Find A Fluffing Job
Find a Fluffing Job
Let’s not get into why the job search has begun again for the 100th time let’s see why it has become harder. So, after re-locating to Cardiff and joining hundreds of agencies
I resort to looking for a cleaning job, but alas, even the duster needs a levels now.
The phone rings and someone from an agency who actually wants to earn commission asks if I am still looking for work. Excitement, this is it, a job! Telephone fluff out of the way, next stage interview. My five-year-old New Look office gear grins proudly as I hook up with accessories. Do I remove the facial piercings, nope old conscience is fed up of this question and giving the same reply that always wins, I want you to see who I am but I can remove them if it is a problem. Shrug inside bullshit who would work for a firm that is not innovative!
As usual on interview day I leave in plenty of time only to find the train is delayed, not by the usual ten minutes but by half an hour. Keeping calm I pace the platform and as it is interview day I stick my neck out, hide behind the loos and have a fag.
The don’t care attitude walks tall inside as I take my seat. Recalling the directions
I play over and over in my head at the same time answering the age old interview questions of ” what makes a good team player and give me an example of a time when………” When what, I wiped my bum and still needed to go….. or when I really wanted to tell the moaning git on the end of the phone to fluff off! But it is amazing how the brain can flash one thing that could have you thrown out while loyal gob secures a smile. Clever us, I wonder if bosses do the same in mastermind chair.
Enough waffle, I pay the train fare I can’t afford, hoping the job buy’s my packaging
and pays me back. Everyone looking at me as though they know it is interview day, my clothes are being scrutinised. I look and god yes I have a hair. Some stitching has come undone, I look up and faces around me have their smirk. Bastards, people are so cruel on interview day. I wipe their smirks away by not even entertaining wiping off the hair. Hey I don’t care attitude we are nearly there. Announcement, the train has stopped in between stations and should’nt be too long. Bollocks, some one has thrown themself on the line at this fluffing hour. Wonder where they worked perhaps their Is an opening……..
The doors open, I leave the train and when well out of sight, wipe the hair off.
Now then, there is the car park, hang on there is one on the other side, crap another one at the top of the road, ok, ok don’t panic, look for Gregg’s, ohhhhh… ten of them.
Aha there it is St Mary’ s street, brilliant, its 8 miles long!
” Excuse me can you tell me where Supercallousfragillistic House is please.”
Remember it is interview day, I ask the only welsh speaking person in Cardiff.
It starts to rain, I don’t have a light for my fag and my stomach starts to tell me it is going to talk loudly during role-play. Yet, I feel hopelessly optimistic.
Walking into the office building I tell the security man I am here for an interview. Without looking up he hands me a pen and says, ” Fill this in”
The walk round the building badge, I love it.
Name.. Maddona.. Car 2009 Porshe, time of arrival, 12:00 p.m……. yesterday.
Handing it back of course without looking, he clips it into a plastic wallet and gives me proud possession. Take a seat he says in his best-practised morose voice.
Aha I bet his brain is back to the police days and he wants to shout, ” Cover me I’m
going in ” I smile back at him with that kind of made of the same salt look. He stares
beyond time itself, picks up the phone and puts his head down. Oh my god he is telling Doris interviewer there is a dick at reception waiting to see her.
Doris arrives and takes me to my death. The lift of forever travelling with uncomfortable chat that somehow always trips you up and you spend the whole interview telling her in your mind what you really meant but you were a bit nervous
and she says not to worry she understood and you say ………..oh god!
She walks you through the office where everyone looks up, those that look the longest
you know are going to be the ones to reckon with, except of course for the pretty face. She smiles, perhaps she just farted too! If it were not for mime I would have felt frogmarched into the interview room only to find……… 30 others waiting.
Needling out the possibles, the ( they’ ll get it’ s) and the (don’t know why I bothered) gives me a fair summarization of chance.
Doris enters and asks everyone to sit, so we sit. Doris asks everyone to write name and agency on a bit of card, so we do. One spells the agency wrong, ha ha, down to 29. Everyone’s eyes flickering at each other then to Doris.
” Does anyone know anything about the company and what we do ”
Don’t be first and seem cocky, though in a sales role that is what is required! After a pause in the eye flickering Blah blah blah and I believe 150.000 sales revenue last year………….. Doris is not impressed, 31 people around the table and she takes lead in the séance stare. She retains the ghost inside and verbalizes a big…
“Actually it was 300.000 million ”
That’s me gone, do I leave now or stay with dignity
Another voice pipes up ” On the website it says 150.000 ”
Doris ” Oh, I thought you meant turnover, now we will begin the role play. You are a jury and…………
Well, that is me and the other guy out. Hmmm, giving up sometimes works, but do I really want to work with Hitler. An hour and a half of debating on whether some guy should get life for the murder of his wife who had an affair with his brother and died when he shoved her. This is real life fluffing role-play. I ve just done all this in an hours journey to the job. No face-to-face interviews anymore. Gone are the days when you had the chance to hide your unpolished shoes under the table. Gone the days where you and interviewer met eye to eye and you thought they could see the numbskull in your brain sweating and covering the words “big hairy bullshit”
You utter the words “sorry, I have just gone mindblank” but are allowed to relax
As a nice smile and voice spells back ” its okay, everyone is a little nervous at an interview” Great company, good boss, but alas Doris is really thinking, next!
The jury is concluded and we will be informed of whether we have the job later. I leave the building and sit on the steps outside, taking off the bloody heels and putting on my buddy boots. Meeting in the pub to tell how it went only to get the call that says …unfortunately you were not successful this time. For god s sake was I supposed to send the defendant to the gas chamber? Well, all eyes on me, how did you do, it was a hung jury I say. Everyone nods and says yeh, I’ve had interviews like that. All secretly thinking you re crap! Ah well, it s only rejection at least I m playing the game.
Wake up next morning, kettle on.
So, I register on the net for a telesales role in Brighton. 30 second’s later I receive 15 e mails of field base roles from Cardiff to Penzance. Register on 12 more sites, to find I have sent off the C.V of a morgue attendant that somehow found it s way to my computer by what I can only think of scamming my wireless broadband.
Agency rings ” Are you still looking for work ”
Excitement, this is it, a job. Clothes out of dirty laundry bag………Today could be the day, I don’t meet Doris I meet Brendan, he wants to talk personally and find out who I am. I can do the truth submerging with bullshit routine. I can fluff on my nerves
and be excused. I can get over cocky and be respected.. I can get to the have you any questions bit and have mind blanks. Alas, Brendan liked me but the other 40 people in front were stronger candidates. Blow Cardiff and rugby, I head to wonderful Brighton
The land of creativity. I want to write, but I need to pay for my fix with a fluffing job.
The phone rings, interview, role-play, 12 people, but real people. We do Dragons Den
Inno fluffing vation! No more juries, business skills.
Working out my calculations of profit and loss, of email marketing, I am offered a fluffing job! Yah get me. Back in the rat race, piercings and all.
There is hope for all us fluffers!
Written by Lesley Thompson
This is an entry for the Beachdownwriter competition, see al of the entries here
Tags: Beachdownwriter
