The Job Interview That Would Not Die

Longest job interview ever today. Most interviews, you meet with the person doing the hiring, or the person who reports to the person doing the hiring, they ask you a bunch of questions and you go home. Occasionally, you meet with both those people, either at the same time or one after the other. But I interviewed at this company Quigo, whose name apparently means nothing, where they pretty much held me hostage for two hours or so, meeting the entire company, being asked and answering the same questions over and over again.

It started off on the wrong foot before I even got to the place. The first interviewer guy called me on the phone; I was listening to loud music and playing online poker at the time. I wouldn't have even picked up the phone, but I thought it could have been my mom, which doesn't really explain why I picked up the phone. Anyway, so I answer and the guy says in an indiscernible accent: "Hi, this is Ygrbt calling from Kjreeebrqw, can I speak to Jay Harris?" Now, now, now, I've never been one of those "English only" people, demanding that non-English speaking immigrants give up their native tongues and speak only pure white Midwestern American. My feeling is, if you want to communicate with someone, it's your responsibility to make sure they can understand you. And so, if you have an accent, I think it's your responsibility to freaking e-nun-ci-ate, cause there's only so many times I can you to repeat that before I start to look like the idiot.

I should probably also consciously enunciate more often, but we're not complaining about me right now.

Anyway, I have no idea what the company's name is, and I eventually come up with the brilliant plan of asking Mister Mumbler to spell his company's name. Which he refuses to do. Instead, he gives me his name, which isn't all that helpful because he works in a giant building and I'm gonna need more than that to figure out where he is. I ask again, and finally he's helpful. Sort of. It's spelled Q-U-I-something unintelligible-O. On the plus side, I do have eighty percent of the company's name. Long story short, thank God there's an electronic directory in their building, and there's only one company whose name starts with a Q.

So anyway, I head to their office, and I'm just standing there cause Jamie, the secretary, is not at her desk. First I stand outside the office, because, let's say, I'm a vampire and I haven't been invited in. Or I'm scared that I'll commit some major faux pas entering a private space without having been invited. Then I think that if I were a FedEx guy, I'd walk right in and wait for the secretary.

I walk in, stand around, eventually meet with the guy, who can't be more than a year older than me, which makes me totally insecure. Good. We talk, I answer the standard questions and some variations on the standard ones. ("What three things do you think you could contribute to our company?") Then he tells me that I should meet with Pierre, a grunt who, I guess, does the same sort of work I'd be doing if I were a masochist and took a job there. Pierre is a tool of major online retailers: when you run a Google search (for example) that returns a listing for one of these retailers' products, there's a little description blurb under the listing, like this:

Webcast: Anatomy of a Rhinoplasty - New York Eye & Ear Infirmary
... Webcast: Anatomy of a Rhinoplasty In this informative web presentation ... images than the original version **. Anatomy of a Rhinoplasty (Full Version). ...
www.nyee.edu/rhinoplasty.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

He formats the "Webcast: Anatomy of a Rhinoplasty In this informative web presentation ... images than the original version **. Anatomy of a Rhinoplasty (Full Version). ..." part of that. Hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, and here's the best part: he gets to use a computer program to do his formatting. That's why they want someone with a computer background, like yours truly. Yours truly, on the other hand, now realizes that this would be a soul-pummelling job, and he would rather spend another year and a half living with his mother rather than take this job.

Great, I'm done, I can go. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a tactful way of saying, "Thanks, but spending ten minutes at this job will turn me into an uncontrollable ball of rage directed at the Man, so I think I'm gonna pass. Let's not waste any more of each other's time, and by the way, I think you're going to hell for making people spend ten hours a day doing this. See you there." But I can't say that; instead, I've gotta give Mister Mumbler my less-than-honest thoughts about his blurb-formatting software. And I can still only make sense of about eighty percent of what this guy's saying. He asks me, "What are your three biggest weaknesses?" Three??? One I can understand, but seriously, asshole, why not make it five, or thirty? I struggle to come up with two, while not contradicting whatever half-truths I told him about myself earlier. Jackass.

Nonetheless, I seem to be impressing him, as evidenced by the fact that he's not, unfortunately, showing me the way to the door. Instead, he wants me to talk with Avi, who serves some indeterminate function at the company. Okay, whatever. It's good experience for me. She asks me, "What do you think about our company?" or something like that.

"I'm intrigued," I say, which turns out to be my biggest mistake of the day because intrigued is way too strong of a word to describe fixing Google blurbs. Shit.

"Intrigued? Really?" she responds, making her vowels way too long. I just didn't want to say "interested," because that sounds banal. It's been a long day, can't you people understand?

Anyway, there's more vapid question-answering, most of which I already did with Mister Mumbler, who's sitting right there. So I've gotta remember what I said the first time, which takes way more effort than I want to put into this. It's about ten minutes later, when they leave to "discuss me," which I take to mean, with dread, that they're gonna offer me the job. I start thinking of excuses.

But no, they want me to meet with Michelle in Human Resources. She's in a meeting right now, but could I wait about ten minutes? "Uh, let's see, what time is it? I sort of have a train to catch in half an hour, but, uh, well..."

Mister Mumbler is staring at me.

"...I guess I can catch the next one. Sure." I wait out in the lobby, where there's still no secretary.

Okay, the one slightly redeeming fact about this interview: Michelle in Human Resources has a cat in her office. I like cats. So, Michelle in Human Resources asks me the same questions for a third time and also explains what someone in Human Resources does. I pet the cat. It's about fifteen minutes, then Michelle in Human Resources leaves to discuss me with God-knows-who. The cat doesn't want to be petted anymore. Michelle in Human Resources comes back with Katie, and as I'm writing this, I can't believe I'm remembering everybody's name. Katie is an "account manager," meaning she serves as liaison between the anti-social blurb formatters and the clients. Katie is probably the same age as Mister Mumbler and significantly hotter than he is, but as she leads me to a conference room, I'm rolling my eyes nevertheless.

So she starts, uh, well, I was gonna say she starts yakking, but she's hot, so she tells me about her job and asks me the same questions that I've been asked four times before. They seem less vapid coming from her for some reason. She explains, "As an account manager, I bring the client's needs to the production team, so if you were to work here, we'd be spending a lot of time working together..." On TV, that always sounds a lot more salacious, but in real life, I can actually feel the acne scars on my face swelling. Katie's interview ends quickly; she hands me back to Michelle from Human Resources, who has me sit in the reception area until some guy named David is done with his meeting. The secretary, Jamie, is finally there — she must have a sweet gig, with her hour and a half breaks.

David isn't interesting. I'm ready to leave; I don't care about the company, that it's a start-up, that the employees are in the stock option plan, whatever. Finally, two hours after I get there, I'm going home.

Now, I'm being really antagonistic about this job, and I'm making it seem like it's because the task they'd have me do is soulless and tedious. But I was thinking about it, and that's not it. Even if I loved the task, even if they were looking for someone to play video games and eat chocolate cake all day long, I'd still feel uncomfortable there. It's like someone who tries to get to know you too well, too quickly. I mean, maybe we should make sure we're serious about this relationship before you introduce me to your account manager, Quigo. See, that's what happens when you come on too strong. And you're dull.