HR

We call ourselves Hominimum Repertores. Finders of people. Our life's work is to scour the world for the right person for the right thing, one role at a time. We often sit in brightly-lit cubicles, behind screens always placed at the ergonomically approved height - top half of the screen at eye level, elbows square on the desk, back straight, knees at a 90 degree angle - and read through every little accomplishment that could pass for achievement until the candidate's past and future are as clear to us as the black Times New Roman font against the white page most use in their CVs to sell lack of initiative and imagination as eagerness to conform to a company’s way of doing things.

Coincidentally, we usually work in HR.

It has been a long time since I became a Repertor, but I never lost interest in my work nor have ever wished to change it. I have never made a bad hire recommendation, of course, which has allowed me to build a strong enough credibility and reputation to make a living solely out of reading people's CVs. The creed permits me a certain degree of discretion, which I've never abused, even at times when its absolutes seemed cruel to me. I never hire people who are going to get a serious illness until their retirement age, women who are going to bear children or anyone who is going to die during employment. Easy, efficient, effective. It used to be hard to look into the future and see sickness or death, but after all this time, I think of it as no more than an obituary I have early access to.

It’s all a blur to me now, all those names, faces, and positions to fill except one. I was young enough to care then, a new convert, and was struggling with the readings. Technology and modern -then- society’s culture around it was not yet advanced to the point where CVs were always shared before an interview; the whole process usually happened in one go, face-to-face. She was sitting in front of me, her dark curly hair waving about until I lowered the fan to level 1, so she could stop moving hair out of her face. I almost tripped on the cable as I was awkwardly smiling at her, trying to maintain the last drops of professionalism left in me and suppress the urge to ask her out for a coffee. She was so young, so talented, so incredibly beautiful. She had an honest smile and spoke of her experience in previous positions with ease, an honest candidate, a perfect fit. Until she handed me her CV. In it I saw a year of inhumane suffering until a cure that seemed to never come. For a second I had considered fighting against my better instincts, against the creed itself and hiring her, so she would have one less thing to worry about during her fight. And then I saw another thing that would come to pass. And this I could not ignore. A long fall, the curly hair a dark halo against the sunset. Five years from now. Even if my conscience had permitted this, the Repertores would never have. So, I sent her on her way to her fate, and did not sleep that night and many others after the time came to pass and the news made a big song and dance about the homeless girl that fell from the lighthouse. I was the only one who knew she was pushed down.

In our core, Repertores believe in an ideal world, where everyone is where they are supposed to be and the less fortunate ones - as we call them - are not allowed to prevent the smooth operation of society. The good of the many. A tough-to-stomach, yet honest conviction that will shape our world into a clock like heaven, each cog perfectly placed, one role at a time. It may seem a fool’s errand, but imagine how it would be if science had the most capable researchers on board, education was driven by long-term teachers, politics were carried out by healthy, young leaders; all focused, vetted to perfection, uninterrupted by imminent mortal impediments. Imagine the health costs we’d be able to reallocate, the parental leave salaries that could go to people who can actually do the work, the employee death benefits that could be invested elsewhere for the greater good.

Naturally, we were also vetted and read before being offered a place in the Repertores. I had only worked in talent acquisition for a couple of years at the time, when I was called to the department head’s office. In my heart I was sure I was in trouble; I had just turned down a big tech client’s top candidate because I knew he would drink himself to death under the pressure of the job, so I gave the chance to another, without consulting my supervisor first. My excuse whenever I was dismissing seemingly great candidates was that something in the interview struck me as odd. Sometimes, I’d call someone for an interview, knowing I would not go ahead with them, just to have an excuse that would not love a paper trail.

The office was an impressive Western saloon homage and I found it drab and uninviting. It did have, however, a breathtaking city view when the curtains were drawn and I very much enjoyed bringing down the cowboy gear and emptying out the whiskey cabinet when I eventually got promoted following Mr Brett’s promotion a few years down the line.

I will never forget how quickly he called me out. He had been watching me for quite some time. He pulled out a list of names and roles - all my discarded candidates that had stuck him as “unusual choices” - brushing off specks of ash that had fallen on the document from the big-boy cigar he was smoking when I came in. He said I’d have to explain every single one. I pretended I could not remember all of them, not very convincingly, and I was feeling my shirt soaking against the leather chair he had me sit on. When he looked at me with those predator eyes of his, so menacing against the longhorn skull that seemed to be all the range back then, but did not make it less ominous. “Mister Skyler, you can read them, can't you?,” he said to me and nothing was the same after that. My life trajectory followed the same direction a space rocket does. I started spending a lot of time with Mr Brett, and, before long, I found myself completely reeled in. The creed was simple and lightened a dark corner of myself that felt small for not contributing to the world the way doctors or astronauts did. I became proud of my work, justified in my decisions to cut the less fortunate ones. My fellow Repertores did understand the struggles of those who had to cut, but reassured me they would find other positions to survive until, one day, there would be so many of us to make the world right. And there would be jobs for those people, jobs that they could fulfill in whatever amount of time they had, and all would be well. I admired them for their strength to do what’s right even when it felt wrong.

Reading futures worked well for me in my personal life as well. I had not been with the Repertores for long, when one of them, another young man who had been initiated shortly before me, mentioned how he was using his ability on his dates. It didn’t take long before I started doing the same. My wife has a long, healthy life ahead of her and so do most of my friends and the people I choose to surround myself with.

There’s a warm breeze twirling the lighthouse tonight and I never thought I’d find the nerve to come here myself. Maybe the taste of salt in the air makes me feel braver or I was low on sodium until I started inhaling it, but watching the bay from up here is helping my tangling nerves. I don’t have a lot of hair now, but the repetitive movement I caught myself doing to get it out of my face as the wind is blowing has an equally calming effect.

I read a new CV today. Andrea is graduating soon and handed me a friend’s CV to read, to give her advice on how to improve it before applying for internships. This Alice Stillton is a college friend of my daughter’s, so I knew this was her way of getting my opinion on her efforts without having to ask me directly herself. We’re past the phase where she was closer to me than to her mum, so everything I say these days, I apparently know nothing about, and they both have the right to rush upstairs, slam doors and cry together occasionally.

Normally, I would say Alice has good enough grades and some volunteer work she thankfully involved my daughter in, and I would recommend her to a firm I’ve got a friend in, another Repertor, so that he’d let her down in my place. This way, I would look good in front of Andrea, and we could dissuade Alice from actively interviewing, long enough to let the car crash happen and offer the internship she would definitely get to a fortunate one.

Only the little brat lied to me. “Alice Stillton”- a.k.a. Andrea Skyler - is running out of time and all I can bring myself to do tonight is sit here and wish someone would push me down.