Source:
Adults
Author:
Peter Philips
Title:
Bad Investment
Craig arrived at 12.54pm for his 1pm interview. Perfect timing, that had involved him setting off an hour before he needed to (contingency planning) and pacing the streets for 54 minutes because no such contingency requirement actually occurred.
“Still, it’s accepted that you have to “invest” (or should that be waste) a hell of a lot of time and effort on this job-seeker farce.” Craig’s thoughts, based on very bitter experience.
No-one was at reception, so all he could do was wait and wait and wait until someone finally arrived at 1.09pm. A very anguished fifteen minutes, as you can imagine. Thereafter, at 1.13pm he was ushered in to the interview room where a spookily cheery panel of three greeted him with smiling faces and acid remarks.
”You’re late,” grinned the first male (chair).
Craig tried to explain.
”Reception is always manned,” gurned the female.
”Well not always”, conceded the second male panellist, pretending to be friendly.
”Well now that you ARE here,” said the chair “You can do your presentation”.
Feeling slightly phased by the clumsy start to the proceedings, Craig explained that he could access the presentation from a URL that he had set up. This was having telephoned before hand to ensure that a computer with Internet browser would be available in the interview room.
”The network’s not working,” smirked the ‘friendly’ male.
“Oh, O.K.”, said Craig. “I’ll do it from memory.” And he stuttered through a rather less polished presentation than he had rehearsed whilst researching and preparing the presentation over a period of several days previous.
“Still, it’s accepted that you have to “invest” (or should that be waste) a hell of a lot of time and effort on this job-seeker farce.” Craig’s thoughts, based on very bitter experience.
The grinning three carried on grinning, whilst not listening to a word. This was made obvious by a complete lack of eye contact, other than for each other.
Then came the Q&A session in which Craig was tasked with seconding guess what the interviewers were actually thinking. Rather like asking someone to guess a scenario mime, only without the mime. One question, went
”How do you think you would be able to deal with things that I don’t like dealing with?”
”Such as?” asked Craig.
”Well, you tell me,” came the abrupt reply from the female.
The (very brief) interview ended, as scheduled, at 1.30pm precisely. The panel looked almost apologetic at this stage in a “we had already decided who the job is going to, and you’re just here to make up the numbers, to fit in with our ‘good employer’ practise” type of way.
Craig left the room feeling very deflated. He could hear the panel laughing as he walked away, down the corridor.
“Still, it’s accepted that you have to “invest” (or should that be waste) a hell of a lot of time and effort on this job-seeker farce.” Craig’s thoughts, based on very bitter experience.
His rejection letter arrived home almost before he did. Being ‘good employers’ the supercilious time-wasters had produced a natty little ego-boosting (theirs) feedback -form for this purpose.
Craig’s read (x3)
Punctuality 0/10
Use of technology 0/10
People skills 0/10
Understanding of the role 0/10
He found out later ( by returning to the scene and asking at reception) that the job had been given to a friend of the female panellist. He also found out the reception is often unmanned between 1pm and 1.15pm, as this was a shift-change window.
“Thanks a bunch for wasting my fucking time, Wankers!” Craig’s thoughts, based on very bitter experience.
Published on writebuzz®:
Adults
> Stories & Scripts
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