On June 5, at 4:45pm, I will be hit by a bus.
On June 5, at 9:05am, I get hit by a door.
"Ow!"
"Oh." The Human Resources director—who asked me to call him 'Alecxander,' who can't be more than three years older than me, who has a handlebar mustache, and who just let a door fall closed on me—peers at me over his thick-rimmed glasses. "Apologies. So, Malala—"
Malika, I mentally correct, waiting for him to glance down at my resume for confirmation of my name.
He doesn't. "Tell me what interests you in working in a corporate environment."
"Well." I rub my throbbing elbow through my crimson blazer, eyeing Alecxander's vintage Star Wars tee-shirt. "I just graduated in May with a BA in Graphic Design, and am very excited to begin my career."
And my parents kicked me off their health insurance, hence I have a second interview this afternoon.
"You have a...unique art style," Alecxander remarks as he flips through my portfolio.
Craning my neck, I review one of my more cartoonish designs and cringe. "Uh, that one was made for a side project. I have a blog where people can commission me to create drawings."
"They pay you to doodle?" He raises an eyebrow with an expertise that suggests he has practiced this maneuver in front of a mirror.
"Yes." I try to keep the resentment at the word 'doodle' out of my voice. "Like, fifteen dollars apiece."
"Ah," Alecxander drawls. We cross the tiled lobby, our heels clacking. "I used to freelance, too. Wrote video game articles for pennies a word. Doesn't exactly pay the bills." He turns to a page in my portfolio illustrated with a miserable mermaid donning a ball and chain, seated at an office desk. "Subtle. This one must've been a doozy of a commission."
I quietly agree, not mentioning how that design won me an online contest.
Alecxander snaps my portfolio closed as we approach a frosted glass door situated beside a modern-looking desk. Behind it sits a young secretary who puffs from an electronic cigarette, expertly maneuvering around a beard that reaches the collar of his flannel shirt.
"Jamie, this is Malala," Alecxander introduces me.
I open my mouth to correct him—Malika—but am cut off.
"Oh, hey, Malala, cool." Jamie holds his fist up for me to bump with my own. "Yo, how's that fog outside?"
"Oh, um." I look over my shoulder at the window revealing a thin, white mist outside. "Not bad. Hard to drive in."
"Yeah, it's pretty sick. Good thing I hung out here last night." He takes a drag on his electronic cigarette, his face straight.
Wait, did this guy seriously just say he stayed the night in an office building?
"Would you like a tour, Malala?" Alecxander interrupts my thought and gestures to the frosted glass door, above which a mounted plaque reads 'JellyBy Advertising Agency'.
I look at the frosted door. I look at my portfolio in Alecxander's hand. I look at the two men with confusing facial hair.
I need new contacts, and they're, like, two hundred bucks without insurance.
I swallow and force a smile. "Sure thing."
Alecxander swipes a laminated badge across a sensor on the wall. He wraps his fingers around the handle. "Just so you know," he says over his shoulder, "we're not a typical corporate office."
He yanks the door open. House music streams out into the lobby from inside.
Something flies towards my face.
"Heads up!" I duck just in time to avoid having my eye blackened by a stray flying disc.
I straighten up as a young woman with a pixie cut scrambles past me, halting to give Alecxander a high five before retrieving the disc and slipping back through the archway. Following her, I gaze around the office.
The room is expansive and open, with high walls painted in assaulting neon hues. Brightly colored exercise balls are strewn about, giving me the illusion that I've entered a giant ball pit at a child's birthday party. Long workbenches with numerous monitors dispersed about them take up half of the room, while the other half is occupied by toys one could find at a high school basement party. An air hockey table is arranged next to a table-football arrangement and billiard table. A vintage pinball machine pings and dings mechanically in the corner.
A circus of employees cartwheel about the giant room in shifts, flitting from one form of entertainment to the next in a tumbleweed of limbs and coffee cups.
"That's the advertising team," Alecxander jovially points to the whooping gaggle. "Great crew. You'd be assigned to their projects."
An employee passes us and I catch a strong whiff of an herbal scent that reminds me of the back of the high school bus.
"Where does the graphic designer sit?" I ask, expecting to be shown to a separate, quiet room somewhere for the art department.
"With the rest of the team." He points to the workbenches at the long tables.
At that moment, a group at the foosball table lets out a collective and jarring cheer.
"No cubes?" I think of all the cute cube decor my sister got for me for graduation.
"Nope. No 'assigned seats' either." Alecxander uses finger quotes for emphasis and rolls his eyes at the outdated notion of personal space. "You're free to sit wherever you like."
So if I want a seat at the end of the workbench to use my left hand without bumping into anyone, I need to get here at dawn. I force a smile though my cheeks hurt. Grand.
We walk through the throng of employees milling about with their morning coffee and pastry. One guy in a tracksuit—who appears to be covered in sweat from the company gym—glugs a craft beer.
Alecxander catches my widened eye as I look from the beer bottle to the clock on the wall. "We're up an extraordinary percentage this quarter, and it's all because the average employee spends a good deal of their day in our office. We like to provide the comforts of home while they're here, even a place to recharge for the company's next hurdle." He gestures to a glass-paneled room as we round a corner.
I peer through the windows to see cots and hammocks. "They...they sleep here?"
"So often that they may as well stop paying rent on their apartments. The bathrooms even have showers and toothbrush holders."
"That must be tough on their families."
"Our employees are very career-centric," he sniffs.
Code for 'none of them have lives outside the office.' I look around, not surprised. Who'd have time to build relationships outside an office you sleep at? Let alone muster the will to leave this corporate playpen filled with booze, naptime, and skeeball.
"Let's head back down to the lobby." Alecxander gives his herbal-scented coworker an elaborate secret handshake and leads me to a brick partition that is partially covered by a square curtain. Alecxander pulls it back to reveal a tube-like hole in the wall.
I frown and stand on tiptoe to peer the partition to the lobby below.
A neon green slide spirals down to the bottom floor.
"When you go down," Alecxander instructs, "you have to take off your shoes and shout 'Geronimo!' to let everyone downstairs know to stand clear."
"Geronimo?"
Alecxander nods with solemnity. "Geronimo."
YOU ARE READING
Bleak Expectations: A Tale of Two Interviews
Cerita Pendek"On June 5, at 4:45pm, I will be hit by a bus. On June 5, at 9:05am, I get hit by a door." Malika is a recent college graduate in desperate need of a job (and health insurance). The corporate world, however, is not what she expected. Two satiricall...
