Peter Cribley Goes To A Job Interview

Clambering out of the car and into heavy traffic, I dodged between buses and tried to keep my tie straight. I was on my way to an INTERVIEW. A real one. As a peon for some marketing firm, as was my understanding. Using my incredible powers of comprehension, I had also come to the understanding that it would be door-to-door. Which is pretty much submitting oneself to the most degrading experiences outside of media or advertising or the well-paid end of the legal profession.

"Twat!" some bald passerby screamed in my face as I mounted the kerb, skipping merrily out of the way of some other bald chap's BMW. I nodded an affirmation, a cross between a shrug and a mumbled "Yeah, I know." The response? An angry glare.

Settling into step behind a rather portly polyester person, I realised that was my last opportunity to have gotten out of what was soon to turn out to be a suicide-mission. I could have made a violent scene, encouraging the pedestrian to stamp on my signing-on hand with gay abandon. I could have thrown myself under the efficient German cars that swayed in and out of the bus-lane. I could even have just inhaled very deeply and hoped a catalytic converter had failed, thus preventing me from talking (and, possibly, breathing).

Turns out Polyester Paul was going to the same interview. As were about thirty perspiring and twitchy looking business types, pulling their most sincere and earnest faces. Which made everyone look a little constipated.

A 40 inch TV blasted out Radio 1 and I got treated to the transition between Moyles discussing breasts and Cotton discussing Lady Gaga's non-existent penis. Meanwhile, a Norn Iron receptionist made her best audition for the last chapter of Ulysses. Everyone in the office was treated to everything to enter her head, up to and including: yellow paper, stickers, home and bargain shops, art store shops, shoe shops, shoes, pairs of shoes, immigration, a farm in Hull, a hypothetical farm in Norn Iron, the trouble with planes, her trouble with immigration, her trouble in Cyprus, her trouble with health insurance in Cyprus, the price of alcohol in Cyprus, cows, vegetarianism, her bedroom, her sheets, her housemates, her housemates using her bedroom and sheets, duvets, pasta, vinegar, X-Factor, Dara O'Brian, Mock The Week, whether anyone was doing anything fun later and the gradual corrosion of wear, tear and free-radical oxidisation that was gradually causing us all to wither, degrade and die.

You know, basic entropy talk, the aural equivalent of CJD designed to unravel the brain.

And then I was finally interviewed by Ben Laws, local representative of the rather ominously named Cobra Organisation (door-to-door footsoldiers for Bond Villains?). The following are things I didn't, but should certainly should have said:

- No, no. I quite understand that I don't fulfil your criteria. After all, they require and are in total, what? Three Cs at GCSE. And I didn't get any Cs. There's that pesky degree, for sure, but no Cs.

- What does the "Related Literatures" in "English and Related Literatures" encompass, you ask with a smirk? Well, SMARTARSE, Norse. Islendsk. Some Irish. Basically. Want some more? Like translated French texts? Or would you like me to detail the fascinating irregular properties of Old Icelandic? No. Then shut up.

- Yes, it does turn out I already knew your name. Because I did online research and now know more about your parent company's concerns than you do. Because I'm clairvoyant.

- What am I doing later? Going to another job interview somewhere better. Alright, so that was a lie but what do you care?

- Yeah, you just go on and write a big old "UNEMPLOYED" in that box where I wrote out myprevious experience. I don't mind.

- You want me to write out again by hand the CV I brought with me already? Uhm. No.

- No, I'm sorry. I can't be a "Human Commercial TM" since that would mean being a door-to-door salesman and I'm not ready to be Willy Loman just yet.

- (Addendum) I've read Death of a Salesman. Know how it ends? He dies.

- All things considered, this job would actually be a significant step down for me and I was already so low I was considered the ground the pay-ladder rested on in the first place. Why am I applying? Why do humans do anything: desperation, fear and sweaty shame.

Instead, I mumbled confidently about debate experience and a can-do attitude and told him I'd get back to him, but then left a "...but probably not" as a parting shot.

Less than an hour later, I felt dishevelled and filthy. But at least I'd gotten a second day of wear out of my funeral clothes.