2504. Job interview

I’m sorry Doctor Okonkwo. You might have a doctorate in Aerodynamics and such qualifications would sometimes suit such a job as ours, but unfortunately we cannot discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or genetic information.

You seem to scream unsuitability in as much as you have a flat nose, are black, a follower of African animism, are not descended from cannibals, hail from Swaziland, identify as male, are over 30 years old, are unmarried, have dated women, pretend you’re not gay, identify yourself with unacceptable pronouns, have a sperm count that is far too high, are in a wheelchair, have DNA that doesn’t match the boss’s family tree, don’t purport to be descended from slaves, and refuse to get inoculated against chimpanzee pox. In such circumstances your invention that enables time travel through space worms to other dimensions is completely irrelevant.

Next!

I’m sorry Doctor von Eberhardt. You might have a doctorate in Compressible Flow and such qualifications would sometimes suit such a job as ours, but unfortunately we cannot discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or genetic information.

You seem to scream unsuitability in as much as you have a pointy nose, are white, an enthusiastic Protestant, are descended from the Lord of a medieval fiefdom, hail from a section of Germany that no one has ever heard of, identify as female, are under 40 years old, are married, have dated men, refuse to refer to yourself as a birthing assortment of mammary glands, identify yourself with unacceptable pronouns, are not in a wheelchair, have DNA that doesn’t match the boss’s family tree, don’t have slave owners in your ancestry so you can’t apologise, and refuse to get inoculated against orangutan pox. In such circumstances your invention that enables helicopters to fly in an alien sky that is utterly devoid of gas is completely irrelevant.

Next!

2383. Apprenticeships

I never liked secondary school much – except for the sports. I had to sit through all these classes without understanding a word; General Science, Mathematics, History, English Literature. I even had to learn Spanish for half a semester until they realized that Spanish was my first language and who needs to learn how to say everything the wrong way from a teacher who doesn’t know a cañon from a cannon.

Let’s face it; I only took Chemistry because Lucy-Sue was in the class. Lucy-Sue was no good at Chemistry either, so I figured I could make her feel better about it by commiserating with her. It didn’t work back then, and she told me to “shove it” and took off with Malcolm MacAnally who had “anal” in his name for a reason.

Anyway, as soon as I was allowed to I left school and got a job working for a builder. I liked that and he gave me an apprenticeship provided I went to night school and took Mathematics. Well, that Mathematics was different from the stuff they taught you at school. This Mathematics was about how much gasoline you needed to buy if you were going to run a generator that used so much blah blah blah when you were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. All that was interesting, and a lot more useful to me than x²=a²+b² – which I never figured out what it meant.

These days I own the building company. I was invited by the local school to come and speak to the kids during their “Vocations Week”. I was to talk about being a builder. I did that, but they didn’t like the bit where I said that if you want to be a builder don’t waste your time trying to get an education higher than you need. They banned me from coming to speak again because of that. It was against “standards”.

Now they’re asking for donations for a new gymnasium. I thought about buying one for them (my kids go to that school) but my wife said they can “shove it”, so I’m doing that. Lucy-Sue is usually right. In the meantime, I seem to be employing every kid who has got kicked out of the school for “misbehaviour” of one sort or another.  I find they’re the best workers and it doesn’t hurt to give them a chance.

2073. Knit knit

Theodora loved to knit. Most evenings, after the evening meal and the dishes were done, she would sit in an armchair with the television turned on, and knit. She knitted to relax. She knitted mainly for other people; pullovers, and scarves, and hats, and mittens, and socks. She was a good knitter. You couldn’t tell the difference between her knitted item and a bought one. And she liked to knit stylish things that looked to be the latest in fashion.

“Who knitted this?” asked the Managing Director of Homeknits Ltd (the largest home-knitting company in the world, although most was done by machine). He had stopped a passer-by in the street who was wearing a beautiful pullover which had been a gift from Theodora.

Before you could say “Bob’s your uncle” Theodora was hired to hand knit items for Homeknits Ltd (the largest home-knitting company in the world, although most was done by machine). She worked for eight hours a day. It had one advantage: she could work from home.

After two years Theodora quit her job. She never knitted a thing again in her life. Nothing can destroy a hobby more than a job.

2046. A typical life

As if expecting her third baby wasn’t difficult enough. It was made a thousand times more difficult now that Clifford has run off with his secretary. The two boys were under the age of five, and there was still four months to go before the arrival of the third boy. Clifford had wanted a girl. It was Lynette’s fault – the third male.  It didn’t cause the dissipation of her marriage but it certainly hastened it. And now Clifford was refusing to pay for anything until “matters were cleared up”.

Thank goodness Lynette’s mother lived just around the corner. At least someone was “there” – although she drank heavily and couldn’t be trusted after seven in an evening. Still, she could help with the two boys for an hour or two in the mornings while Lynette went off to her part-time motel-cleaning job. At least it meant that there were a few pennies coming in.

And then Lynette’s mother died suddenly. Who was going to pay for the funeral? Lynette was a relative. It was her responsibility. Would the motel owner mind if she brought her two little boys along while she cleaned? The motel owner had enough on her mind without having to worry about other people’s toddlers. The answer was no.

Lynette was at the end of her tether. She walked the street with her two boys in search of some “help for the helpless”. It was not something until recently that she had ever given half a thought to. She couldn’t find the place. She stopped and asked a gentleman in the street if he knew of anywhere.

“Excuse me,” said Lynette as politely as she could muster. They got talking. That is why today Lynette is now Lady Lynette Snodgrass-Grbin, married to billionaire Lord Hector Snodgrass-Grbin, and they have five boys counting Lynette’s three, who run around the manor grounds playing hide-and-seek when they’re not at their excellent school.

Clifford recently contacted Lynette and said he was destitute. The secretary had fled. He had no job. Lynette sent him a thousand dollars and told him to stay out of her life permanently. She subsequently learned that he had taken “permanently” to mean more permanent than she had intended.

Oh! And did I forget to mention? Lady Lynette is now expecting her sixth. It’s a girl.

1814. So talented!

Charlotte didn’t have a single humdrum electron whizzing around in her brain. Her brain was on fire!

“You’re so creative, Charlotte,” people would say. “How do you come up with so many creative ideas?”

“I guess it’s a natural gift one is born with,” said Charlotte, and she would return to the painting she was painting, or the music for the Irish harp she was playing, or the sundial she was installing in the garden.

“Everything you touch turns to gold, Charlotte,” people would say. “You definitely have the Midas touch.”

“I don’t do anything to encourage it,” said Charlotte. “Things just come naturally to me,” and she went back to baking her Baked Alaska for she was have important friends over for dinner, or back to the rug she was weaving, or back to the dress for a niece’s doll she was sewing, or back to making homemade candles for a friend’s 30th birthday, or back to the lines she was learning for a dramatic production.

The extolling of Charlotte’s talents among her peers was like a mantra; it repeated itself over and over. “It’s sad you can’t find a job in this small town,” someone said. “Why don’t you move to the big city where your talents would be put to good use?”

So Charlotte moved to the big city in search of a job. What a relief! Quite frankly, Charlotte had driven everyone in the small town nuts.

1778. A wallow in luxury

Charles was sent by his boss on an important mission. He would get paid extra, but the negotiations were going to be tough. Imagine getting paid to pamper oneself in a luxurious hotel in Dubai! Spas! Food! Wine! Swimming pool! What a shame it was, thought Charles even before he left for Dubai, that the negotiations would never succeed!

Of course he would stay in the hotel and take advantage of every luxury. The negotiations could go to hell. He was in it for the enjoyment, provided he played his cards right. He had clawed his way up, not without effort, to be number two in the company. Life was a breeze. The boss was weak and ineffective. Charles would take over the company management soon enough.

And play his cards right in Dubai he did! Twice the boss had phoned and twice Charles assured him that things were “tough”. The third time the boss phoned, Charles was wallowing in a luxury soapy bath. The phone slipped through his hand into the soapy suds.

“We seemed to have been cut off,” said Charles later.

“No we didn’t,” said the boss, who had been suspicious of Charles for a time. “I was in the room next door.”

1673. Why some pronouns are proper

Stephan had a reasonably well-paid job until the company was sued by Stephanie for using the wrong pronoun. It was obvious that it should have been “she” and “her”?

Stephanie had a reasonably well-paid job until the company was sued by Stephan for using the wrong pronoun. It was obvious that it should have been “he” and “him”?

Stephan had a reasonably well-paid job until the company was sued by Stephanie for using the wrong pronoun. It was obvious that it should have been “she” and “her”?

Stephanie had a reasonably well-paid job until the company was sued by Stephan for using the wrong pronoun. It was obvious that it should have been “he” and “him”?

Stephan was an expert at forging references. It was a handy skill to have when looking for a job. But now there simply wasn’t a need for it. Enough money had been made.

1403. A decent education

My son came home from school and said they were going to study Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I said what the hell do you want to study that crap for?

I told him it’s one of a string of plays that Shakespeare set in Italy, bits of them at least. Shakespeare probably never went there. Besides Romeo and Juliet, there’s The Merchant of Venice. Then there’s All’s Well that Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Winter’s Tale.

Shakespeare seemed to have a thing about Italy. And yet as far as I know there’s not a single mention of spaghetti bolognaise or for that matter any sort of pasta. Not even a tomato. Nor pizza. Romeo and Juliet are young and so are all their friends. You’d think they’d be eating pizza all over the place. But no! I mean, where’s the bloody piatto del brigante, or the rafanata, or ciaudedda, or the baccalà alla lucana? Minestrone? Did Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, and Marcus Junius Brutus tempt Julius Caesar with tiramisu or calzoncelli before stabbing him? Not on your nelly.

It shows you that Shakespeare knew sweet little about Italy and Italians. In fact, I find the lack of reference to Italian cuisine quite racist. That’s why I said they shouldn’t be teaching this crap in schools. It’s divorced from reality.

So I’ve taken my son out of school and he’s getting a decent home education without all this xenophobic brouhaha shoved down his throat. I said to him if he learns proper stuff he’ll get that job at Pizza Hut I told him to aim for.

1351. It pays

Robin was at the end of his tether. He was fairly well educated, highly competent, and unemployed. He had applied for dozens of jobs, got two or three interviews, and still no job. He wondered if it was because his clothes were a bit tatty. They weren’t torn or anything, but they just looked old and shoddy.

At last, he got another job interview! He washed his sole remaining respectable shirt, carefully decreased his trousers, and cleaned his shoes. But, oh woe! His shirt, for some reason, came out of the wash with blotchy blue stains on it.

Robin figured it was to be all or nothing. He had seventeen dollars left. He would go to the Men’s Wear store and buy a shirt for seventeen dollars or less.

Herman, the owner of the Men’s Wear store, was most disarming. Robin explained to him that he needed to buy a shirt for an job interview, but could spend only up to seventeen dollars.

“It’s your lucky day!” exclaimed Herman gleefully. “We shall get you shoes, socks, shirt, belt, tie, and trousers, and all for seventeen dollars! And,” he added, “we shall get you a fashionable haircut as well.”

When it came to pay, Herman wouldn’t take a penny. “It’s now on the house,” he said.

Robin went to the interview feeling like the King of Siam. It was an interview for a minimum wage job. Why he needed to be interviewed by the business owner himself for the job was any one’s guess. Robin thought the interview went quite well.

“You’ve missed out on the job,” said the business owner at the end of the interview. “I’m sorry.”

Robin was disappointed.

“But there’s another job I’d like you to take,” said the business owner. “It pays a tidier sum – like $160,000 a year. Would you be interested?”

Robin was over the moon. He accepted. He left for home on a high.

However, it always pays to look both ways when crossing the road.

1155. Job interview

There were six people waiting for a job interview. It was a simple job, but with the difficulty these days of finding work, almost anything would do. The six waiting interviewees were applying for a mail sorting job. Madeline was in charge of the process.

Madeline was dressed in her Sunday best for the occasion. A little bit of power dressing, she thought, a little bit of black; in fact, quite a bit of black. She was startled to overhear, at least she thought she overheard, one of the applicants say to the others, “I don’t think much of what that woman’s wearing.”

The interviewing process began. Madeline gave each a pile of envelops and told them to sort things alphabetically into pigeon holes.

“Times up!” announced Madeline.

“But you never said it was a speed test.”

“Well what do you expect?” said Madeline. “I’m afraid you were all too slow. We shall re-advertise the job.”