Chapter 6: The Job Interview

I was already wide awake and staring blankly at the ceiling when my industrial size alarm clock went off. I waited for a few moments, leaving the annoying ring to resonate around the room until it seemed to be coming from inside my own head, and then gently placed it on snooze. I'm not sure how much actual sleep I got that night, I had been slipping in and out of consciousness for hours because every time I fall asleep I return to the same terrible nightmare...

I'm sitting at a cubicle in the middle of millions of other small cubicles in an absurdly huge warehouse-like room, typing away at the keyboard. For some reason me and everyone else working in their cubicles have a dog bowl full of water on the desk next to us and are wearing a big silver collar connected to a chain tying our necks to the desk. I barely recognized myself; my face was sunken and old and my hair had turned a diseased shade of white. Pain shoots through my hands every time my fingers bang at the keyboard because of what seemed like a bizarre case of arthritis and carpel tunnel syndrome. My eyes have gone almost completely blind, and I am now wearing glasses so thick I have to keep pushing them up every few key strokes, because they keep slipping off my thinning face. That's when the "manager" walks in, a ghoulish being wearing a big fur coat like a pimp, and barks at me that he needs the report tomorrow morning or else I'm fired, walks away, and the lights start turning out one by one in the huge warehouse...except for my cubicle. And it's in this scene of me sitting alone at a cubicle, aged and worn out, in the middle of complete blackness that kept waking me up gasping....

It had been about a month since I was first informed that I'm almost completely broke. The harrowing experience with the ant in my apartment snapped me into reality, and I immediately started sending out CV's online to absolutely anyone who was hiring, no matter how unfitting I was for the job or how unfitting it was for me. As expected, no one replied, except for one which I found most amusing. It said that my CV was excellent; that I was almost accepted; that I was highly considered amongst the competition and that any company would be lucky to have someone with my skills. One problem though; it was addressed to "whoever this may concern" and was quite obviously a template sent out to everyone who had gotten rejected.

But then last night, right before I thought about hitting the sack, the familiar sound of cooing and fluttering beckoned me into the other room to find Frank sitting at the windowsill. He looked happy and kept ruffling his feathers and making little bird noises as I walked over, greeted him with a kiss on his tiny white head and read the message.

"Intelicom wants to meet you for an interview tomorrow morning. Good luck."

Initially I was very happy, for Intelicom is one of the famous multinationals here in Cairo that is known to pay well. Plus, the job they need filled is an editor for the company newsletter and announcements, so at least I'll have something to do with writing. But as the news began settling I started getting the heavy feeling in my gut that maintained throughout the nightmares and still remained when I got up from bed to get dressed. I felt like a devout Muslim sheikh who suddenly decided to become Jewish and move to Israel . However, I knew that if I wanted to nail the interview and start getting a steady income, I would have to drop these negative thoughts of ‘corporate stooge'-hood, so I sang as I showered to lift my spirits, put on my best suit, made sure I was well groomed and went and got a taxi.

Throughout my life, any important day means that something unfortunate will happen to me; that's just one of the ways how fate has decided to mess with me, and I now accept it as inevitable. So I wasn't much surprised when midway through the ride I got the familiar feeling of creeping diarrhea. This was no ordinary case of diarrhea; it was the kind that gets you wondering what you could have done in this or any past life to deserve it. The kind that if you don't clench your butt cheeks together until your face turns red, you might not be able to contain the evil. The kind that...well, you get the point. Anyway, I managed to get my mind off it until I finally landed at my destination, got out of the taxi and took my first look at the devil's corpo44 rate lair. I stared up in awe at the building, towering aggressively over the surrounding neighborhoods. "Wow," I thought, "The owner must have a God complex or a very small penis...or both." As I continued studying my potential future place of work I received my first psychosomatic auditory hallucination of the day; ‘Welcome to the Machine' by Pink Floyd blasting around me as if there were hidden speakers everywhere...

"Welcome my son, welcome to the machiiiiiiine...
Where have you been, that's alright we know where you've beeeeen
You got a-"
WOOOSH!

The song was abruptly halted as a passing car placed the entire contents of a dirty puddle onto my left leg. I first just stared at the wet dirt that was now sliding down onto my shoes for a few seconds, almost not believing what just happened. Then I frantically looked at my watch and realized I needed to do something about this, so I rushed into the building, passed the security clearance (which rivals that of major airports), and ran into the lobby bathroom. After I wiped God's sense of humor off my leg, I decided to use this opportunity to let out some of the demons contained in my stomach, so I jumped into an empty stall and made some serious music for about ten minutes.

I felt about 10 kilos lighter as I stood patiently during the elevator ride up to the 28th floor, watching the counter increment. At first the elevator was crowded with young professionals who had likewise decided to serve Satan, but as the counter kept approaching the 28th, they kept getting off until I was completely alone. My heart became heavy as the doors opened at my floor, and I stepped out into the large corridor, which at one end had the secretary sitting at an elevated desk.

I began walking slowly towards her as my overactive imagination took everything in slow motion; my shoes making especially loud clunks on the floor with every step; the secretary's desk which seemed to keep getting bigger and higher as I approached. By the time I reached to barely peer over the desk I could feel my heartbeat in my nose. "Good morning, I'm here for the interview," I croaked. The pretty young secretary smiled and told me to wait in the sitting room for a minute, and as I kept her gaze for a second I couldn't help remember those "whores of Satan" in Bram Stokers' Dracula, sultry and hot yet have the ability to suck your blood dry in two minutes because after all...don't forget who they work for.

I walk into the little room to find another young applicant sitting there, looking fresh out of college and already filling out the application with intense determination. I take a seat next to him, and we start making small talk as we fill out the standard questions.

"Which position are you here for?" he casually asks.

"Junior Editor...you?"

He raises an eyebrow and replies, "Junior Editor."

I chuckle nervously and in all seriousness he goes back to the application form.

"Don't worry," I joked, "I always screw up interviews!"

"Hmm," he grunted while filling out the form, no sense of humor in sight. A few minutes of awkward silence pass as I go back to my form.

"So who do you know here?" he asked without even looking up.

"Sorry?"

"Who do you know here?" he repeated.

"I, uh, don't know anyone! Why?"

"Because they rarely give interviews unless someone who works here recommends a person," he explained, then looked me in the eye and urged "Come on...who do you know?"

"Seriously, I don't know anyone!"

"Did they headhunt you?"

"Did they what?" I exclaimed.

He rolled his eyes and explained "Did they contact you while you were working at another company?"

"No! I just applied on the website, man!"

He studied me for a few moments then snapped, "Look if you don't want to tell me, that's fine, but don't say you don't know anyone..."

Suddenly the secretary poked her head around the door and called out his name.

"Good luck," I said to him, with my most sincere smile.

"Yeah...you too," he replied as he left the room, with a look that said he wished me anything but good luck.

I chuckled as I noticed a few grammar mistakes in the questions on the application form. I noted the irony and circled the errors.

After what seemed like years, I finally got called into the actual interview with one of the senior managers. He was a bulky man in an expensive suit with a voice that didn't match his size. He had hair plugs that I couldn't stop staring at, like a girl with obscenely large knockers; your eyes are just drawn to them subconsciously. I don't usually react like this to bald people, but it was just so fake like a tiny patch of bright green artificial grass growing in the middle of a desert. A few times he caught me looking, and I immediately brought my gaze back down to his eyes and tried to say something impressive to get his mind off it. I casually showed him the errors I found on the application form, to which he seemed both embarrassed and impressed. Together we proceeded to surf the waves of interview protocol. I was trying to be impressive, and he was trying to be unimpressed by me while showing how important he is. Towards the end he got a call, while I was with him, and talked in a horrible way to someone who must have been a subordinate. Much of it was business, but this is how the call went in my head:

"Hello? Yes, I am a very important person, much more important than you are so be quick and don't make me fire you, because I do have that power. What? Yes, I do realize that I am the devil's little corporate helper, but I've made peace with that since I have a big car and many summer homes. Naturally I've grown fat and bald and get a brand new ulcer everyday, but hey, these are the new status symbols of the 21st century. What about life purpose, you say? You're fired."

As the questions ran out he leaned back in his giant seat and announced nonchalantly that I am quite qualified. He leaned over and crushed my hand in an overzealous handshake then said, "We'll be in touch." So I crushed his hand back and said, "I look forward to it." And even though nothing was official yet, as we continued the bone crushing handshake for a few seconds and locked eyes, I felt my soul get transferred out of my body.

I am in the machine.