Monday, July 19, 2010

Lesson 5: Wonderful things to say at an interview

Today I had the privilege to talk to Mike. Mike is a 30 year old Caucasian, married for six years to another 30 year old Caucasian; has a perpetually salivating Labrador, going by the name of Lucy that he rescued from a lazy owner who made Lucy miserable but was observant enough to realise that Lucy really could do with a walk now and then and would be perhaps better off with Mike, who likes walking dogs; and is a self confessed maker and shaker with 9 years downtime in the property investment game - 3 years London and 6 years in Australia. As I have come this far, I may as well keep going. Mike is stuck. That's right. I had the privilege to talk to Mike because Mike was stuck in peak hour traffic driving home from work, and thought he'd give me a call.

First thing Mike asked me was if I could make it to dinner on Tuesday night for a going away party for a mutual friend who is heading to the UK to master his business administration and who as fame has it, memorised phone books as a 2 year old, hence was only able to shake off autistic savant status within the fraternity when he learnt how to get off first base with girls. Unfortunately I had to pass on dinner and stressed that I would make it around later for drinks, Hello Kitty's favourite course. So where were we? Mike was stuck, and had called, had asked me to dinner, then we went through the workings of the day, and just in case you thought that this arrangement seems a little strange, that's exactly how I felt about it as well. I mean, I felt strange that Mike was cheating on his wife with me (us). We can all see it happening now. Mike will get home, wife says: "Hi darling, how was your day?" Mike responds, "That's fine honey, I've already covered that with Hello Kitty, can we talk about something else?" Wife says, "Who the fuck is Hello Kitty?" Mike says, "My special friend I call when I am stuck in traffic" and then all hell breaks loose.

Ok, so then Mike asks me about the 4th interview with company L, blablahblah, we're all fucking over it, me, you, the Nazis, the ancient Mesopotaniams, the Aztecs were so over it they poisoned themselves, the North Koreans, the native tribes peoples of Outer Van Diemans land who dressed as frogs are over it, the the blog readers are over it, the head hunter most definitely over it... and that's when I started to talk about suits.

Me to interviewer at Company L: "I'd really like to lock in a date, will need time to duck across and get some suits put together."
Interviewer: "So you'll get them in Korea will you?" sounding interested for the first time today, "How much will that cost you?"
Me: "Well, around 400 dollars in Korea, however have heard good things about a tailor in Thailand as a matter of fact, and am thinking of heading over there."
Wait wait fucking wait. Now before any of you start pulling out your copy of Job Seekers Handbook, Chapter 5 and start demonizing me for getting personal with the interviewer, I ask Mike, who if you remember back a few paragraphs has 9 years experience in the biz, if it was OK to get personal in this way.

Mike says: "Only if you told him you'd bring him back a suit if he signs the deal right this fucking moment, so we can all have a break from this shit."

Just then Mike gets home and looks forward to going inside and having that conversation with his wife. Hello Kitty on the other hand is packing his bags to fly back up to Sydney for interview number 5 with Company L. Next time I'm going to buy him the fucking suit.

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