Back in November I was bored. I wasn’t working much. I was sitting around my house watching daytime television and napping. I was making meals of out goldfish crackers and Cheez-Its. I have a sneaking suspicion that the guys at the corner store think I have a 4-year-old based only on my purchases. This life of leisure was becoming problematic for me, so I decided to get a temporary job. Why not? I had nothing going on after all. And, if nothing else, it would get me out of the house.
So, I went to my trusty Craigslist, and I found 4-day job. It was convention work. Not the most exciting work, but something I was more than qualified to do. In fact, being a tour guide, I do quite a bit of work for conventions. I’ve had a couple jobs where all I have to do is go to the airport and hold a sign. Sure a tree could do it, but does a tree get asked out on dates by all of the limo drivers at the airport? I don’t think so!
Basically, I knew what I was getting into. I figured I’d be a “human arrow” or something equally dull and unappealing, but I also thought it might be nice to get out of the house and earn a little money while I was at it. So, I sent my resume and within an hour, they invited me to interview.
The next day, I got all gussied up in my interview suit and found my way to their offices. Once I arrived, I hesitated as to whether or not I wanted to go through with this interview. The street level offices in the building were under construction and were missing windows. Most of the doors were boarded up and the company’s name was nowhere to be found on the directory list. What kind of fly-by-night scam was this anyway?
I buzzed the second floor and a receptionist answered (for a different company entirely). I quickly explained that I was awaiting an interview, the receptionist told me to walk over to the garage on the right side of the building where I would be met by the office staff.
As I was having this conversation, sloppy Santa-looking fella hobbled over (the hobbling was due to the walking cast he was wearing on his foot, so from this point forward, he will be known as “The Foot”).
“Convention work, right?” He asked.
“Yeah. I’m here for the interview.”
“Well, me too. I’ll just follow you. They said we need to go to the garage, so I think we should walk over here.” He points to the alley on the left side of the building and proceeded to walk toward it.
“Uhh…they said it’s on the right.”
“No. It’s gotta be here. This is the only garage.”
We stood there for a couple of minutes, and I finally decided to stop following this fool and walk over to the right side of the building. He followed me, and there we found the garage and the interviewer from the company.
“You know,” The interviewer started. “This is no way to start. You can’t even follow simple directions.”
The Foot responded before I even had a chance to make a witty retort. “We were really confused. We could have sworn you told us to go left.”
And it was at that point, that I knew I had to completely distance myself from The Foot (as if that wasn’t obvious immediately).
As we entered the elevator, the interviewer asked, “So, are you two together?”
Without hesitation, I immediately replied, “No. We both arrived at the same time.”
As we rode up the elevator, The Foot shared a little tale with us. “You know, it’s funny. I was at the unemployment office today printing off my resume and there were three other people there that had come to your interviews yesterday. It was really weird how we were all at the unemployment office, and we were all going to do the same job.”
None of us found the humor in it, and I really started questioning my decision to leave the house.
Once in the offices, we were led into a large conference room with about 50 chairs. One guy, who looked almost identical to someone that worked at the tour company, was sitting there. The interviewer told us that he had invited 37 people to interview, so he wanted to give them a little more time before beginning. The interviewer left the room, and we sat silently for a few minutes until The Foot decided to regale us with all of his knowledge and wisdom on convention work.
“If this job is what I think it is, we’re doing room monitoring.” He started. “The hardest thing about this job is that it is so boring. You’ll want to die.”
The work guy doppelganger and I nodded and looked the other way.
Eventually, the interviewer returned and began the interview. It was all pretty basic. He gave us a brief rundown of the company and their client. Essentially, they were a staffing firm that was hired by an event planning company that was working for a software company (who was hosting the convention). He went through his philosophy and discussed the different jobs they have to fill (for this “show” and others that may come up in the future).
As the interviewer was going through his spiel, The Foot raised his hand.
“I just have a quick comment.”
“That’s fine, but please let me finish and I’ll answer questions.”
The Foot would not be shut down. “Oh, it’s not a question. It’s just a comment.”
“We—“
“I think I speak for everyone when I say I’m just doing this for the rent money. This isn’t the kind of thing you do because you want to. You just do this for money. So I’m here to get paid. There’s no question that we’re all going to do it ‘cuz we all need the cash. Am I right?” The Foot looked around the room, and all I wanted to do was distance myself further from him and announce that I was only doing this out of boredom because I already had my rent money.
“Okay, thanks for that comment. I’ll get to pay soon.” The interviewer then continued. “Since you are wondering about money, know that we pay $11/hour for all positions. There’s no negotiating that. Now, just looking at how well you have all dressed for today’s interview, I can tell you that if you want the job, it’s yours.”
The Foot quickly jumped in. “Oh, we want the job. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. We need cash.”
At that point, the interviewer had us fill out “new hire” paperwork. While we were filling it out, The Foot couldn’t help himself. “Now I have a question. My walking cast isn’t going to be a problem is it?”
The interviewer shook his head. “No. You’ll be fine.”
“Good. I can move, just not so fast. I’ve been wearing this thing for almost a year.”
“Well, it’s not a problem. We hire all kinds of people for this work. In fact, most of our recruiting is through the Sheriff’s Department.”
I gave out a little laugh thinking that he must be joking, but the look on his face, as well as, a quick glance around the room, told me otherwise.
We completed the paperwork, and the interview congratulated us on our induction into the exciting world of convention work. We exited the building, and The Foot attempted to walk with me on the sidewalk. He was doing all he could to keep up with me and talk about how he needed rent money, but I just couldn’t bring myself to slow down enough to walk with him for several blocks. I told him I needed to turn on a street, and he then decided that I needed directions. I graciously accepted them and sped off.
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