Major Fucking Stress
I wake up early this morning to get ready for a job interview at 10:00. It's six-thirty and I lie in bed and think about it, how I hope I don't stress out, say the wrong thing, cough up a lung at the appropriate time, seem like a servile toady just when they want me to. I get out of bed and shower, dress in grubbies 'cause it's so early, then make myself a nice breakfast, 4 eggs, 4 links of sausage, 4 slices of english muffins and a pot of coffee and sit down at my computer to check the news on the net. I've got free wi-fi, courtesy of a neighbor, although intermitent, as it was today.
I watch the time as I eat, making sure I've allowed enough to get dressed, make sure all my notes are ready, references, etc. At around 7:45 I decide I should check my memo pad to make sure I'll make it to the bus on time and discover I've only got 17 minutes to get ready, get on the bus and make my connection at the freeway station. Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit. I scramble and miraculously make it out the door. I miss the bus but it's not that important because I've allowed myself some time in case of this very occurance. So I take a bus to the U-district, catch a connecting bus to the freeway station and within half an hour I'm on my way, arriving at the interview with plenty of time to spare.
I follow the instructions that the HR person gave me the day before, sign in, get my badge and make my way back to the HR department where I fill out a job application, writing down all my sins, noting down past names of supervisors who were so incompetent, so inhumane they should never be allowed above fry cook at a fast food place. Not a McDonald's, they don't even deserve that. Just some shitty backwoods greasy spoon. And I hope they never try to call at least one of those people, 'cause they will make up plenty o' shit about yours truly.
I can't believe how things are today in this country. You work hard, do a good job, tolerate inhuman bastards and bitches that should be shut away in institutions for the mentally ill and now, when you fill out a job application, *you're Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolf Hitler*. Even if you've lived an honest and honerable life, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is how badly they want to fuck you as you go out the door, getting away from their shitty, inhumane, demeaning job that you depend on to put food in your mouth, a roof over your head and hopefully, hopefully, a car to drive of your own. Just a car. Any car. And pray to god that it runs for at least a little while. Another source of stress. "Will my car run at the end of the day?" "Will I be able to insure it?" "Should I even bother to insure it, with all the other bills that I have?" When will it all end? Please, take me now.
So I finish the job application, turn it in, go back to my seat and try to find something interesting to read. Company brochure. Blechhh. . . . So I read the company brochure. We are a re-insurer. We insure the insurer. . . . Oughta be money in that. . . . Until you have to pay out a claim. Owned by Warren Buffet. There's somebody who knows how to use money to make money. Wish I was Warren. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the simple things like wondering where cat food is going to come from at the end of the week with no job and $16.00 in the bank and no unemployment. Parents retired, broken by the stock market bubble, bless'em for having faith in the market . . . . Rubes who were fleeced clean, robbing their children of an inheritance. As if that were ever going to happen anyway. I never believed it, not for a moment. I know both of my parents too well.
Finally the HR person comes to see me. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we agreed that after checking the schedule today that we would see you tomorrow. Let me see if we have someone available who you could see now." Checks schedule . . . "Nope." At least she agrees to do the pre-interview stuff now, the most important part and let me come back tomorrow. But first she has something she has to do. "Could you come back at 11:00?" So I walk around the Microsoft campus area for almost an hour, wishing I could get a job there instead of the place I'm interviewing at. At least they get all the cool toys. The toys. And major, major fucking stress.
Would you want Bill lopping your balls off in a meeting? I hear the guy is fucking murder. You forget one tiny little detail in a presentation and he will find it, bore in on it, and make your life a living hell that you wonder if you will ever get out of, even though you know the meeting is only half an hour long. But with Bill yelling at you, demeaning you, making you feel like you are absolutly the stupidest, most insignificant, most unworthy human being on the entire planet, if not the universe. And all you want to do is die. Just kill me. Please. Rip out my lungs with a rusty butterknife, I don't care, anything is better than Bill and his maxed out to eleven temper.
I arrive back at the HR department and go in for my interview. This is the worst part, the interview. Cough up a lung. Tell us what your worst mistake in your entire life was on the job so we can use it against you later. Tell us what your worst experience with a manager was. A co-worker. Your mother. Your priest. Your pet. Your shoe. Why exactly should we hire such a pathetic, unworthy, disgusting human being as you? Will you let us rape you in the ass without lube? How often? Will you smile like you enjoy it? Wear sexy clothing that leaves you with an itch? Let us pimp you out to clients for their own sick and demented pleasure? 'Cause if you can do all that, baby you got a job!
But not for too much pay. We want you to be an endentured servant, not the cock-o-the-walk. Take this pathetic wage. We offer it to you on a plate served with cold shit. Then laugh behind your back when you take it up, smile and eat it with a grin.
Finally the interview ends and she asks me to come back for the second part tomorrow. I made it through this far, what else can they do to me? So, tomorrow I go back for more. . .