Atlas Hugged« Your Local TJ Maxx | Main | Image is Everything? »
September 14, 2005
tear stained thrift store suit
two months into the job search i was desperate - i had moved to town with approximately $1000.00 in the old bank account fresh from hollywood, florida - the ink on my college diploma barely dry. at one point i distinctly remember selling some of my favorite compact discs (see bat out of hell 2, enrique iglesias et al) for gas/food money. i managed to land a temporary job working in the sales department of a giant computer company - and they were nice enough to tell us up front that this would be a sweat shop type of situation with regulated work hours and breaks and whatnot - this included changing the start time of our actual work no less than five times during the two week training course which ended up conflicting with my personal life so i promptly moved on...after all i'd gotten a few e-mails from some reputable employers - and by a few what i mean to say is one and it was from some marketing company i had never heard of before - but i was willing to risk it all for a homecoming weekend in chattavegas which was totally worth it by the way - i even stayed an extri day to watch the covenant v. bryan soccer game - i also found time to audit a class called elfin society
and so after the whatnot subsided i decided to dial up this marketing company and start raking in some of that post-college money i had been promised my whole life long. i phoned the marketing company and asked for stephanie - was told by someone named jennifer that stephanie was not there but she would be more than happy to set up an interview for me. she gave me directions and said they shared a building with a construction firm...so i dress up in my finest clothing - mapquest the address and drive out for the big interview - i must have driven past the place at least three times because i was under the impression that this would be an actual office building...i quickly realized that there was not an office building on the entire block so i started looking for numbers and pulled up to this pre-fab warehouse type structure where i saw a professional sign denoting the name of the construction firm. just to the right (my right) of their front door was a second door - in fact, you might even say that it was a side door - and i'll never forget the little strip of paper taped above the door bell with the words no limits marketing written with one of those chubby permanent ink markers that smell so yummy.
i walked in and was greeted by the receptionist (not stephanie or jennifer) - and here is the odd thing - she's working at one of these particle board type desks that you buy at your local office max and i noticed immediately that the only thing on the desk was a cupholder for pens and a telephone - no computer, no typewriter just the desk - now there was a computer in a little (starsky & ) hutch type deal tucked in the (kitty) corner but i'm pretty sure it was one of those fake model home displays and there really wasn't a computer there at all...at any rate i sat down and dutifully filled out the job app (forgive me please for using the informal abbreviation "app" - i find the word "application" quite tedious to type) and handed it back to not jennifer/stephanie. fifteen minutes later i was seated in an office (closet) in the back part of the suite where my interview was to take place. there was some really bad hotel art on one wall and the desk in this office was also particle board but it had the classic warped look that you see on this type of furniture after it sits on the side of the interstate for a day or so - the gentleman that came in to interview me was wearing an ill fitting suit that may or may not have been purchased from an amway catalogue - he claimed to be the branch manager and vaguely described the marketing that his company did. he told me that if i made it to the second interview i would have the opportunity to observe the various & sundry elements of their business operations with an associate - i left the interview still feeling somewhat confused as to what it was this company actually did - but i was hopeful for a second interview.
you may be shocked to learn that i received a call for a second interview that same day and dutifully took down the information i would need. when i returned to no limits headquarters the following day the computer was still fake and the reception area was filled with about twelve people who looked as confused as i - this was compounded by the loud cheering coming from behind the closed door leading to the inner sanctum...eventually they took me into the same office i had initially interviewed in to meet the sales team i would be observing - led by a gentleman named shad...and now i feel i must give a brief description of the one they call shad.
shad had shaggy black hair with a few gray hairs here an there fashioned into some type of a mullet - he was wearing a silver suit that no doubt wowed the kids at someone's senior prom back in 1992 - a suit that had seen its better days - as i would later notice it had some unsightly stains here and there. shad had chosen a black shiny shirt to complete the ensemble and if he had chosen to wear a tie i feel comfortable insiting that it would have been a bolo tie. it might surprise some of you to learn that shad had a hygeine problem or two - he had nose hair for miles and his teeth were half gone...now when i say that his teeth were half gone i don't mean to infer that he was missing any actual teeth - it's just that the teeth he did have were...well the bottom half was missing.
as we made our way out to the parking lot, one of the associates asked me where my sneakers were...why would i need sneakers? as it turns out i needed sneakers because we were about to drive 90 miles where we would proceed to wander around neighborhoods selling pizza hut coupons door to door. no really. that's exactly what no limits marketing did...well that's not all they did, apparently they also sold coupons for mufflers or something. midway through the day shad took me back to the car to go through the business model (sketched on a napkin) and proceeded to tell me just how much money i would be making working for their firm - when i asked how much shad was bringin home he insisted that it was 600.00 per week and i just kept looking at his suit and thinking...really? this is the same guy who bummed $20 from another associate so he could buy me lunch at mcdonald's - the same guy who made another trainee drive the 180 mile round trip because the windshield of his car was smashed in....that trainee was also present for the presentation but he was more interested in the adult magazine he kept under the drivers seat of his car.
long story short, we ended up wandering around this neighborhood until eight thirty at night and by my estimate shad had sold $100 worth of pizza hut coupons in 9 hours which was somewhat impressive because i wouldn't accept $100 to eat a pizza hut pizza. i'm just saying. on the long car ride home shad was putting on the full court press asking what i thought of the company and did this sound like the kind of opportunity i had been looking for - it was alot like being on a bad date (assuming here that there is such a thing as a good date) and i had to wait until i walked shad to the door to tell him i never wanted to see him again. he was noticably crestfallen and when we returned to the parking lot he handed me his card (printed on standard paper because card stuck is just so fussy) in case i changed my mind. hands down the worst job interview i've ever been on. because seriously, you haven't really experienced hell until you've spent an hour & a half in a car with a man that smells like the good will screaming the words to loveshack as it plays on the radio.
i think alot about that experience when i sit at my cube at my wits end with my current employment situation. i think back to those sad souls wandering around neighborhoods hawking coupons and realize i don't have it so bad after all. and really, the only thing worse than the job you currently have is hunting for a new one.
| By young_christopher | 8:20 PM