Vice

5: Interview

As soon as Natara steps inside the Vicetech building, just how bad of a fit she is for this job becomes immediately apparent.

She's not dressed up enough to be in a building like this. Her pilled purple dress shirt and ratty slacks - so over-worn they're turning more grey than black - are clothes she snuck out of the back of her mother's closet. They hang off her skin, easily three sizes too large, like ragged clown clothes.

But she's already stepped inside. She's made up her mind. Like Macey told her, she's stubborn. If anything, she's stubborn. She can do this. She will do this. Even if she doesn't belong here - even if it's a total embarrassment and waste of time - she's going to try.

Natara steps toward the front desk, her sneakers squeaking across the glassy floor. The woman behind the counter's wide lashed eyes widen as she approaches. When the woman's pink lip gloss coated lips open, Natara is sure she is ready to tell her to leave the building.

"I'm here for an interview!" Natara chokes out before the woman can speak. If she's going to walk into a building like this and demand they give her a chance, Natara knows she has to try her best to be bold. For good measure, she puts her hands on her hips - something she has never done before.

"We're doing interviews?" The woman behind the counter lets out a nervous, "You have to be joking" laugh, looking at the man posting the banner in the front window. "For what position?"

"You know the one," the man grunts. The woman's lips part in a little "Ah" and she does something that totally shocks Natara. She points her to a fluffy red chair at the side of the entrance room and tells her she'll be called in shortly. Then, to top everything off, she actually makes a call up to someone else in the building telling them that they have a candidate for an interview.

She doesn't look too happy about doing it, but the fact that it happened is enough to astound Natara. This place really is giving her a chance at an interview, even without filling out an application. She fumbles in her pocket for the folded up resume from her previous interview, feeling grateful she snatched it back from the hawk lady before leaving the building. 

The nervousness sets in as she stares down at her lackluster, very empty looking resume. 

Natara's legs shake as she waits in the chair. What is she thinking? She's wasting everyone's time by being here. She's wasting the front desk lady's time. She's wasting her interviewer's time. She's even wasting her own time. She's not the kind of worker a business like this hires. They hire people who have experience and better education than she does. They hire above average people, not mediocre ones. They don't hire people like me.

But I need to tell myself that they do. I need to believe that they do. Natara draws in a long breath, staring at an ink pen sitting on the front desk. She scribbles everything Macey told her were her strong qualities onto the resume, then sits back in the chair.

To try to get her mind off of all of the anxiety, Natara looks around the entrance room. It's different than expected. Where she had expected white or tan colors, there are a lot of black and red colored tones in the room. Where she had anticipated giant posters of where the corporation made the front page of the newspaper or donated millions of dollars to charity, there are instead pretty interesting looking abstract paintings.