I'm a Checker

HEY! Remember my phoneterview?

Yeah, it turned out that it was for a part-time job. No benefits. No point.

Queen Quieff on the other end of the line wasn’t exactly apologetic about the fact that the job listing made no mention of the fact that it was a part time job. Instead, who apologized? Me.

“Well, I’m sorry for wasting your time,” I said. Oh my God, my balls must have been the size of Grape Nuts that morning.

Sad, isn’t it? I even went home that day and checked and re-checked and re-re-re-checked (because I am a checker, and a re-re) to make absolutely sure that the listing really said nothing about the job being part-time. It didn’t. Of course, it didn’t say anything about the job being full-time either but, really, when you’re looking for jobs, don’t you assume that a job is full-time unless the listing states otherwise?

I do. But maybe I’m wrong about that. Sorry for wasting your time.

I have another interview coming up, though. Soon. This one is live and in-person, but the interviewer will be male, so I won’t have to worry about getting caught ogling pert boobage. I’ve been emailing back and forth with him for just over a week, trying to coordinate a mutually agreeable time for me to come in. He’s a good-natured guy, you can tell, because I would have told me to fuck off and not bother a couple of days ago. Wednesday at 7:15am. That’s right, children—7:15am. Since my blogs post at 7:18am, you know that the early morning business bothers me not. In fact, it’s my preference. I needed to interview either before my current job starts (9:00) or after it ends, (3:30). This guy’s work-day doesn’t start until 8:30, but he’s coming in at 7:15, just for me. In fact, nobody in the building will be there at 7:15, except the two of us.

I sent him an email asking if this was business casual or business formal, “the difference in my world,” I wrote, “is the subtraction or the addition of a blazer.” He wrote back that I would be “just fine without the blazer.” I like him already.

I’m still scared I will throw up on him, or blurt out the N-word, or fall down a flight of stairs, our spill piping hot coffee on his genitals, all things that can happen at a live, in-person interview, but I guess it will probably end up being okay. I am, after all, only looking for a job to do from the time my own job ends in late August, till whenever a police department comes knocking on my door saying, “Son, we want you to join us.” But, you never know… maybe this will be the chance for me to get paid every week for… you know… writing.

Maybe this will be a career, instead of a job.

I’ve never had a career before. I might like me one of those.

Maybe.

Phoneterview

So, I have this phone interview coming up this morning and, call me a pathetic neonate, but I’m kind of scared.

I mean, I’m more conflicted than scared, actually, because part of me is very relieved that it’s a phone interview and not a real, live in-person interview.

Really, I’m just a fucking mess and I don’t know how to feel about it. I'm such a girl.

My dear, good, short wife is also conflicted, occupationally speaking, and I recently suggested that she make a Pro/Con List to help her sort through her sentiments about her current and prospective job. Then, she directed me to order her a pita pizza with pineapples and green peppers. So, there we are. Not particularly liking pineapples, or green peppers, or pita myself, I decided to make a Pro/Con List of my own to see if I could help myself determine exactly how I feel about this impending phone interview.

Since I’m a negative sonofabitch, I’ll do us all a favor and start with the...

PRO

• Prospective employer/interviewer gets no visual.

Call me excessively self-deprecating, but this first point cannot be mitigated or ignored. They that hold the cards to my future will be utterly unable to deduct points for poor posture, Jenga-teeth, sweaty palms, coffee odor(s), haphazard, untamable Jew hair, eccentric neckwear and dress shoes from the early 1970s. In a word, I’m amazed that I was ever hired, by anybody, prior to the advent and implementation of the phone interview.

Tight.

• (Related to first bullet-point), I can react however I want to their questions.

When they ask me how I dealt with a challenging situation at my current or former job, or if I could be any zoo animal in the eastern hemisphere, which would it be and why, or what do I consider to be a professional weakness of mine, I can roll my eyes, make jerk-off motions with my hand, lie down supine on the floor, give the dogs the finger, pretty much whatever the hell I want as long as I don’t let anything audible slip. Like my boxers to the floor.

BOO-YA!

• I don’t have to obsess over being late.

This is a huge, huge deal. No innocent motorist will fall victim to my frothing road-rage, there will be no feverish gripping of the already careworn eight-year-old steering wheel of my car, there will be no frantic, near epileptic search for a parking garage in downtown Philly (the last time I was engaged in this pursuit, I put the car in an underground lot for five hours and was charged $29.00) and I will not go through all of these gymnastics and near aeronautics just to arrive twenty-five minutes early only to be directed to a vinyl chair in some stuffy waiting room so my heart rate can slow down to somewhere near 144 BPM.

• Absolutely no chance at being caught staring at interviewer’s breasts.

Yes, it’s happened before. I mean, I don't know if I was caught, really, but, whenever I engage in this act, I almost invariably get caught. And, no, I'm definitely not immune from doing it at a job interview. What can I say? I am only a man and, therefore, evil and retarded.

And now, where I am most comfortable, I’m tempted to call it “Home” but, for these purposes we’ll just go with….

CON

• Prospective interviewer/employer gets no visual.

I know, I know, I know—this point not only appeared in the “Pro” section, but it appeared first! What is wrong with me, O Evil & Retarded One? Well, see, while there are definite and clinically-proven negative attributes to my physical presentation, there are also things that work in my favor which, in a phoneterview, the interviewer will not observe.

For starters, now that “Pirates of Penzance” and “Peter Pan” are over, I no longer sport regrettable, Victorian-era facial hair (i.e., large, walrus-style moustache that swept down to my jawline and sideburns that, well, did the same. I’m clean-shaven, with a nice haircut, and I look at least twenty-five years, and a century-and-a-half younger than I did just a month ago. I mean, I’d do me. I mean— hire.

Another thing that tends to work in my favor at in-person interviews is that I dress very, very well, unlike, presumably, a significant portion of job-seekers in my age-bracket. Because I absolutely love dressing up in shirts and ties, you can tell that I don’t just put them on for job interviews, and I certainly don’t opt for the pre-packaged $17.99 shirt-and-tie from TJ Maxx. No, I actually have class and dignity and I like to think that it shows. But not during a phoneterview.

In personal conversations, especially when I am asked to talk about my ideals concerning truth, justice, about my personal philosophy, and/or being honest and respectable, you can almost watch the tears welling up in my eyes, such a sensitive, integrity-filled pussyburger I am—and I suspect prospective employers like interviewing people who they know won’t dick them over, steal from the safe, or rape the boss’s daughter or hamster. Hopefully, in the phone interview, they’ll be able to hear my voice crack with sincerity.

• If you’ve ever spoken to me over the phone…

…you know that I sound like a fucking idiot at best, and a hard-of-hearing mental patient off his meds at worse.

When I don’t have a person’s face and lips to watch like a hawk to enable me to process what they’re saying and interpret their body language, I’m basically dead in the water. If you’re fooled into thinking that I’m eloquent and facile with words because of what you may have read or may have though you read on this blog, well, it’s just a charade of a façade. You’d have better luck asking a dying donkey for directions to the Holiday Inn in Boise than you would having a semi-coherent telephone conversation with me.

• I can’t impress anyone by being early.

Because that impresses people.

So, there it is, kidderoos: my Pro/Con List. I don’t know exactly where it leaves us, or me, except that it’s 7:18am, and my phone interview starts in fifty-seven minutes.

Unless, of course, I call early.