The Interview

"Well, Mr. Carey, is it? Why don't you tell me why you think you would be a good fit for our firm?"

"I could tell you how I would be a good fit for your firm, but please, allow me first to tell you a short story...a story of hope, the tale of a young boy's dream. As long as I can remember forming hopes and aspirations mine were fixed. I was unwavering, determined, and singularly-focused...I was of one mind, no, I was of considerably less than one mind. My childhood friends would move like a flock of pigeons from dreams of space travel, dinosaur excavation and professional sports glory. Not I, from the very first time I laid my blessed eyes on the cold, modern contours of an industrial strength Swingline stapler I knew, it was my destiny to spend hours behind a desk or in a cubicle collating paper and filling out forms. Some may call it a humble dream, but as I ran my hand over the handle of that cold black stapler there was nothing modest about my thoughts...with slight pressure and a melodic click an entire stack of paper could be bound together for easy transfer from desk to desk. I dreamt in sleep and wakefulness alike of having a time and date stamp where the rubber face could be rotated to reflect the perpetual cascade into the future, with each rotation I could thank providence for my rigid and menial life. I dreamt of stacks of paperwork to be scaled as some men scale the great peaks of the Andes and Himalayas. I dreamt of cavernous desk drawers as deep and mysterious as the abyss of the deepest seas. I would be a good fit for your firm because, like any other cog prefashioned for the turning of a wheel, I was destined to toil away behind a desk, or, god-willing, in a cubicle."

As I finished I had noticed the tears well up in her knowing eyes. I reached for the small stack of tissues I kept in the breast pocket of my black two-piece suit, the pocket closest to my heart, and handed her a tissue.

"Mr. Carey, that is the most touching thing I have ever heard. I did not know there were others out there! In this world of careerists and social-climbers I thought I would never meet another for whom the task itself was profit enough."

I took her hand, fingers hardened from hours of tireless work on a computer keyboard. I imagined her at work, drafting form-memos, those hands gliding across the keyboard like the fingers of Chopin carried lightly, but firmly over the ivory keys of a grand piano. The sound of the keys, some may call it a cacophony of clicks and taps, to me that sound is the very sound of music. As I clutched her tired hands and looked into those tear-filled eyes that seemed to reflect the lost soul of every corporate functionary the world over, I said, "There are many out there like us, you should never feel alone. Those of us for whom toil is inherently rewarding. We who, under weak backs and inadequate spines are banished from the world of manual labor. We who of rigid, inflexible minds are the diaspora of a once creative land. We who choose to carry, but to carry lightly...who choose to think, but to think along the strict confines of an employee handbook. We are the bureaucrats with no bureaucracy! We, we desk-jockeys of the world, we will find each other in another time...a time where everything is firmly scheduled and only endeavored with the permission of an authority. Another time in a place where the edges are hard and the colors black and white. No, you should never feel alone, and absolutely not ashamed! For the world relies on the efficient allocation of paperwork and storage of data...we are the very substratum of the universe!"

The lovely glow re-entered her eyes in a flood of relief as she said to me, "Mr. Carey, you have truly inspired me. I find you inspiring! And therein lies the problem. You speak of banal wonders the size of worlds. You tell tales of ordinary heroics. You would be a wonderful fit for our firm, were it not the blatant creativity the telling of your tale betrays! You are an imposter! You are one of the many-minded cosmopolitan free-wheelers who besmirch our very name.

Overtaken by obvious horror I moved to contain the situation, "I fear your evaluation to be in clear error! Though I tell a story, and I am a man of many stories, they are not my own. I have lifted these stories from others and I can give you the authorities themselves to prove it!"

"Authority?," she answered puzzled, "like precedent even, like legal precedent!"

My confidence restored I continued, "Precisely like legal precedent. Fear not, I can assure you that I have not had a creative thought in my life! No, absolutely not. The outer bounds of my thinking go no further than the dark-lined confines of a cell in a Microsoft access database."

Together we took a collective sigh of relief and she immediately extended me an offer, "I hope you will consider working here, I think you will find our compensation quite competitive."

"Consider? Nonsense, I will do nothing of the sort! Give me a line to sign on with an 'X' next to it and I will sign. Furthermore, I hope to put my name to many a line on the parchment of this firm...and that will be compensation enough for me!"