Someone Was Knocking at the Door

posted September 23, 2009 - 4:15pm

Someone Was Knocking at the Door

Summary: A true account based on the author’s personal experience involved in searching for what author Richard M. Bolles of What Color Is Your Parachute? calls “a stop-gap job.” A stop-gap job is not your dream job. It’s a short term job you would hate if it was long term. It’s just designed to pay the bills, until your career can get back on track. In this case, until my Business Writing career can get back on track. I promised you in a Wagon-Load of Job Hunting Advice, and Career Advice that I would “approach it (job hunting) with a little humor, and I would help you find the humor in your own adventure also by sharing my personal interview foibles that would make you laugh, and hopefully put a little less levity into your own situation.” So bear with me as I digress from my series of formatting and writing a resume, while I enter the "Xomba Dream Job Contest," with my not so dreamy description of the dreamy job of employment interviewing. Enjoy the following true story…Names have been changed to protect the innocent!

Someone was knocking at the door. And it was me!

I was 5 minutes late for the interview. Wouldn’t you know it; www.mapqwest.com.com was wrong again! The street where my building I was looking for wasn’t even on the map.

I finally found the little tiny industrial street by driving up and down the main road. I had purposefully left 30 minutes earlier then I would need to in nonrush hour Phoenix traffic precisely because I was unfamiliar with the industrial district. Yet I still had problems getting there on time.

“Boy, am I cooked,” I thought to myself. “Potential employers like you to be early or at least on time.”

I pulled up to this nondescript trailer in my beat up, old, compact car. There wasn’t even a sign on the windowless building identifying it. Nothing even set up in the tiny, new gravel parking lot. The number address was there, however, in tiny, tiny letters.

“This is an electronic engineering research lab? I said to myself. There are not even any windows in this thing.” I had driven by it ten times, not realizing this was the place I was searching for.

“Boy, am I cooked. Big time,” I mused, knocking again, and again, furiously with increasing velocity, and volume on the locked heavy, shiny steel door with no windows. “It’s 115° out here and it’s hot! When will they answer? And why is this stupid door locked? It’s not Fort Knox.”

As I was knocking was again, and periodically trying the door to see if it became unlocked, I said to myself, “Wait! I hear low male voices whispering.” Mom always says I got ears like a dog! I hear everything. I stopped knocking, and strained to hear, “What are they saying?”

“Do you think we should open the door?” a gruff deep voice asked.

“What!” I thought, “Yes, open the door! How else do I get in here?”

“I’m not opening the door. I’m an engineer,” another deep voice answered pompously.

“Well, I’m not opening the door, either,” the first voice declared.

He cleared his throat, “I’m a highly paid engineer, not a receptionist.” The second voice stated.

A third male voice arrives on the scene, “Well, opening the door is not in my job duties, either.” He goes on to say, “Well, you two, that’s why we’re hiring a receptionist, slash, Administrative Assistant. Someone has to open the door. How else can she get in here?”

“Now isn’t that what I thought” I swear to God, this conversation went on, and on for 10 more minutes. And I continued to knock on the door. Finally, I just stopped knocking, and just decided to keep listening to all of this, dumfounded.

“Maybe, she’s gone by now,” said one of the voices.

“No, I’m not. I’m knocking, again.”

Obviously the men thought they were too good to open the door. “I wonder what their boss is going to think when he finds out and come to think of it why isn’t he opening the door? He must be expecting me.”

Finally…

“Hey, I’ll just open the door, and let her in.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I thought pouring in sweat in 115° heat, wrapped up in pantyhose, and my power suit.”

I walked into the cool highly air conditioned lobby, and sure enough there on the wall in giant letters as big as life was the name of the company. They could announce the company inside the walls, but not outside? In front of the wall was a big, brown, heavy important looking receptionist’s desk which set empty ready to be filled by “someone knocking at the door.”

It seemed like only one of the 3 gentlemen, I use that term loosely, remained. The one that finally let me in, the third voice was dressed not in an important power suit like myself, but in more casual summer attire. This made more sense in the 115° Phoenix, Arizona summer’s heat. Dressed in a cool cotton short-sleeve blue collared shirt, and khaki pants, he apologized for the delay in opening the door, admitting to the argument about who was the least important. The designee door opener said he finally opened the door in frustration, and politeness. And he noted to his embarrassment that his discomfited cohorts had skedaddled.

“We really need a receptionist, you see. We are a brand new company, on a brand new city street, and we haven’t hired a receptionist, yet.”

And then abruptly he just left. Just left me standing there alone. He didn’t say good-bye. Nor did he tell me that he would announce my presence to the manager in charge. Apparently, he didn’t plan to explain to anyone why I was 15 minutes late.

I just stood there in the lobby alone trying to get my bearings from bewilderment and the change in light. My pupils had trouble adjusting from the bright Arizona sun, to the inner indoor dimmed soft light. “Now where is the man in charge?” I wondered. Obviously, in this group this person was going to be a “he.”

Soon I heard a voice, and looked down the long, narrow, carpeted hall. Behind a partially closed door, I heard a man talking on the phone. Yelling was more like it.

“She’s late! Maybe not coming at all! Can’t you send someone over who knows the value of time!”

Silence.

“She should have called.”

I can just imagine in the silence that followed what Theresa thought. Theresa was the temporary employment agency coordinator lady.

“I don’t care if she seemed like she was responsible. She’s not here.”

“Mental note. I need to call, and tell Terry the whole story when I get home. If I could have afforded a cell phone, I would have called her before I got home.

“She should have called from her cell, if she was running late.”

“Gee whiz,” I thought. “Doesn’t he know unemployed people can’t always afford a cell phone? The service seems to want to turn it off when people don’t pay!” And I had been unemployed with not even a temp job in this economy for over a year. Mom and Dad have been helping me with my bills.”

And on, and on he went with Theresa for another 5 minutes, “Great, now I’m twenty minutes late. Why doesn’t he just come out here? Just to check to see if I have arrived, for God’s sake! Why me, God?”

F i n a l l y! He gets off the phone, sees me standing in the lobby, and comes storming out into the lobby. “What should I do?” Seems to me, at this point, I have three choices.

(1.) Tell him, he and his crew are idiots and leave in a huff. Thinking to myself, “Who wants to work with these blow harts, anyway?”

(2.) Tell him calmly the truth about what just happened, (or)

(3.) Apologize profusely for being late, accept all responsibility, and go through with the job interview.

I discounted number one because of the possibility of slander. I didn’t want him to convince Terry to write me off with every potential client, slash, employer in the phone book.

I discounted number two because the interviewer didn’t exactly strike me as being a reasonable or particularly humble man. After all he was expecting me. Theresa had set up the interview time. He knew that they kept the door locked, and he wasn’t waiting in the lobby so he could easily hear my knock on the door.

So how could I adequately explain the situation to him without him appearing (a) stupid, or (b) appearing like an egotistical jerk? Neither (a), nor (b), as a result was going to ingratiate me, or help me in becoming employed. And jerks, or not, I had cell phone costs, you know.

So I quickly evaluated the situation. I think well on my feet, and chose number three, and profusely apologized, and accepted all responsibility for my lateness. So after hearing quite a rant about me wasting “his valuable time”, he asked me to have a seat, and complete the interview with him. He offered me a cool drink of water, (about time), and announced that he wanted those 3 closet whisperers to join the interviewing process. You see, he said that he wanted his employees take on it, as you see he was such a “good manager.”

“Uh huh, Right,” I thought.

It wasn’t a group interview, however. First, I interviewed with him, and then I individually interviewed with each of the whisperers, consecutively.

With each of the whisperers, I stressed that they really, really, really needed a receptionist…to open the door.

I found out during this merry-go-round that the door was locked because of security concerns over “secretive electronic research.” The Receptionist, slash, Admin’s job was to open the door when someone knocked. Of course, the receptionist that was to be hired wasn’t allowed to really leave her post for very long…“for fear of knocking.” Of course, receptionist duties weren’t the only duties. Administrative duties included Excel, Word, and filing. And of course, research reports which necessitated tracking down the engineers to gather data. Because of course, they were too important to leave their posts to go to you, you know, and so on.

The 3 whispers, as I called them, apologized profusely after they realized, I had heard them, and each promised to highly recommend me to the manager. Not one agreed to tell him the truth concerning my lateness, of course.

After thinking yet again, that “Yes, I’m cooked,” surprisingly I was offered a tour by one of the engineers of their secret electronic research lab, and I thought, “Since I never get offered a tour of the company unless I have the job, that’s it, I’m hired.” The tour guide even showed me the break room, and offered me his left over brownie from lunch. He must have felt really bad…and stupid. “Yea,” I thought, “You can ply me with chocolate.” I love brownies, but naturally it would have been poor taste during an interview to accept his brownie, even if it was a conciliatory offering.

Well, finally hours after I had arrived there at two o’clock in the afternoon, the interview, or should I say interviews were over! “Hurrah! Gee, I didn’t know a temp receptionist job was so very important as to require hours, and hours of interview time! My long ordeal was finally, over!” or so I thought!

I left with a handshake from the manager, and I was told they had other candidates, (I hope they let them in) and I was told to follow up with Theresa from the temp agency, about the temporary three month, position.

When I finally got home after driving back home in rush hour traffic, I got out of my sweaty hose, and suit. “God,” I thought, “They weren’t even wearing a tie, and I had on those darn pantyhose. Life as a woman was entirely, unfair!” Dripping from perspiration, (summer job hunting in Phoenix such an adventure, such a torture), I took a cool shower, before I decided to call Theresa. Luckily she still was in the office this late, waiting for my call.

“What happened?” she asked.

I told her about the whole sordid affair.

“You know he was real upset over you being twenty minutes late.”

“Like I told you, I only cop to 5 minutes. That’s it.”

“You should have driven there on the previous Saturday to be sure you knew how to get there.”

“I know,” I said, “But gas money is tight. But that still wouldn’t have solved the locked door. In their eyes, I still would have been late.”

“You know, he called me after you left. You didn’t get the job.”

“Oh,” I said. Not sure if I was disappointed, or not.

“He said you apologized profusely. He had called me before the interview asking where you were.”

“I know. I heard him talking to you.” I paused, “While I was knocking on the locked door.”

“Why didn’t you just tell him the truth?”

“You must be joking. You know I really don’t want to work with a bunch of men engineers, who are too important to unlock a door. Just think what working there every day would be like?”

“I thought you said you worked well with men.”

“I do. I have worked with five mechanics, as their Admin., but they weren’t engineers. Blue collar all the way.”

Thinking better of that statement, I added, “Now, I’m sure not all electrical engineers are like this; however, no matter what their gender happens to be.”

Terry replied, “They are going to hire another candidate from our agency that they had interviewed the day before.”

“You mean, they let her in? Wish her good luck from me,” I paused. “I hope they give her a key or you’ll have to tell them…Someone was knocking at the door.”

Author: L Wagen

Comments

Great story!

mamamia07 - Sat, 2009-10-10 10:45 am

Lwagen

My Profile

Glad you all liked it!

L Wagen - Tue, 2009-29-9 6:54 pm

Yes, Wdzz, I save my different stories for Xomba's writing contests. An ironic turn on the "dream job".

My goodness is that Adsense ad right on target with "Does your job hunt suck?"

I just wanted people to know that everyone's job hunt sucks once and awhile. Nobody is alone.

And Free Craker 4 Jack, absurd things seem to happen to me. I don't know if it's me, or the crazy state I live in Arizona!

My neighbor used to say you move to Arizona for 2 reasons, running towards something, or away from something. This brings crazy people to Arizona, and you are bound to run into them once and awhile in your job travels.

L Wagen

Visit The Happy Halloween Store