Floorboards
07 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
As I walk North on Broadway and 36th street, my old pal insecurity starts to block my temporary good attitude, kind of like when you get a great seat at a movie theater and the show is about to start only to have an unnaturally tall gentlemen sit directly in front of you. Enjoy.
It’s incredibly hot out for March, and my newly bought clothes aren’t taking well to life on the street. I haven’t had enough practice wearing them yet so they start to bail out on me and show sweat in odd places and ride up in unreachable territory. This is the first interview I’ve had in a long time. I try to tell myself I don’t even care if I get the job, I’m just happy to have heard back from someone. Anyone. I take a short tumble as my shoes start to try to catapult my feel from the soles. It’s not a good sign when even your shoes don’t want you around.
I catch a quick glimpse of myself in a storefront mirror. How can my makeup already be gone? I refuse to believe the pale, washed out, frizzy haired girl staring back at me is me. I looked great before I left the job I’m trying to escape. I do not represent the well dressed, put together woman I imagined in my head. Instead, I look like a child playing dress up in t heir parent’s work outfit, all bought from H&M.
The walk light turns green, and I quickly gather myself together. It’s okay, looks don’t matter. What you’re going to bring to the company is all that matters. Do I really want to work in mid-town? It’s so busy and crowded over here. I’m getting close to my destination, so I start to scan the ever hard to find numbers on the buildings while bumping into tourists checking out knock off bags on the street. As quick as I imagine myself for a minute as one of them, dreams no bigger than coming to Nyc and riding the Staten Island Ferry and eating at an overpriced TGIF’s, the quicker I shudder and remember I unfortunately have dreams and aspirations that are harder than ever to attain.
I find the building and enter. I start to run over all the possible interview questions that could be asked and all the answers I think I should say in my head. I push the button to the elevator and wait in agony. Half hoping the fire drill goes off so I can stall this excruciating process even longer. The elevator door opens. Damn. I enter the elevator and my brain decides to start asking me philosophical questions. Why do we even have interviews? We all know they’re a joke. Does anyone ever really mean what they say in an interview? Aren’t we all expected to say the same shit? Is it really just a process to see who has the submissiveness and conformity in them to be able to put themselves through this over and over again. Stop it, stop it. They’ll smell a rebel as soon as you enter the room. I start to go over my resume in my head again.
The elevator door opens to a hallway and at the end is the door to the company. I walk down as quietly as possible even though it seems with every creak my steps make the floorboards are trying to call out to me, “Go back, you do not belong here.”
I ring the buzzer and they let me in.
“Hi, I’m here to meet with Mr._” I say to sea of heads in cubicles. Though, more like a small bay than a sea, since there are only 10 or so people.
A tall, average looking gentleman pops up, “Hi, great. you must be_.” He says. We shake hands and I follow him into a conference room. I stand as I wait for him to ask me to sit. And so it begins.
“So, _ what do you think I should be asking you?”
I smile and draw a blank. Looks like I should have listened to those floorboards after all.
