Bleak Expectations: A Tale of Two Interviews

Interview 2: Satis Publishing House

On June 5, at 4:45pm, I will be hit by a bus.

On June 5, at 2:03pm, I get hit by a stapler.

"Ow!" I hop up on one leg, balancing on my low heel and rubbing the top of my injured foot.

"Oh...dear," the skeletal figure clad in a three-piece suit rasps beside me. Mr. Graves stoops—his hunched back creaking like a withered oak—and wraps his knotted fingers around the crimson stapler. He places it on the desk he knocked it off of and turns his languid eyes to me. "This...way."

I follow him out of the lobby and step into the office proper. The moment the door to the lobby shuts behind me, it's like I've been cloistered in an airtight chamber. The silence is tomblike and oppressive.

Before me is a stretch of drab, ashen carpet that traverses the bulk of the workplace in a perfect square, with small nooks of private offices tucked into the exterior walls like plots in a mausoleum. Ceiling-to-floor windows show the employees interred within these crypts blinking the same monotonous rhythm at their computer screens. In the center of the room are long dolorous cubicles whose tall tombstone-grey walls block their occupants from view. 

I eye the slate-colored walls and determine that my scarlet blazer is the loudest color in the room. Even the single window in the office offers no respite from my bleak surroundings. It only shows the grey fog outside, denser and thicker than it was this morning. 

I follow Mr. Graves down a row of cubes at a sluggish pace. His bones click and clack as he moves.

At last, he stops at a door behind all the cubes and opens it. "This...is...the...manager's...office."

The room that I enter is professional and orderly. Manilla folders are stacked in a perfect tower on one side of the manager's desk. Sticky notes and spreadsheets are tacked up to a pristine white board hanging on a wall beside a neat row of filing cabinets.

But despite the kempt appearance of the office, something is off. It takes me a moment to notice the thick layer of dust coating everything. It looks as though nothing in this room has been altered in years. The analog clock mounted on the wall supports this timeless illusion, as the hands are frozen permanently at twenty-minutes to five.

"This," the director wheezes to the woman behind the desk, "is... the... interviewee... Miss... Tamika... Palmer."

"Actually," I whisper, "it's—"

"Tamika." The plump, slow-blinking woman behind the desk puts a limp hand out to me. "I'm Cathy Marley."

I shake her hand, suppressing a shudder. Touching her skin reminds me of handling a dead fish.

Cathy looks like she may have been easy-to-laugh in a previous life, judging by the laugh lines creased into her face, but now she only gives me a ghost of a smile.

"I took a look at your portfolio," Cathy says as I brush a cobweb off the chair in front of her desk and seat myself. "It's...unique."

I hesitate. "Thank you?"

"Were the parameters of the graphic designer role explained?"

"Uh, yes." I hold up the sheet of paper labeled 'Sample Work' I received from Mr. Graves. The entire page is covered in text with the company's logo squeezed into a corner. "You would just need me to insert the logo to the bottom of every page."

Cathy nods slowly.

"On fifty pages per day, on average," I continue.

She nods again.

"And I won't be creating anything new?"

She shakes her head.

"Right."

"Do you have any other questions for me?" Cathy asks.

"What are the typical work hours?"

"Nine to five."

"Great." I breathe a sigh of relief. "And benefits? Health insurance?"

"401k, company matches up to 4%, and you can select the most convenient health insurance for you."

"Fantastic." I nod, trying to convince myself that this sounds like a good deal. I find I must crumple the 'Sample Work' sheet up out of Cathy's field of vision in order to do so. 

My eyes fall on a collection of photos set up along her desk. One catches my attention in particular: A smiling young woman standing beside a biplane with a parachute pooled around her feet. "Oh, is that you?"

Cathy blinks and slides her passive gaze from my face to the photo I point to. "Yes."

"Wow. I've never been sky diving before."

"I once was an instructor."

"That's so cool. Do you still dive?"

"No."

"Oh," I reply, taken aback by the brevity of her answer. My eyes rove, moving on to the next photo. "Do you still snorkel?" I point to a photo layered so thick in dust I almost cannot see her diving gear in the photo beside her.

"No."

I point to the next one. "Parasail?"

"No."

"Oh. I...I guess you work a lot of overtime, huh? Pretty busy?"

"No."

I look from the tan, healthy woman in the photographs to the pale shell in front of me, seated beneath a plaque bearing her name and the engraving 'Congratulations on 10-Years of Service' in black.

"I'll have someone see you out," Cathy intones. "Nice to meet you, Tamika."

I'm too shaken to attempt a correction this time and merely allow myself to be directed to the door. Fortunately, Mr. Graves has already started his trek back to the office, so I meet him halfway down the aisle between cubes.

As I walk through the valley of dusty desks, I observe that the lifeless cubicles match their occupants. These grey husks of human beings stare into an abyss of computer screens, listening for the ticking of broken clocks. I read their name tags and examine the photos on their desks as I walk past, eulogizing their achievements before they came to work here. Rose Baker, enjoyed hiking with her kids; Jacob Gold, used to go horseback riding; Jade Hayashi, ran marathons.

As we pass an empty cube, Mr. Graves pauses his shuffling gait. "This... would... be... yours." He stretches one crooked finger towards the cubicle. The grey plot contains a single monitor and a placeholder name plaque bearing the words 'GRAPHIC DESIGNER' in—of all fonts—Comic Sans.

"I have to go," I whimper and bolt from the building.