God, it feels good.
**
The only real problem with getting fired in real life, as opposed to in the movies, is that you can’t cut straight from ‘You’re fired.’ to ‘Hi, honey, I’m home. Guess what happened today?’. Instead you have to spend about an hour sorting through your astonishingly large collection of junk. To work out what you want to take home, what you should have thrown away long before it went that green colour and started to grow fur, and what is office property and must be left behind if you ever want to work again.
Or, rather, if you ever need to work again.
This all gives you plenty of time to get utterly terrified of impending unemployment and start seriously considering going down on your knees in front of your boss and offering to do absolutely anything to get your job back.
I really should have thought that sentence through a little more before I said it.
'Here,' Cynthia says, shoving something at me. 'Take these too.'
I look. A Cadbury's selection box, a four-pack of Double Deckers and a Kit Kat Chunky.
Tears come to my eyes.
'Thanks, Cynthia,' I say, giving her a big hug. 'Just what I wanted.'
I think that's the first time I've ever meant those words.
'And take this', she says, giving me a piece of paper. 'My phone number. Call me before I go away. I'll bring my chocolate fountain round.'
God, I've always wanted one of those.
She lowers her voice. 'And if you need a loan, just ask.'
'Thanks,' I say again, 'but I can manage.'
I can't ask Cynthia for money. Worse case scenario, I'll ask Will.
Julie comes over with a small cardboard box. 'A few extra cookies. Chocolate chip.'
What's the saying? The only thing better than a good friend is a good friend with chocolate.
She puts the box down and hugs me. 'I'll call if I hear about any jobs,' she says, then looks a little uncomfortable. 'And thanks for standing up for me. I'm sorry I got you fired.'
'I got me fired,' I say firmly. 'And I don't regret it. I'll find another job in no time.'
She's nodding. She believes me.
I only wish I believed myself.
**
Once out of the office with your pathetic carrier bags of junk, you work very hard to remind yourself of all the wonderful parts of unemployment. No early mornings, no work, no dress code to pretend to follow. And you try even harder to forget the bad bits. No money, no work, nothing to get up for. I devoted all the time from Thursday (post-firing) to Sunday night to bouncing from pure happiness to utter despair and back again.
It is now Monday. Unbelievably, the novelty of all this free time has already worn off and I am bored out of my tiny mind. I am also sick of the sight of the flat, but can’t leave it because a) I still haven’t managed to call Will and b) if I go anywhere else, I’ll spend money that I don’t have. I should of course be preparing for my interview, which is tomorrow, but now that I’ve been fired from my crappy job I figure I’ve got more chance of winning the 1500m backstroke at the Olympics than getting an offer. Which would be rather unlikely even if I could swim.
NY Alien says:
‘Cheer up. What do the Monty Python boys say?’
Fired!!! says:
‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. This parrot is dead. He’s a lumberjack and he’s okay. Every sperm is sacred. And now for something completely different.’
NY Alien says:
‘No. Always look on the bright side of life.’
Fired!!! says:
‘There is no bright side. I’m unemployed, I’ve fallen out with my oldest friend. The man I love, who just happens to be the same guy, is probably shagging his Satan’s hell cow of a girlfriend in his office right now and, in a week or two, the bailiffs will be coming round to repossess my stack of kilogram Dairy Milk bars.’
NY Alien says:
‘I’m sure they won’t take your chocolate.’
Susan has her priorities straight.
Fired!!! says:
‘I’m a failure. I should never have tried to help anyone. I should have kept out of it. All of it.’
NY Alien says:
‘You’re not a failure. I’m sure you’ve helped people.’
Fired!!! says:
‘I have one question.’
And I have a distinct suspicion that I already know the answer to it.
NY Alien says:
‘What?'
Fired!!! says:
‘Have you, or have you not, gone back to work? Truth!!!’
NY Alien says:
‘I went back to work.’
Fired!!! says:
‘Ha! I knew it. See, failure=me.’
NY Alien says:
‘No, it doesn’t. It was a great idea. I’m just not ready to paint full-time yet. Maybe in five years I’ll give it another shot. But I know that now, I’m not wondering. So you talking me into it was a good thing.’
Fired!!! says:
‘Fine.’
NY Alien says:
‘So you’re not a failure and you’re going to go to that interview tomorrow and knock their socks off. Is that clear?’
Fired!!! says:
‘Very.’
So easy to be optimistic when you don’t have to go.
**
At my last interview I began with a sense of optimism and everything went wrong from the moment I opened my eyes. Today I began by being somewhat cynical – to say the least – about my chances and somehow everything has gone right. I woke up early, I remembered everything I was supposed to, the mirror and my eyes concur that my shoes match and I don’t smell of wine. But even as I make my way up to the office where I’m to be interviewed, looking almost like one of the models from ‘Winning that Job’ articles, I’m pessimistic. Something is going to go wrong. I know it. It’s only a question of what and when.
The outside of this concrete coffin they call an office wasn't appealing, but I have to admit it's quite nice inside. Clean, warm. I'm not entirely sure about the green and yellow colour scheme, or the 'artistic' wallpaper, but all in all I think I could stand it.
That is, if a miracle occurred and I was actually offered this job.
The receptionist opens the office door and waves me inside.
'Melanie Parker.'
Now I’m all blasé about being announced.
I step across the threshold and into the room. My potential future boss has her head behind the desk, searching for something in a drawer. Probably looking for my CV in the ‘only if we’re desperate’ file.
Positive Mental Attitude. I’m unemployed. I need this job.
I paint a smile onto my face. Sort of Mona Lisa, done by a five-year-old.
This room is all smart and cream-coloured. The window looks out on a nice park area. No harassed negotiators running around. It’s a million miles away from what I’m used to. There’s even a separate little desk, just waiting to be filled by me. It’s been polished. Nobody polished at my old job.
My potential future boss obviously was looking for my CV, because she sits up, places it in front of her and steeples her hands in front of it as she looks up at me and smiles.
For one millisecond, I smile back. Then I go through the following thought process: she’s so smart, her hair’s all neat, she’s even crossing her legs at the ankle. She looks just like the poster girl for professionalism.
Oh, crap.
It’s the woman from the toilet at my last interview. My expression has now mutated into unmitigated horror.
'Poster Girl!' I blurt out, before I can stop myself.
She’s been looking carefully at me, like she recognised me too. Now, thanks to my wonderfully unstudied exclamation, the penny drops. Her eyes light up and she smiles properly.
'Hand-dryer Girl!' she replies, in that dry voice which I now realise was the one on the telephone.
I knew it. I knew something would go wrong.
'I’ll just see myself out,' I say, my shoulders collapsing in a landslide as I start shrinking back towards the door.
'Don’t be an idiot,' Poster Girl says firmly. 'Come. Sit. Talk. Now. Are you a woman or a weevil?'
'Sometimes I wonder actually,' I find myself saying as I leave the relative safety of the doorway and settle myself in the chair opposite her. It’s a misleadingly comfortable seat. Like someone’s upholstered an electric chair.
There is something to be said for starting an interview knowing that there isn’t a chance in hell of you getting the job. Removes uncertainty, which means you can relax.
'You know,' Poster Girl says, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms as she cants her head. 'I thought I recognised your voice on the phone, but I couldn’t place you. Isn’t this a coincidence?'
Yes. The kind that proves that, while God might be dead, Satan is certainly alive and kicking. Satanic intervention. If I ever meet Satan, I’ll… What would I do? How do you torture evil incarnate? He must be into sadism, it stands to reason.
'I recognised your voice too,' I say honestly, 'but if I’d placed you I wouldn’t have come.'
'Why not?'
I can’t believe she actually asked me that question.
'Well, I made quite a memorable first impression,' I say wryly.
'Which is a good thing. So, that’s cleared that up. Onto the interview.'
I can’t believe she’s actually going to go through this with me. They really must be desperate.
'I’m just a little disorganised today,' she says. I glance around the catalogue-picture office in disbelief. 'Fired my third temp less than an hour ago. Hopeless they are, all of them. No common sense, the intelligence of a fruit fly and all the vision of a sonar-deaf bat. Can’t wait until I find a perm again. Last one’s gone off to have a baby.' She pulls a face at me. 'And, between you and me, it’s virtually a crime against humanity for her to be passing on those genes. Face like she’s spent a few hours being eaten alive by killer ants.'
I wince involuntarily.
'So,' Poster Girl says, with a smile, 'I haven’t read your CV. But since most of them are dull bullshit anyway, I don’t think it matters. And it doesn’t change my first question, which is ‘how did you come to be sitting under that hairdryer?’. I want a full, detailed answer, no glossing over the good bits. Begin.'
I start off slowly, but I soon get into it. Which is when it finally stops being horrible and starts being incredibly funny. By the time I reach the end of the story, Poster Girl is laughing so hard I’m half-afraid she’s going to have a seizure. Which is quite gratifying, even if she is laughing at me.
'Oh, that is wonderful,' she says, pulling a tissue from the box on her desk and wiping her eyes.
'But I’m really much better organised than that usually,' I say hurriedly. 'I’m punctual and reliable and…'
'Funny!' Poster Girl interrupts. 'Have you ever considered doing stand up?'
Making a career out of being a laughing stock?
Hmmm…that’s not such a bad idea actually.
'I’d rather get this job,' I say, sounding as enthusiastic as you can possibly get over administration. 'I’ve got a degree and eighteen months’ experience in admin.'
'Personally,' Poster Girl says, 'I think degrees are irrelevant. Half today’s graduates can barely write English and I’m not talking about the international students either. And I have a degree in law and I still know bugger all about the legal system, other than the fact that it doesn’t work.'
'Which everybody knows,' I say wryly.
'Precisely,' she says, acknowledging me with a wave of her hand. 'Experience isn’t that useful really either, in my opinion. It just means you have a stack of things to unlearn. Besides, typing's not exactly on a par with quantum physics, is it?'
Nowhere in any of Will’s lessons was ‘how to deal with the renegade interviewer’ mentioned.
Will.
No, I can’t think about him. Still.
'So, what are you looking for?' I ask, trying and failing to guess.
'I’m just the interviewer,' Poster Girl says, grimacing. 'The company is looking for all the crap you just mentioned. What’s your degree?'
My heart sinks.
'Economics,' I say.
'From?'
'Bristol.'
'Class?'
'Third.'
'Yeah,' Poster Girl says, rolling her eyes. 'They like upper seconds at least. The fact that anyone capable of that is massively overqualified for this job and will leave the first chance they get seems to have escaped them. Anyway, you won’t get it.'
'I know,' I say dismally. 'Not this, not anything. And I’m unemployed now to boot.'
'Really?' she says, perking up. 'Is there a story behind that?'
Fabulous. Now I’m a performing monkey.
'I made the mistake of getting my boyfriend a job as my boss,' I start. 'Then he dumped me. Then…'
I run through an edited version of the story, including the cola machine that launched a thousand ships, and soon she’s in tears again.
'I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun interviewing,' she says as she calms down. 'I’m so glad I kept this job. I nearly went somewhere else, you know, which is why I was at the recruitment agency when we met. But this is way more fun than I would’ve had if I’d left.'
'Always glad to be of service,' I say, unable to stop the sarcasm creeping into my voice.
'Don’t be like that,' Poster Girl says, sounding exactly like Kenneth Williams. 'I’ll stop laughing. I just get precious little entertainment around here.'
'Well I need a job, not a slot on Live at the Apollo,' I say, trying not to sound as crabby as I feel.
Poster Girl looks thoughtful. 'Can you type?' she asks.
'Yes.'
'How fast?'
'60, 70.'
'Okay. You know Word, Excel, Outlook, the Internet?'
'Of course.'
'Okay, this is very important,' Poster Girl says. She seems to be having difficulty keeping a straight face. 'Are you willing to do things that other people might consider a bit bizarre or degrading?'
I stare back at her impassively. 'I think I can just about manage it,' I say.
'I still can’t offer you this job,' she says and I feel like giving up right now. 'You don’t fit the description. Besides, I suspect you of having three figures in your IQ and a sense of humour, thus making you over-qualified for the position.'
'Then why did you bother asking?' I ask, now thoroughly fed up.
'I had a thought,' Poster Girl says uninformatively. 'Anyway, I suppose we’re done. Give me a day or two and I’ll call and confirm that you haven’t got the job.'
'Thanks,' I say, the edge in my voice sharpening as I get up.
'You’re welcome,' she says, oblivious. 'Have a nice day.'
There are no good people left on this planet. None.
**
Between getting back and Beth coming home, I try to work myself into the mood to be thoroughly melodramatic. And since if you’re going to do it you might as well do it properly, I go all out.
Beth comes in, laden down with books as usual – the woman reads like a scanner and doesn’t even take ten minutes to warm up – and surveys the scene. I’m wearing my black witch’s outfit from several Halloweens previously, when I was briefly obsessed with Charmed and wanted to revel in the ironic pointy hat. Will and I went trick or treating and an old guy with a really worrying witch fetish tried to hit on me.
Will.
Still not the time. I doubt it ever will be.
Anyway, I’ve turned off the lights, lit candles everywhere and there’s a frankly huge chocolate sundae sitting on the table beside me. The fact that I’m not eating it illustrates my despair better than a carved dagger in my hand.
'I take it that it didn’t go well?' Beth says, in her ultra sensible voice, which means more now that I know it’s by choice.
'No,' I say, rais
ing a limp hand to my brow as I recline weakly on the sofa.
You know, being melodramatic doesn’t work without the second half of your duo.
I sit up and grab my sundae.
'It was better than the last one,' I say, in my normal voice. 'But there’s still no way that I’m getting the job. In fact, the interviewer was nice enough to assure me of that, although she’s calling in a day or two to confirm.'
'We’re actually looking for someone at the library,' Beth says helpfully, putting her pile of books on the counter and heading to the fruit bowl for her daily dose of Vitamin C.
She can’t be serious.
I mean, not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but…
'Two things, Beth,' I say. 'One, do you really think I’d fit in there when the last book I read was Harry Potter and the one before that was See Spot Run? Two, would you honestly want to work with me?'
Beth starts thoughtfully cutting open an orange.
'It’s great of you to suggest it,' I say quickly, 'but I don’t think us spending that much time together is a good idea. I mean, remember how irritated you get when I leave my washing in the machine, then imagine that all day, everyday. It would never work.'
Beth nods. 'You’re right,' she says. 'It’s a bad idea.'
'Although,' I add, completely switching out of melodramatic mode and into practical mode, 'unemployment benefits may force us to try it out. Council Tax next month and I don’t think I can manage it.'
'I can carry it,' Beth says.
I stare at her.
'You earn less than I do. Did,' I say. 'You can’t afford to support both of us. Besides, there’s no reason why you should have to.'
'I have some in reserve,' Beth says complacently. 'And I’m sure you’ll find a job soon.'
'Yes, but your savings are yours,' I protest.
I live with an angel. One who hasn’t quite realised that she’s become mortal.
'I’ve got some from my father,' Beth says, looking a little guilty. 'A sort of…trust fund, if you will. For emergencies, you know. A couple of hundred won’t matter.'
The Dr Pepper Prophecies Page 24
