Honest Job
Interview
by Ping Yi Yee
Excerpted
from Steve’s final appearance on the
interview panel.
Steve: Thank you for your
response, this wraps up our interview today.
Before we end, and it looks like a gorgeous
summer afternoon outside, do you have any concern
or question about our company?
Applicant [name withheld]:
Thank you Steve, I do have a question. I’ve
heard what you shared at the start, but what’s
this job really like?
Steve: If you put it that way…
You know how at the end of films the evil
overlord or big boss-monster gets killed, and the
hero and/or heroine (in a gender-neutral way)
breathe a sigh of relief, and the audience looks
with disbelief as the villain, Big Bad, gets back
up, so the hero-heroine have to stop making out,
to kill It-Him-Her again, and the villain dies,
and then the audience is screaming no look behind
you Oh-My-God look, so the couple break off their
embrace, kill the said Monster thrice, and the
sequel picks up at the same moment, when the
child-spawn-clone of Monstah-Boi bursts from an
invisible egg-husk that survived the napalm-nuclear-plasma
inferno, so they must kill it all over again with
each sequel?
Applicant: Err, yes…?
Steve: This job is like that.
HR [recovering]: Steve, I don’t
think it is quite appropriate to characteris–
Steve: Well, honesty is our
corporate policy, and this job is like that.
Applicant: I see.
Steve: Except there’s no
sequel. You’re still in the Origin Story.
Applicant [swallowing]: I see.
Steve: Do you have another question?
Applicant: Umm. How else would
you describe this job?
HR: I think this is all the time
we hav–
Steve: Hmm, another perspective?
Okay: for twelve months each year, this job hits
you squarely in the solar plexus, which is
fancyspeak for stomach area, which is just a
theoretical sensation for those of us who don’t
in reality exercise and have no idea what a solar
plexus is, or how it feels to be hit there, or
why anyone might need to hit it since they could
probably take us out just by looking at us.
Except this job. This job needs to hit you in the
solar plexus, so all the air leaves your body,
kind of like Saruman describing being stabbed in
the back during World War 2, and as you catch
your breath, it hits you again – this gets
old real fast, and you realise it doesn’t
end, and you also realise you’re not Bruce
Lee, and getting hit in the solar plexus isn’t
all that pleasurable, and then you understand Oh-My-God
it’s Bruce Lee hitting you, so your job is
Bruce Lee, not working for him which would be
cool even among millennials, but working as a
target for Bruce Lee which, okay, is working for
him in some way I guess.
HR: Thank you Steve.
Steve: I might have over-analogised,
but it’s all there. We’ll be in touch
soon.
HR: Interview. Over. Steve.
Applicant: Thank you!
Steve: No, thank you.
Interview ends.
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