Wordsmoker

So, Miss Peacock is looking for new work. She’s wants a job that “challenges” her. (At least, that’s what I say in interviews.) I put my resume up on the classiest of all job-hunting sites, Monster.com, and got a call from a local company who loved my resume and wanted to speak to me. They asked me if I was interested in doing the same thing I currently am, to which I replied YES, thankful that someone was going to take a chance on me.

I wear dress clothes to work on a Casual Friday, telling everyone that I am going to a funeral, a lie for which I am going to hell. I drive across town in the worst rainstorm we’ve had all summer long, nearly running over some jackass in the parking lot. Local Company is in one of those huge, sprawling office parks we seem to have all over our Proud Nation, and somehow I find this reassuring. I am lead into a huge office, which seems even MORE reassuring, until I am lead back into a much smaller office, the “global headquarters” of this fine company.

I see something orange out of the corner of my eye. What is that? Is it Gossamer from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons? OH MY GOD, IT’S A MAN! A REAL LIVE MAN WHO LIVES AND BREATHES AND IS SO FUCKING TAN I AM ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TAKEN ABACK. Okay, you can handle this, Pea. Just breathe in and out. I’m sure he’s a nice man. A nice orange man.

OJ shakes my hand a little bit limply and then takes me back to his office, which is furnished with a desk and a FUCKING SUIT OF ARMOR. Okay. Just breathe in and out. I’m sure he’s a nice orange man who owns a suit of armor.

And a pinky ring. Oh, God, he’s wearing a pinky ring. It goes nicely with his tweed jacket and the jaunty pink handkerchief he has jauntily stuffed in his jaunty little pocket.

He starts out by asking me the usual questions: why are you looking for work, what are you looking for in a job, etc. Then things get weird. He starts telling me how NO ONE EVER FINDS WORK online and how only 65% of jobs are online and why do I think I can get a job online anyway? I start out by saying, “Well, I assume….”

“Ah, ah, ah. That word, ASSUME. That word will get you nowhere.”

Um, okay. So he goes on and on about how difficult it is to find work online, even though I’ve already told him that’s how I found my last two jobs. He finally starts talking and I tell him that I’m really interested in this position I’m applying for. He stops short, drops his pen to the desk.

“Oh, this isn’t for a POSITION! Oh, no! Why would you think THAT?”

“Um, because you called about my resume that I put on a job-posting site.”

“Oh nonononononononono! We are here for YOU! We take our twenty years of valuable corporate experience to help mold you into an ideal candidate….” And on and on and on.

I tell him I feel very, very mislead. He is shocked (SHOCKED! I TELL YOU!!) that I would ever assume that someone calling about a FUCKING RESUME THAT I POSTED ONLINE IN THE HOPES OF GETTING A NEW FUCKING JOB would ever think a phone call about said resume could be regarding an ACTUAL FUCKING POSITION. In fact, he’s EXTRA shocked because this is a mistake that has just never, ever happened before on the planet.

I couldn’t decide at that moment whether or not I wanted to die, or whether I wanted to kill him. Quickly figuring out that he will be dead of skin cancer in less than two years, I smile tightly, shake that limp, scaly hand, and get back in my car.

Fuck you, orange man. Fuck you, your suit of armor, your fucking awful tan, your fucking pinky ring, your fucking tweed suit, and your FUCKING LIES. And you know what? You may want to tone down your time in the tanning bed, ‘k?

That is all.