating with squares of wiggly horizontal lines, green on cream. The curved reception desk was fronted with stainless steel and topped with green glass. Two very low chairs were covered with what looked like purple bubbles on cream fabric, while a bench covered one wall. Padded circles were placed strategically above the bench to form backrests and striped fabric in green, gold and burgundy covered the bench. A counter against another wall held two computer stations; two barstools provided seating for what I presumed would be those who needed to check e-mail or those whose business was so important they had to be online while waiting for an appointment.

Multiple, small track lights protruded off steel cable that was strung below exposed piping and ducts. Four television sets, redundantly tuned to the same station, stared down from above the reception desk.

The lights were dim and any additional light that might have come in through the window had been so subdued by clouds that it seemed like twilight. As I filled out my application and sat back to wait for the interview I had a sudden urge to fall asleep. The skewers in my eyes were starting to throb by now, but I told my torturer that I would not break.

The interview went well. I found to my pleasant surprise that this company seemed to be an island within our planet inhabited by people more like me. We understood each other, we didn't chat about non-relative things like weather or football teams. I felt good about it. They want to see me for a third interview.

Going back to my car, I couldn't find the escape gate right away, and almost decided to take my shoes off and walk nylon-footed, except that inside a huge window there were exercise-crazy people watching me. I kept the vise-grips on, kept looking through the nails in my eyes (pretendng that I meant to go to the wrong gate first), and found my way out of the maze. "All clear," I said to my imaginary support team. "Copy that," they replied. The supposed sniper put his gun away. I took the shards of glass out of my aching eyes, took my feet out of their shrinking prisons, and rode off into the sunset.

Posted by Sheila at January 19, 2006 09:04 AM Posted to | TrackBack