Tel

  Chapter 14

  I probably never mentioned it before but I’ve always been terrible at interviews. I tend to clam up and get all flustered, a bit like the time I lost my virginity. I envy people like Priscilla Queen of the Phonies who, I figure, can sell herself so convincingly that she has interviewers believing she’ll treble turnover with her little finger. Some people are born with misguided confidence but I just can’t spout off how great I am to a complete stranger when I don’t believe it myself. Even if I do believe it, I am kind of modest at heart which is why I suffer at interviews; no one wants a modest candidate do they? I prefer to tell the truth and talk about how we did this and we did that, as a team rather than take the glory for the whole damn thing myself because, the fact of the matter is, it’s nearly always a team effort and, in my mind, there’s no shame in saying so but interviewers want to hear you’re the golden balls of an outfit, even when you’re not.

  So, it was with some trepidation that I eventually found myself sitting in a dingy office with picture-less brown painted walls on three sides and a glass window looking out to the factory floor on the fourth. There was little by the way of decoration in the room, simply two tables, one in the corner opposite the door, with a kettle and a couple of mugs carefully placed on it, and one overlooking the factory, which had my hands face down on it, depositing oily fluids onto the wooden surface. Across from me sat a peroxide blonde woman of fifty-five, or thereabouts, who had far too much make up on and lips that made her look like a trout. I could only surmise that it was a result of surgery gone wrong.

  “So, Terence, tell me about yourself?” she said in this gravelly, unwelcoming voice, which must have been caused by decades of chain smoking.

  I despised her question. Like I said, I’m not prone to spouting bull about being some kind of hero who spends their spare time looking after stray cats but, at the same time, if I told her the truth; that I’d recently been heavily involved in ruining someone’s wedding day, failed to get it up with a Glasgow chav and was only at the interview because I was told to do so by big fat Margery; do you think she would have liked the truth? I think not.

  “Well, I went to University in Keele to study business and…”

  “Why did you choose that University?” interrupted Mrs Drummond, to give you her real name, who began writing away vigorously even before I could answer.

  “It was the only one which would have me!” I answered, amused by my own humour, thinking it would break the ice. Mrs Drummond’s face didn’t move a muscle. “Err, well no, that was a joke,” I said. “I chose it because I heard it had one of the best business schools in the country with a five star rating from the University board.”

  “And what made you want to study Business?” she asked, staring me straight in the eye like she was about to jump across the table, rip out my heart and eat it raw.

  “To be honest, I didn’t start out studying business. I actually spent the first two weeks on a creative writing course but the trouble with that was there was barely any writing, people just sat round talking about their feelings in a group and being asked who their favourite author was. I wasn’t learning anything from it really so I transferred to business as I’ve always had a keen interest in that field.”

  I felt it prudent to leave out the part where I told the group my favourite author was Roald Dahl which, needless to say, hadn’t ingratiated me with the intellectual writing fraternity whose interests included Keats, Hardy and Nietzsche to name a few.

  “Not interested enough to make it your first choice though?” the mean old sod coldly asked in reply before refusing to wait for mine. “No need to answer that. It would seem you don’t follow things through Terence. Would you say this is true of your character?”

  My palms were really quite sweaty at that point. I had to lift them from the table just to get some air into them but as I did I left two hand prints of noticeable moisture in their place which old Drummond spotted straight away and wrote down on her growing list of things she hated about me. I was only sweating because it felt like an interrogation rather than an interview but I doubt she would have cared for my whining much.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I follow through with a lot of things,” I replied, giving no thought to what her next question would be.

  “Can you think of a recent example?”

  I sat there for a few seconds mulling it over. I thought about telling her I’d followed through whilst lying in bed that very morning but I’d already established humour wasn’t one of her strengths so I left that line well alone. Unsurprisingly my mind hazed over and the lights quickly went out, refusing to come back on. The longer it took for a reply, the closer I was to maintaining my unemployed status until, eventually, we both became aware of my impending doom. It did cross my mind to mention my last few days at Clays but I was pretty sure telling a potential employer of my failed whistleblowing exploits wouldn’t sit comfortably with them. The trouble was; it was the only thing I had done of late which had allowed for any kind of dedication, apart from fantasising about Jess of course.

  “I’m sorry, my mind has gone blank,” I answered apologetically, going as red as a beetroot and sinking deeper into my chair. After that I knew the rest of the interview was a waste of time.

  “Impressive,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Okay, let’s move on to the competency part of the interview shall we. Terence, can you give me an example of when you have had to lead a group in a task and what the positive outcomes of your leadership were?” she asked with a voice which sounded like she’d been stuck down the mines for thirty years solid.

  Not many people are leaders in life. That kind of stuff is usually left to managers and if she’d read my CV and had any sense at all then she would have known I had no such experience in leadership but she wanted an example regardless of my history which didn’t seem very fair to me at all.

  “You can use examples from outside of your work life if you’d like,” Mrs Drummond said, possibly trying to offer me a lifeline although it was more likely she was bored with talking and wanted to wrap up the interview as quickly as possible. Typically, all I could think of was football.

  “Well, I recently captained our football team in the final of the Gloucestershire Cup,” I started. The Cup Final was actually played ten years before and I didn’t captain anyone, I was third in line for the honour, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “We were down 3-1 at half time and staring defeat in the face so I felt I needed to say a few words to encourage the guys, you know. Err, I talked about working as a team, playing with passion and grabbing the opportunity whilst we could. I told them they had to live their life fighting for every inch and that included the football pitch where every inch would take us to the goal, you know. I guess I really motivated the guys because they ran on to the pitch visibly fired up and ready for battle. It was quite an emotional moment really.”

  I could have pushed my luck and wiped away a tear but I doubted old frog throat would have fallen for it.

  “Terence. Every inch you say?” she said pausing for a second. I nodded enthusiastically. “Is that not a speech by Al Pacino from ‘Any Given Sunday’?”

  Well bloody hell, she had me there. I didn’t for a minute believe she would have seen that god damn film so I had only thrown in the inch spiel for affect but who would have known she was part of the Pacino fan club.

  “Err, is it? I don’t know, I’ve never seen that film,” I lied.

  “I never said it was a film,” she replied coldly, staring deep into my eyes again like some kind of murder detective, before I got all panicky and glanced away. I should have stuck with what I knew best and been honest but sometimes I don’t even follow my own advice.

  “Let’s move on shall we?” she continued. “Can you recall a time when someone came to you with a problem and you used a new and unique method of solving it?” Detective Drummond asked, no doubt soiling herself in anticipation of my a
nswer. Sure enough I gave her a feeble one but what was I supposed to say when I literally didn’t have an answer? I once masturbated into a sponge, which was pretty unique but I’m sure she wouldn’t have been overly impressed if I told her.

  “I’m sorry, there really isn’t an example I can give you,” I told her, truthfully. She sighed and put her pen down.

  “I think it’s best if we call time on the interview don’t you Terence?” she said, almost pleadingly. I nodded and began to put my coat on but then felt a sudden urge to have my say, to let her know I was more than what she thought of me, that I was better than that and a worthy candidate for the job, even though I never wanted it in the first place.

  “Can I just say…” I began, sitting back down, “I know this hasn’t gone well but I honestly didn’t have examples for your questions. I think it’s a little unfair to judge me on my answers when anything I said or could have said would have been a lie.”

  She mulled this over for a few seconds, thoughtfully eyeing me up and down before replying.

  “That may be so Terence and I see your point but you’re missing the whole idea of this exercise. The questions I gave you are called competency based questions and their designed to test you in specific ways. I wasn’t just asking them for the sake of it. If you had done your research and read the brief properly you would have known this and planned accordingly. Most recruiters use competency based questions so it’s not uncommon.”

  She stopped but I didn’t have a response so Mrs Drummond carried on with a complete decimation of my character.

  “May I also say that you have come in here without a suit on. You’re wearing brown shoes with black trousers, a jumper and no jacket. Straight away I knew you hadn’t made the effort, maybe because you think this job is not good enough for you - I don’t know - but we take pride in our staff here, we are just as thorough with the recruitment process as any other company and our people, on average, stay for over six years before moving on, if they ever do. They realise, quite quickly, that it’s a very good company to work for and the rewards can be handsome if the effort is put in. Anyway, it’s too late now so I thank you for your time Terence and wish you luck in your endeavours,” she said, ushering me out the door.

  As I walked past a pile of discarded soap dispensers I couldn’t help but feel the symmetry between them and I. They were good for nothing in the same way Mrs Drummond looked at me but she was right, I hadn’t given the company or the interview my full attention and I did think I was too good for the role. I hadn’t even bothered to wear a suit which, even I knew, was almost criminal in the business world but the irony in all of it was that I actually did want to work for a company like hers. I wanted to feel worthy and part of a larger community so why had I thrown such an opportunity away? It was because I had taken them on first impressions, dismissed the job from the outset and hadn’t been open to all possibilities. It was something I was determined to change from that day on.