Pink Slip Party (15 page)

“I can understand that,” I say.

Cheryl laughs. “Oh, but
of course.
Now,
Jane
—” again five syllables — “tell me about
you.”

She blinks expectantly. I hate open-ended questions. I shift uncomfortably.

“Well, since the highlight of my day these days is eating peanut butter sandwiches and watching
The View,
I’m afraid I’m not all that interesting. But…” I add, trying to turn on the charm. “I’ve really taken the time to do some introspection. To find out what I really want from a job, and I think I know what it is.” I pause, trying to think what it is, exactly. “Swedish furniture,” I quip. Better to joke than to say something really dumb, I think.

Cheryl throws her head back and laughs a fake laugh.

“Oh, Doris
said
you were
funny.”
Cheryl sighs and wipes under her left eye. “Well, let me tell you about this job. We work hard here at Cook4U.com — it’s not all fun and games. Don’t let the Nerf ball fool you.”

She pauses, as if giving me an opening to laugh, but I don’t, so she quickly moves on.

“We can work long hours, but we try to have fun — because after all if you’re not having fun, then what is the
point?”

“Right,” I nod my head agreeably. Bobbing it, almost.
Hire me. You want to hire me,
I mentally shout.

“Well
sure.
But what we want here at Cook4U.com is a feeling of
family.
We’re coworkers, yes — but we like to think of ourselves as a…”

“Family?” I prompt.

“Exactly!”

“Doris is a great maternal figure. And I think you’ve seen Dave — he’s the guy with the Nerf football. He’s a great pesky younger brother type. So if you were part of our
family
— what role do you see yourself playing?”

“Graphic designer,” I say.

“Right — but what
family
character would you be?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking,” I say.

Cheryl hangs her head in mock frustration.

“Come on,
Jane
—” six syllables this time (JA-A-A-N-NNE) — “you know what I mean.”

“The Gay Uncle?” I joke. Cheryl doesn’t get that I’m joking. She frowns.

“We’re very accepting of all sexual orientations here,” she says. “We don’t discriminate.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you did,” I say. I’m blowing it. Totally blowing it. Time to regroup. “I’d be the artsy younger sister.”

“Good — good,” Cheryl says, scribbling something on her notepad. She clears her throat and flips her hair off her shoulder. “How much are you ‘into’ cooking?”

I stare at her blankly.

“Well, we
are
Cook4U.com, and we’ve survived the dot-com bust because we believe we have a superior product, and because we really
love
what we do. We take cooking very seriously. I mean, everyone here is
crazy
about
cooking.
”

I don’t know what to say, exactly. The only things I can cook come in frozen packages with instructions written on them.

“So how much are you
into
cooking? On a scale of one to ten.”

“A ten,” I say. “Definitely a ten.”

“Jane,” she says in a lecturing tone. “
Everyone
at Cook4U is
off the charts
in terms of cooking enthusiasm.”

I feel like I’ve been tricked.

“Oh, I mean, right, off the charts. I’m off the charts,” I say. “I’m a fifteen.”

Cheryl shakes her head, telling me it’s not high enough.

“I mean, twenty, thirty — a hundred,” I say, desperate.

“Now you’re talking,” Cheryl says, nodding.

I know without a doubt that I’ve blown the interview. Right there. With the scale question.

“Well, we worry about
fit
here at Cook4U.com. Everyone is upbeat — everyone is positive. We all thrive on
positive
energy. Do you thrive on
positive
energy?”

The idea of even trying to pretend to be perky is exhausting me, but I give it my best shot.

“I can be upbeat,” I say. “I like positive energy as well as the next person.”

“I can tell you’re a direct, no-nonsense personality. Clear type Orange. You call things as you see them. Nothing much gets past you. I’m a Blue. I’m a people person.” She smiles as she says this, a big, frighteningly fake grin. I stare at her, transfixed.

“OK,
Jane,
I think I’ve kept you to myself long enough. It’s now time to call the team in.”

The “team” consists of Abercrombie, his Nerf football partner, and a Russian with a thick accent. They pile into the conference room carrying their free soda like badges of honor and plop lazily into surrounding chairs. I want to work with them so badly it hurts.

“This is the team. Team, this is
Jane.”

“Hi
Jane,”
they all sing-song at once.

“Now,
boys,
be nice.” Cheryl giggles as she says this, and sends a flirty look to Abercrombie.

“Jane.
Tell us. Do you think Vlad is sexy? He thinks you’re sexy.” Abercrombie is putting Vlad, the Russian, on the spot. He turns red.

“John,” admonishes Cheryl.

“Cher, you know I love you babe, come on,” Abercrombie says, causing Cheryl to giggle.

“So, what do you like to eat for lunch?” Abercrombie asks me. “That’s a very important question around here. What we have for lunch.”

I
really
want this job.

“I’m a sandwich person,” I say.

“Sandwiches!” the team cries. “Excellent. One more sandwich person.”

This is the strangest interview. I don’t know whether I’m gaining or losing points. I don’t know if they’re being jovial or sarcastic. My heart sinks to my stomach. It’s like catching your gorgeous blind date scoping out the restaurant for quick exits.

“How about your credentials?” Vlad starts to ask me, but Cheryl interrupts.

“Oh, that’s not really that important,” Cheryl says. “What is important is how you
feel
about working, and what you
want
from your work.”

Now I know how Mom got hired. She can talk about her feelings for hours. This however is one way in which I actually resemble Dad. I don’t like talking about feelings. In fact, more often than not, I like to pretend I don’t have them.

“Well, I think we’ve pestered Jane long enough today,” Cheryl tells “the team” as if they’re a preschool class and I’m a turtle in show-and-tell. Then, she turns to me. “Do you have any questions for us?”

This is the question I hate most in interviews, because the questions you want to ask (i.e., how much do you intend to pay me and how easy is it to get away with two-hour lunches?) don’t reflect well on you as a whole. So, you have to make up crappy questions you don’t care about so you look interested and committed.

“When will you make a decision?” Damn. This is the best question I can come up with? I’m blowing it, I think. Blowing it.

“In the next couple of weeks,” Cheryl says, clearly disappointed with my lack of creativity. “Well, if that’s it…” Cheryl trails off. “All that’s left is the drug test.”

Drug test?

“Everyone here takes a drug test,” Cheryl says, handing me a slip of paper. “The clinic is right down the street. You can stop by there on your way home.”

Before I leave, Mom gives me a hug at the door, which is incredibly embarrassing, then whispers, “Good luck!”

“Thanks for coming by!” Cheryl sings at me as I step into the elevator.

On the way to the drug test, I stop by Starbucks and buy three grande herbal teas, but I doubt they’ll do any good. Even if I did pass the drug test, something tells me I certainly flunked the interview.

I thought my day couldn’t get worse, but when I get home, I discover Missy and Ron making out on the couch like teenagers.

“Oh my God!” I scream, covering my eyes. “I’m going to go blind.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Missy coughs, sitting up and wiping Ron spit from her mouth. Steph, I see, taking a quick peek through my hands, is nowhere to be found. I’m glad she’s spared seeing this sight.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say. Catching Ron making out with Missy is as bad or worse than catching my parents. I feel queasy.

“Dude, you are such a spaz,” Ron sniffs.

Almost immediately, they start sucking face again, like there’s a tractor beam pulling their lips together.

“Seriously, stop it. You’re going to make me throw up,” I say. I cover my eyes again, and bounce my shin against the coffee table.

“If you don’t like it, why don’t you go to your bedroom?” Missy asks me.

“The living room is clearly a
common
area,” I say. “Why don’t you two go to YOUR bedroom?”

“Fine,” Missy declares in a huff. She gets up and drags Ron to what used to be my bedroom and slams and locks the door. Within seconds, there’s the telltale sound of squeaking bed springs.

“Not on my bed!” I shout, but I fear it’s already too late.

I go back to the living room and turn up the television as loud as it will go, and then pick up the Working section of the
Tribune
because after my botched interview, clearly I need sound advice.

It tells me I should approach job hunting like a regular job — scheduling in times for “networking” and “resume building” and “classified reading” as if they are business meetings.

If I wrote down my schedule, I think I’d slit my wrists. It would look something like:

8
A.M.
–9
A.M.
— Lie in bed pretending to sleep.

9
A.M.
–10
A.M.
— Watch
Oprah.

10:00
A.M.
–10:05
A.M.
— Think about exercising. Decide against it.

10:06
A.M.
–10:08
P
.
M
.— Eat four slices of peanut butter toast.

10:08
A.M.
–10:30
A.M.
— Ask Missy to wash dishes, then listen to her twenty minute explanation of life-threatening allergies.

10:30
A.M.
–10:45
A.M.
— Drink coffee, eat bagel. Watch end of
The View.

10:45
A.M.
–11:45
A.M.
— Read through the same job listings that were posted yesterday.

11:45
A.M.
–12:00
P.M.
— Decide to better self. Attempt to read Important Novel by Important Author that has won Important Prize. Start to get sleepy. Doze. Get woken up by Missy who can’t find the remote.

12:00
P.M.
–12:05
P.M.
— Wake up completely with a start, positive that new jobs may have been posted online.

12:05
P.M.
–12:07
P.M.
— Check online. No new jobs have been posted.

12:07
P.M.
–12:08
P.M.
— Empty already emptied trash.

12:08
P.M.
–12:20
P.M.
— Watch infomercial on dehydrators. Consider buying one.

12:20
P.M.
–12:30
P.M.
— Wrestle with Missy for the remote. Lose.

12:30
P.M.
— Decide to limit television intake, as it is bad for self-esteem and wallet. Turn off television. Turn on radio.

12:31
P.M.
–12:34
P.M.
— Sing along to Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.”

12:34
P.M.
–12:36
P.M.
— Sufficiently inspired to look through job listings again. I won’t back down!!

12:36
P.M.
–12:38
P.M.
— Wind is taken out of sails by unfortunate Jewel song “My Hands.”

12:39
P.M.
— Turn off radio. Pace apartment. Worry about making rent. Eat spoonful of Jif. Have Missy shout at me to quit pacing because I’m making her dizzy.

12:40
P.M.
–12:45
P.M.
— Attempt again to read Important Book by Important Author who won Important Prize. Mind wanders. Realize am hungry.

12:46
P.M.
–1
P.M.
— Eat four slices of bread.

1:00
P.M.
–2:15
P.M.
— Nap.

2:15
P.M.
–2:45
P.M.
— Wake up. Attempt more reading of Important Book. Get drowsy. Nap some more.

2:45
P.M.
–3:15
P.M.
— Contemplate get-rich-quick schemes. Make calls about selling own eggs/blood/organs. Eat another spoonful of Jif.

3:15
P.M.
–5
P.M.
— Watch reruns of
Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeannie,
and
Hogan’s Heroes.
Listen to my bed being violated by Missy and Ron.

5
P.M.
–6
P.M.
— Empty trash. Dream up chores, like refolding clothes in drawers. Reorganize shoes in closet. Clean goo off detergent caps. Eat more bread.

6
P.M.
–6:30
P.M.
— Contemplate going to bed.

My scheduling exercise is interrupted by my buzzer. I look out the front window and see Kyle.

“Thank God,” I say.

“Todd canceled on me tonight. Want to go out?” Kyle says into my intercom.

“Do I ever,” I reply, tossing on my coat and heading for the stairs.

“So why do you keep coming around?” I ask Kyle, over a bowl of soup at Noodles down the street from my apartment.

“I don’t want you to see you on
Maury Povich,
” he says.

“Nice.”

“Seriously, you seem down. You’re not like the Jane I know.”

“Who’s the Jane you know?”

“Jane is somebody who doesn’t miss a beat. Ever,” Kyle says. “She always has a snappy comeback. She doesn’t let anybody push her around.”

“I like this Jane you know,” I say. “Maybe you should introduce us.”

“The Jane I know likes to pretend she doesn’t need anybody, but she does,” Kyle says.