I am going on my first job interview since 1994.
I have not been in the Land of the Walking Dead since 1998.
The world has rapidly changed and so have I.
I’m not too worried whether or not I get a job at Meijer, our 24 hour/7 days a week Everything You Need MegaloMart. I’ve shopped there enough to know what they are looking for and either I can dumb myself down to get the job or keep my mouth shut long enough to get the job.
We here at Chateau Ujest are not too picky about what position we are hired into. If it comes with a paycheck and a flex schedule, I’d scrub the bathrooms there with my toothbrush.
But this isn’t so much about me and me re-entering the work force. It’s about my Mom. Mind you, she just turned 80 this summer and is finally acting her age. She’s been acting 80 my whole life and now that she is this number, she is embracing this whole death/old age/feebleness thing with both arms harder than she usually does, which is pretty freakin’ hard.
I known that since the day my brothers were diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy when I was barely 13, that one day I would end up caring for my mother. As I grew older, married and had kids, I knew that if I took the time to re-enter college and Do Something With My Life and Get a Plan or Get A Job With Promise, she would end up needing care and I would have to quit my job because I would be pulled willy-nilly between taking care of her and my kids. I’ve known this deep down inside of me since the day the thought crystalized in my brain many, many years ago. I have resigned my fate to be borderline poor* for the rest of eternity. It is just how things work in my life. Anytime I get ahead, someone needs care and then dies a long lingering death. Not looking for sympathy, just stating facts. With only one brother left and just mom, the odds are in their favor of suffering and dying, not me actually getting my Shit Together.
The day I got the call about this job interview my mom fell and worried that she broke her hip. ( She didn’t and she is ok. But I told her to stop getting out of bed in the mornings just to be on the safe side.) I actually found out about her fall about 20 minutes after I got the Come On In For A Looksy call. I burst out laughing for a good few moments. Damn, I am good.
So, I decided to amuse myself by calling my mother and telling her about my upcoming interview this afternoon at 4pm. Nothing is more entertaining to me than bringing reality to my mother, who does not handle change well. She still doesn’t have cable TV and regularly fights with her answering machine.
“Don’t wear jeans!” *Cause, y’no, only hoodlums wear jeans to an interview are her underlying thoughts. *
" I won’t wear jeans, ma, but it some job markets it’s ok to wear jeans. I was thinking of wearing a low cut blouse and six inch heels." and no pants. I add mentally.
" Don’t you dare. I raised you to be a lady!" she knows I am kidding. My fuck me pumps are only 4 inches, but they look awful with my Land’s End Comfort Fit Waistl Line Jeans. It is, I dare add, difficult to feel sexy in Thar She Blows panties, but I digress.
“Did you go in and get an application?”
“Nope. " I smile thinking how cute she is. Next thing you know she advise me to use Dippity Doo in my hair before I set it in curlers. " Filled out an application on-line and then did a personality test to see whether or not I was a Perky Polly or Ted Kaczynski.”
“Who?”
“The Una-Bomber.”
“Oh.” Click, " Oh, yes. He was a nutball."
I went into brief detail on how you get to answer vaguely worded questions on a scale of 1-8, ( one being Most definately Not Like me , 8 being Most definately being like me, fer sure with a mid range of 3-4-5’s being: kinda like me depending on which way my hormones blow that moment.)
If you saw an employee stealing from the company, would you confront them? Naturally, I want to know more, like if the employee/suspect has a neck tattoo and can bench press Volvo’s before I think of putting my out of shape ass on the line for a $2 pack of gum, but there is no room for minor details like this on these tests. So I said, " 8, Why , yes that sounds just like me! *Everybody Kungfu Fightin! * Hooo Ha!
Do you have any problems motivating yourself to do your job?
The answer, my friend, should have been, " If you have seen the condition of my house and the size of my dust bunnies, you would know that this is a big fat negative 97." So, I put in a 8. I won’t even mention I am a Doper and Farker or well…y’know…
Do you take pride in a job well done? Only when it comes to steak. Another 8.
Do you pride yourself on your can-do attitude? My what? Sorry, that phraselogy is foreign to me. ther 8.
Do you consider yourself a team player? Why, yes, when every thing goes my way. Ocho!
** How important do you consider arriving on time for work or other places?** I married into Zee German Culture. It is very important to arrive at either the exact moment when we are expected ( not a moment early or late) or to arrive intentionally early so as to observe in a loud voice to the haggard hostess, " Did you mean to do this (he wrong vay?)" and " Oh, domestic can. How adequate." *Geben zie acht! *
How well do you take orders? Ach du meine Gute! I live to serve! Arbeit Mach Frei! I would give myself a 10 on this but the computer only allows a paltry 8. In Ghermany, our compu-ters vhould allow zis, but, ach…You american’s …:::lights cigerette and drinks some asbach un sigh heavily::::::.
Do you have a problem with alcohol or drugs? No, I enjoy watching everyone else make asses out of themselves, videotape them and then put it on YouTube.Com! I think of it as a community service. I think this would be a One. I got so freakin’ confused with the numbering system after ten minutes.
Are you willing to work extra hours and weekends if needed? If there is overtime involved and donuts, I’m your gal. Eight!
There was one place, after filling in my dismal educational experience and pathetic past job record ( all companies I have worked for have gone under. YAY me!) for a little personal remark box. I really, really wanted to put in, " I have a cat named Boots!" or " I posess all my own teeth and can spel real god." But I put in all the buzzwords the Corporate Drones want to hear like: reliable, hard worker, good transportation and donates a kidney every month.
By the end of the 30 minute exam I sounded, in my mind, like Ned Flanders. These things are about as realistic as the Gate Agents at the Airport asking you if anyone has packed a bomb in your suitcase. “Why, golly! You are right! I left my suitcase over at Hassan’s house last night…he said he would pack my shirts for me so they wouldn’t wrinkle. That dirty bum!”
When I received the call from Whomever Who Has To Wade Through All the OnLine Applications, I nearly burst out laughing.
My mom is more worried for me about this interview than I am. " Where do you think you will start out? Stock room?"
" I don’t really care."
“You wouldn’t want to be a cashier. Those things look awfully complicated.”
" Not really. No one handles money any more. My job, if I get that, would be to put everything in a bag so that the homemaker doesn’t have all her baking goods in one bag and all her spices in the same bag and mixing up toiletries into every t-shirt bag to cause as much eye twitching to our customer as possible." Oh, come on! You know this is how they are trained!
“Well, I suppose your (late)brother’s ex-wife ( whom he married on the spur of the moment and she ditched him when he got too sick and we never heard from her again. Trash in every sense of the word. I have no memory of what she looks like. Met her once. Didn’t come to the funeral. Hopefully she died in a fire or something.) " If his ex-wife could work a register, you could too.”
Years ago, phrases like that crushed my self esteem. I’m not sure what happened to make it hysterical, but I bust out laughing. " Oh, thanks mom! I’m as dumb as whatsherface."
“No you are much smarter and prettier than her.” Cause, yanno, being pretty is everything!
So, that said, my mother’s burst of confidence in me, I am off to color my hair and iron my only pair of non-stained non-capri khaki’s and be off to meet with My Future. Wishing I could wear my fuck-me pumps.
