Interview with No Vampires
Earlier this year, I had a short stint as a “Marketing Executive/ Asst. Business Development Consultant” for a restaurant/lounge/club. My eldest sis however, kept telling everyone that I was “some kind of Club Promoter chick” not that there’s anything inherently bad in being a club promoter girl but it led some idiots to suspect that I was actually working as a “GRO” (I’m not condemning them, I’m just saying it’s not for me, alright?)
Big Sis: You were, weren’t you? You promoted the club therefore you were a
club promoter.
Me : I marketed it, market ; marketing executive.
Mom : These days they call everyone an executive. Tukang cuci pun executive.
Big Sis : So when are you going to get yourself a real job?
Me : It was a real job! Just because I only had to go to work at 2pm doesn’t mean the
job was a freaking mirage, alright?
Big Sis : What exactly did you do? You weren’t a GRO, were you?
Me : NO.
Big Sis : So you were one of those promoter-girls in the little skirts?
Me : No.
I did not stand outside clubs in my mini skirt (which by the way, I’m too fat for), thigh high boots and cropped Tiger Beer tank, handing out flyers and trying to lure male passers-by to come inside and spend money. No sir, I didn’t do that. The job also did not involve me slinking around in a skanky dress, sitting on the laps of patrons, using my feminine wiles and seduction skills (which by the way, I don’t have) to get them to buy as many drinks as possible while they butcher “Endless Love” on the karaoke machine. No, my job usually involved me sitting in a corner during the day glued to my laptop, replying emails, sending emails, designing flyers, writing useless promotional blurbs and press releases which never ended up being sent to the press. Occasionally, when I had some free time and was desperate, lonely, blind, mentally impaired yet strangely confident enough, I’d flirt unsuccessfully with one of the DJs. Mostly, my party hour duties only included calling to check on the night’s scheduled DJs to see what time in this century exactly they plan to arrive. Anyway, to cut a long story slightly less-long, the novelty of the job wore off so I quit.
I have now been successfully unemployed for 2 and a half months but because my previous job didn’t count in the eyes of many; as far as these people are concerned, I’ve been unemployed since graduating uni (7 months plus). Since then, I’ve gotten a million and one suggestions on what I should work as; the most common one being, “Anything, just get your ass of the couch already!” Of course when this was first said, I was only 3 weeks unemployed – a time which I spent recuperating from knee SURGERY and the mysterious week-long fever that I developed following the surgery. Anyway have you ever had someone tell you to get off the couch while you’re practically a fucking cripple? My mother keeps going on about how Tiger Woods had the same surgery I did and how he’s already training for his next PGA tournament. Of course, TIGER FUCKING WOODS IS ONE OF THE BEST PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES the world has ever seen. That’s like telling me to leap off a building because “Well, Superman can fly.”
The rest of the interview sort of went like:
Interviewer: (who had previously asked to read one of my academic essays. I gave him
the one entitled ‘Adventures in Identity, Punishment & Capital in the
Age of Electronic Reproduction featuring the music of Radiohead). Hmm..
I find your essay…..interesting but to be honest, I don’t really know
much about Talking Head.
Me : Radiohead.
Interviewer: Oh, not Talking Head?
Me : No.
Interviewer: Well, I’m an 80s kind of guy. Well anyway……………..
I see that you’ve also listed ‘writing’ under your ‘interests and hobbies’
Me : (Well, what else was I going to put? Watching E! TV? Contemplating the
nothingness of things? Seeing how long I could go without a shower
before something tragic happens?) Yes, yes, I do enjoy writing.
Interviewer: Have you had any of your works published? Newspapers, magazines,
maybe?
Me : (Does this blog count?) No, not quite.
Interviewer: What about back in college and in school? Did you contribute to the school
magazine?
Me : (No, sir, I was too busy trying to get out of going to school to compete with
the kids with perfect punctuation writing profound rhymes about cold, dark
rooms or short, sweet tales about this wondrous thing that happened to
them which would inevitably end with “……it was all just a dream.”)
Uhm..no…
Interviewer : Why not?
Me : That’s an interesting question, really. (Thank you, for making me reflect
upon my under-achievements at such a young age. Please come again).
The funny thing was; the interview wasn’t for a job as a staff writer or anything like that. It had something to do with finance. So yeah, why don’t you just go ahead and ask if I can do a pirouette in ice skates at the Winter Olympics? He offered me an internship with the kind of pay that wouldn’t even cover the cost of petrol to get to work. It is my belief that internship is really just a prettier (and cheaper) word for cheap white collar-slave labor. I was also turned off by the interviewer saying that at the company, “they work hard and play hard”. I don’t know why finance people have to be so hard all the time (no, not in that way) I don’t like things being described as ‘hard’. ‘Hard’ requires effort. I want everything to be light, fluffy and effortless, like fairy dust in the wind blowing through a field of tall grass and pink clouds. (ugh, I just vomited in my mouth). Of course, I appreciate the opportunity but alas, I was living with the hope that something better would come my way. But so far, it’s just been one absurd interview after another.
Here is a bit from another interview with a panel of goons.
school and college…… Why did you do a degree in Communications?
Me : Sorry?
Interviewer 1: Why didn’t you do Law? It seems a waste that you didn’t do Law.
Me : (imagining myself in the Wild West in a cowboy hat and leather spurs with
guns hanging off my hips and saying with a cigar dangling from the
corner of my mouth, “Cause ‘roun here purrdy lady, I AAAYM THE LAW
- BANG BANG YOU’RE DEAD BITCH!”)
Interviewer 2: You mention that you like to keep up to date with current events…….
Me : (I kept up to date with current events in the past; if that counts)
Interviewer 2: Can you tell me the exact inflation rates for (something or other) these
days.
Me : (Dammit, I should’ve just said I liked long walks by the beach) To be
honest, no.
Interviewer 2 : I don’t either.
Interviewer 1: Then why did you ask?
Interviewer 2: Just wondering. Anyway, can you play softball?
Me : Yes (No, not really)
Interviewer 2: Yah, because the company has this sporting tournament every year and our
department really needs softball players.
These people also mentioned that the company encourages its employees to be “gung-ho”. When they said that, I couldn’t help imagining myself as a Rambo-type figure, machine gun belt strapped across my chest, American flag tied around my head, charging through the door of a conference room and going “Ga…ugh….ruhhhh… yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” The vision scared me. The interview was for a trainee executive position in Human Resource. Why would I want to work in Human Resource, you ask? I don’t. My dad submitted my CV in for me without my explicit permission. He told me he just wanted a copy of my CV just “to reflect on what I’ve been doing.” I should’ve known that my dad is too much of a pro-active type (when it comes to work, at least) to simply ‘reflect’. I like to blame him for my passivity. He’s forced me into this mode of rebellion. Because it’s your obligation as a child to be the exact opposite of your parents. Otherwise, society would not evolve……. and civilizations would not crumble. Anyway, these HR people said I’d probably be better suited to “Corporate Communications” (what the fuck does Corporate Comm. really mean?). Then for two months I don’t hear from them and to tell you the truth, I felt relieved. Then suddenly, I get a call saying, “Cik Maryam, I’m ****** calling from the Public Affairs Division of ***** and last week, you had an interview with our HR department, right?” Yes, if we were stuck in a funny time warp it would’ve been last week. But in this earthly reality, we like to call it nine weeks or better known as just slightly over two months. “Well, we’d like you to come in tomorrow to have a chat with our Head of Something Something Public Something Communications and also our Executive of Something Corporate Talk Talk.” So I went to have a “chat” because there was nothing good on TV and also, I need something that would give me a paycheck, soon! Anyway Head & Executive of Something involving Communications said to give them a few weeks to something something before they get back to me. Of course in this organization, if one week = nine weeks; I’m thinking few weeks= a year before they get back to me on something that I didn’t quite catch because I was too distracted by the dodgy plaid pattern on Head of Something’s suit collar to listen.
(yeah, yeah, I’m fully aware of why people aren’t lining up outside my door to employ me).
And then there were two other interviews with two different channels under a certain broadcast media organization; both of which went too badly for me to want to mention at great length. It’s a shame seeing that among other qualifications, I watch enough hours of TV to keep 10,000 toddlers stupid. You think I’d be able to get a job working with a TV station. But no, “Too young with no experience in the media industry,” was their main issue. Okay, sure, I’ll just wait until I’m old with no experience in the media industry. And oh, one of the interviewers said to me, “What are your weaknesses?” but then cuts me off by saying, “Oh, wait, you’re probably too young to even be able to properly recognize your weaknesses.”
Dammit, lady, I was going to say “Pasta”!
(Anyway, I’m suddenly overcome by intense boredom while writing this entry. Also I sound like a really big twat.)
