True Story©… Interviewin’

 

     I have been with my current employer since December of 2006…

Almost 16 years of productive employment and the merit increases and simple seniority at a well-known-but-ne’er-to-be-named-here company has afforded me a comfort I’d never felt at a prior job.  The seniority thing lends itself to a goodly amount of paid time off as well, which is a fact that makes me as an employee kind of hard to recruit/snipe by other companies.  They can match my money, but they can’t match the amount of time off I receive.

     One thing about the above-mentioned time off is that I must use it or lose it, so I frequently find myself forced by my wife at gunpoint to take time off for no fucking reason taking time off for nothing more than my own entertainment.
If it feels like I have talked about something like this before, it is because I have.
-BUT-
This is not that…

     Now that you’re back from the sidequest I just sent you on, let us get to why I decided that I was killing too much of my off time by spending whole weeks actually taking a new job and working long enough to take my first chance to get myself fired.  And that doesn’t even MENTION how much working and ostensibly being paid for a job for three days at a time complicates my life when it is tax season.

     So the decision is made…  I am no longer taking a week off of work at a time just to get fired from a job I wasn’t gonna keep anyway.  What I do instead, now is attempt to make the interviewer either break character and break out into ridiculous laughter or just kick me the fuck out.

     Naturally, I have to tailor my resume to the specific position I intend to not take to make sure that they at least pull me to interview, but also with a lie seeded to make my “out.”
You’ll see below.

 

Scene 1…

Interviewer: “And it says here you used to work at Starbucks?”

Me: “Correct.”

Interviewer: “Can you tell me what happened there?”

Me: “I was let go.”

Interviewer: “Why?”

Me: “Customer complaints.”

Interviewer: “Are you able to elaborate?”

Me: “Well whenever a customer came in and gave their name as ‘Dana’ I would always write ‘Zuul’ on the cup.”

Interviewer: “W-what?  Why?”

Me: “Because there is no Dana..  Only Zuul.”

Interviewer: “My mother-in-law’s name is Dana though.”

Me: “Well feel free to give Zuul my best when we’re done here toda--…”

Interviewer: “… wait.  Zuul…  Like Ghostbusters?”

Me: “Consider me busted.”

Interviewer: “I’d call security to have you removed, but this is FUNNY!”

Me: “Thanks, I think?”

Interviewer: “I mean, I still need you to go, but this is hilarious.  You should be writing or something.”

…  if he knew, if ONLY he knew.

    

Scene 2…

Interviewer: “Can you explain this gap in your employment?”

Me: “That was after a complicated period of self-employment”

Interviewer: “Care to explain?”

Me: “I went to Vegas and started a Plus-Size Male Revue.”

Interviewer: “Well that certainly sounds enterprising, you should have included that!”

Me: “It didn’t do too well.”

Interviewer: “What happened?”

Me: “No one is paying to see a greased-up fat dude in a speedo on stage failing at dancing sexily.”

Interviewer: “HA!--… I mean, oh shi--…  I mean, um…  wow!”

Me: “I know, right?”

Interviewer: “This almost feels surreal.  This can’t be true, can it?”

Me: “No, not at all…”

Interviewer: “Well I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Me: “But I didn’t even get a chance to tell you about the time I--…”

Interviewer: “SECURITY!!!”

Needless to say, I was up and out of the building before I could be removed from the building.

 

     You how they say that teachers, doctors and lawyers hang out with FELLOW teachers, doctors and lawyers, respectively?  Well I am under the assumption that hiring managers are the same way, so I make sure first to research the company and next to switch up the old Modus Operandi from time to time.
Sometimes this gets me deeper into the interview than if I just shoot the shot and ended things early.

 

Scene 3…

Interviewer: “Well we’ve reviewed your credentials and so far things are looking good.  But tell me, why do you feel you’d be a good fit for this company?”

Me: “Funny you ask that, because I was JUST thinking about that myself.”

Interviewer: “Oh?”

Me: “Absolutely!”

Interviewer: “Well by all means, do tell.”

Me: “See, I have been trying to get into contact with you about your vehicle’s extended warranty.”

Interviewer: “What?”

Me: “See…  If you allow your coverage to lapse, then you may find yourself on the hook for expensive repairs that would have been otherwise covered.”

Interviewer: “This isn’t funny.”

Me: “I apologize for that…  What I meant to say was were you or a member of your family stationed at US Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune between the years of--…”

Interviewer: “GET THE FUCK OUT!!!”

 

     The only real flaw in this otherwise foolproof plan was that to increase my chances of GETTING the interview, I would have to apply for positions nearby to where I live, even in this climate of work-from-home. 

Why is this a “flaw,” you ask?

     Well thanks for asking, dear reader.
So I’m in The Walmarks on my way from the barber shop one Saturday morning getting some dog food and other supplies for the day.  Scene 3 above was apparently in there as well with who I assume was his wife and kids.  He begins explaining out loud to his wife how “there’s the guy that…” explaining the shit I did in the interview.  People REALLY need to learn some kind of etiquette, up to and including not POINTING at the person you are talking about, because I may have missed him blabbing about me otherwise.

     Now the wife is fucking staring, trying to get a read on me or something.  Every aisle, every section, it seems wherever I go THEY go.  Fed up with this shit, I decided to act.  When I turned down the coffee aisle and she was coming up, poorly concealing that she is still staring at me and saying nothing.  I proudly (or defiantly) maintained eye contact and asked “’scuse me, ma’am, have you ever lived in a home with lead-based paint or asbestos and suffer from mesothelioma or other illnesses?”

     She turned BEET red and scurried away from me, leaving her shopping cart.  As her husband entered the aisle, she was already rushing out of it, grabbing him and turning him around before grabbing the arms of their children and BOLTING from the store.
I don’t even think she heard me saying “ma’am, you left your groceries!”

     …  ehh well.