Out in the sticks

I'm job hunting. I graduated from university, I went travelling, and now I'm job hunting. I applied for a sales and marketing assistant job (by accident, but that's another story) and thought it was going to be sitting in an office, making phone calls and researching products all day.

Oh ho ho. How wrong I was.

So the company advertised a job like the one I just described, and emailed me for an interview about two hours after I sent in my application. Okay, I thought, maybe they're just desperate? Which was good news for me, because that meant Job. And Job = Payment. The pay they were offering seemed pretty good, too. I went for the interview.

The interview was less than five minutes of one of the managers telling me about the company, shaking my hand and telling me that I might get invited back for an 'Open Day' if I was successful. Dazed and a little confused, I left the office.

At 1.53pm I get The Call.

So I've managed to make an impression, I've passed the first stage of the application process. Can I come in the next day for 8.45am and stay until 6pm?

Erm...

I say yes. What else am I going to do: stay home all day? When I arrive promptly at 8.35am, it's to a room of ten other hopeful applicants. Yikes. I try not to let that phase me, keeping my head up, talking myself down from panicking, it will be okay it will be okay it will b

We're split up, partnered with current employees. Like a mentor-mentee system. This is good, I think. I just have to impress this guy - let's call him Hamish - and I'm in.

Oh ho ho. How wrong I was.


Hamish gives me the run-through: congratulations on making it this far, today is all about my performance blah blah blah blah. I suppose I would have been more interested in what he was saying if we weren't standing in a room where ten other employees were giving the exact same speech to the other applicants. But whatever, that's corporate business for you, amiright?

The robot - I mean, Hamish - is going to be on the job and I will be observing him, while completing some tasks of my own. He wants to see if I have a Good Attitude, Student Learning and Some Third Thing That I've Forgotten. He leads a small team out of the office and down to the station. Our destination?

When we get there, I'm introduced to the rest of the team. Four other employees and another applicant, who I'm told is my direct competition and therefore forbidden to communicate with. Which is a real shame because she seemed like a sweet girl, way too nice for those corporate monsters who jest "I better not see any fighting!" Like I'm that petty.

I'm set a task: come up with a product or service, working out how much it will cost, yearly profits, and all that maths stuff. I work on it for an hour and a half. Show it to Hamish, who tells me I've passed! On to task two: write a paragraph for ten of my skills and five of my weaknesses, using examples. I do that; I pass that. Hamish announces I've progressed far enough that he can now tell me what the job actually is.

It's walking around trying to sign people up to a specific internet provider. It's commission-based pay. It's going to kick-start my career so I'll be advancing in three to six months.

I really wanted to tell him that in six months I'd be handing in my notice, not going up the ladder. I keep my mouth shut, going along with Hamish because I want a job, ANY job. Hamish tells me if I'm consistently successful in all the tasks, I'll make it to stage three of the application process: an interview with the Big Boss. How exciting!note the sarcasm

For now though, I'm told to write twenty qualities of a manager - each with a paragraph explaining why they need this quality. I'm sitting in Costa, Hamish is gone, and the woman on the table next to me is merrily writing on her laptop. That's what I want to be doing. I write one quality. I write two qualities. I'm stealing points I used in the skills task. They want me to be a leader, I'll be a leader.

But then I stop. I don't want to be a leader. I'm not a dominant person. I don't want to have my pay based on whether I can force people to buy that one specific brand of internet. I quiver at the thought of becoming a corporate robot like Hamish. I'd rather work in the Costa I'm sitting in. I've got at least an hour before I'm supposed to have finished the third task. I've got another four until the final stage, and what if I'm just waiting to be told I spent all this time and money only to be told I'm not what they're looking for? Or worse, what if I get the job and I'm taught all the tricks and tips of assimilating into the robotic persona?

"Thank you for the opportunity, but it's just not for me." I shake Hamish's hand and skip towards the station, grinning with relief.

When you know you've walked away
from a nonsensical job with your soul
intact.