The Job Interview

Late. I hate being late. 

That man should squeeze in more, or the subway doors won’t close. Why does this have to happen to me? Come on.

The conductor shouts, “Make room.”

I think that’s what he said. Suddenly, the car jolts and starts to move. I may make it in time. 

Be the first to arrive. Let them see how eager you are.

Great advice. Not this time. Why didn’t I leave earlier? I paced back and forth in the apartment, practicing my stupid elevator speech for hours. 

“Sorry I’m late. I got up super early to be the last one to arrive.”

How dumb is that?

Unloading at my stop is just as bad as trying to get on, and trying to get on is what is causing the problem. I choke on the clash of colognes and perfumes. I’m going to smell like - well, not good.

The snake of bodies loops in and out of tunnels and makes its way to the prison of metal bars designed to test antiperspirant strength and human resilience. I won’t take off my jacket.

My tie! It’s caught in the turnstile. I follow it around and get slammed against the bars, which prevents me from illegal reentry. Argh!

The up escalator is under repair, and the crowd coming down uses briefcases as battering rams to force their way down both stairways. I’m doomed.

I check my watch and realize I left it on the sink. I took it off to shower after having entered the shower with it on. That’s what happens when you wake up early and spend hours drinking coffee.

My phone buzzes, but I can’t reach it. I have to wait until I get outside.

Finally, fresh air!  

City air, so not too fresh, but better than subway air, which isn’t air at all, but some toxic smog concoction that will kill me before I retire, if I ever get a job and can work long enough to retire.

I stop to check the phone. Voicemail.

“Don’t forget to tell them how you saved a child from drowning when you were eight years old.”  

I never should have told my mother about the interview. It’s an accounting job, Mom. And that was George Bailey, not me.

She will be playing bridge soon. A couple of hours of peace for me.

I had checked the address on my GPS and saw that I had made it to the right place, but this doesn’t look like it.

The building next door is a twelve-story steel and glass structure built within my lifetime. This one is a stone castle-like exterior with gargoyles fashioned as rain drains from the roof and gas lanterns adorning the entranceway of two oversized bronze doors. Each door displays animals and carts with plows and fields. Are those slaves?

I grab the door handle, which opens easily as if I had pushed the “Press to Operate Door” button.

Inside is another set of doors, glass. They open themselves, and I stare upward at a crystal chandelier at least thirty feet over my head. Don’t fall on me.

A sign on a stand near the elevator says, “Interviews - 32nd Floor”.

The elevators are the kind you see in old Hitchcock movies, with Jimmy Steward, not George Bailey this time, watching the brass hand point to each floor as it counts down to the lobby, where I stand alone waiting for it.

Thirty-two floors. How many times can I repeat my elevator speech in that many floors? Two? Three? 

Twelve.  

My speech is short, but not that short.  

I think I’m ready. Hell, I practiced enough. With all the jobs I’ve had, I certainly have enough experience. I can handle whatever they throw at me. All I have to do is not get flustered.  

If I can keep calm and keep a clear head, I’ll do fine.

It was not like that interview with the head of the production company. But I was young then. I should have realized that a start-up would be lean, and there was a chance I would have to meet the founder.

That office was huge. And how are you supposed to walk across the floor with a bear skin rug, head and all, glaring at you?

Total waterworks by the time I shook his hand. He even wiped it on a handkerchief. I should have done that.

The doors creak open, and another endless hall looms ahead of me. At the end of the hallway, I can see another sign on a stand. The hall has high ceilings with skylights and massive wooden doors.

“Interview - Room 3210”.

An arrow on the sign directs me to another door. This one is small, average size. It looks out of place. The wall is plain. No wood, no wallpaper, just white and clean.

I knock on the door and wait.

I hear footsteps approaching, and the door opens. A short, thin man in a tuxedo tips his hat and waves me in. “Please take a seat over there with the others.”

The room is massive, but all the other candidates are sitting about one foot from the far wall, facing the wall, their backs to me. There is a desk to their right, along the wall, facing the candidates. A woman sits, her legs crossed, with one foot rocking as if to some distant song playing in her mind.

Odd, I think.  

As I reach my seat, I turn to look at the other candidates, and there it is.

How could I have missed it? I walked right past it and didn’t see it or hear anything unusual. I was oblivious.

The other men and women are looking at their phones, waiting to be called, I suppose. Did they see it?

They had to have seen it.  

“Hey,” I say, looking at the man in the tuxedo. “What’s going on?”

“I beg your pardon, Sir?”

“You what?” I raise my hands as though they held the Maltese Falcon, and I pointed directly at it. “What’s with that?”

I stand in front of each person in the row, eyes open as wide as possible, and yell, “Is anybody going to say it?”

At that, the elephant blew its trumpet.