9am, Tuesday, that is when I start work, again. Bright and early. I'm pleased it is Tuesday, as Monday morning at 9am would have been a mental mind fuck. I'm back down the dark end of the city, the Spencer Street end, the grungy end, the part of the city where the sun doesn't shine so much. Not the Spring Street end, where the sun always shines down bright and blue.
Yes, I got the job. I did an interview, my first in years, (that's not exactly true, but true enough) not something I am ever really that great at. I don't think I ever take them really seriously, enough, for some reason I just can't. Never been able to. The desk, the sides each of us have to take, the deserted room, the hollow sound of emptiness, the unnatural paradigm, the questions, the seriousness, often with two interviewers making the whole process seem remarkably unfair and out of balance, just to justify their existence.
No, I'm good at interviews, if the interviewer is good at interviewing. You know, with a certain natural charm and some sanity in the questions being asked. I can charm them right back, generally. If there haven't been any stupid questions, if there hasn't been any corporate psycho babble, which just loses me and I end up wondering how stupid the interviewer really is to think stupid questions are acceptable. I can glaze over really easily, which does none of us any favours.
It also helps if I want the job, that is a huge edge to have. I've been to job interviews where, I may have been iffy beforehand, and where I decide in the first 5 minutes that I really didn't want the job anyway, that the interviewers appear stupid and I decide that I don't want to be working for them anyway, and that life is too short and I'd rather be home smoking pot, or watching porn, or, just staring out into space, you know, you get it don't you? The walls then start closing in and the air gets thin and I end up thinking more about suffocation than the questions at hand. And I start to imagine the interviewer in her bra and undies pissed off her brain at the Xmas Party being all flirty, trashing HR101 to pieces, as she goes after the hot young uni grads. Or him in his jocks with a bona doing creepy things in the office toilet, the seat covered in toilet paper and he with a whistle in his mouth and saliva dripping down his hairy chest. And it is only ever down hill from there. Trust me.
I had one interview like that, which just ended in an awkward silence, pretty much. And it was a position for which a sister of a friend asked me to apply. Was that the Melbourne Council? It could have been. The friend's sister was there, but she didn't run the show, some other dweeb, public servant did. Ten minutes in, I decided the interviewer was a halfwit, that they were all halfwits and I started writing their death scenarios in my head. Too much fiction, to be sure, swirling around in my head. And I got to a moment where the room went silent and while I was giving the universe thanks for the stupidity reprieve I realised they had paused for my answer, the question for which I'd completely missed. Suffice to say I didn't get that job.
Anyway, this job I've got. Jack and Fatty Cake Snoop Lady gave me references and I have applied for my own p0licecheck, which I should get today. That was something the company once did, but not anymore, apparently.
So, there you go, my lady of leisure routine has come to a premature end. Back to the salt mines.
I had a twinge of failure as I started thinking about work again. My writing stops yet again, as I scamper back to the safety of a meaningless office job. I guess, I just have to get used to being a failure. Grrrr! I should have been...
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