WEEK THIRTY-EIGHT
"Phil! Long time, no see, tofu for brains!"
"Archie! How's it hanging, badger breath?"
I was in an interview at Andrews Cooper Jones Lodge. They had long been bitter rivals of Yossarian Samsa Pilgrim Smith, but I needed a job, however entry level it may have been. It was like the shifting allegiances in Nineteen Eighty-four, but without the powder blue suits. The man who was conducting the interview, Archie Lodge, had thinning hair and a baby's face - a disconcerting combination - and was taking far too much pleasure asking me questions.
"Going through your CV," Archie commented, "I couldn't help but notice that you were the lead on the Pifflebeck Beer account. I always loved that campaign!"
I couldn't tell if Archie was making fun of me. Ernst Pifflebeck's formula for making beer involved straining it through goat intestines, a process of which he was rather proud and that he insisted be at the centre of his publicity campaign. There is no way to make straining beer through goat intestines sexy. To say the campaign was reviled was like saying Robert De Niro could do a little acting.
"Uhh...thanks," I muttered.
"Not exactly an award-winner," Archie allowed, "but, then, you've had your share, am I right?"
I perked up. "Five Silver Lions and Eight Bronze," I crowed.
"Still, no Gold," Archie commented.
"I...well...no," I admitted, "but campaigns I was the lead on have won 18 Clios."
"And, you think that's important because campaigns I was the lead on have only won 12?" Archie asked. Inscrutably. Again.
"But - what - no," I sputtered. "That's not what I meant to say!"
"Mmmm." The silence ran deep for several seconds. Then, Archie finally got around to the question I dreaded answering. "So...I couldn't help but notice that there's a six month gap in your CV. What's that all about?"
Steeling myself, I responded, "I had a nervous breakdown. I was in and out of institutions for much of the six months."
"Your first time?" Archie asked.
"Umm...yeah."
Archie leaned back in his chair and got positively wistful, "I remember the first time I was institutionalized. It only lasted two months, but, lemme tell ya, it sure as hell felt like six! There was an orderly named Big Bertha - but, ah, perhaps that's a memory best shared at another time."
"You don't have a problem with that?" I asked, but I had a pretty good idea he wouldn't before I had answered.
"This is a high pressure job," Archie explained. "Sooner or later it gets to all of us."
"Oh," I prematurely exhaled a small sigh of relief.
"Just one thing, though," Archie continued. "I've heard that you've been telling people that you were arrested by the government, held without charge and tortured. What's that about?"
Yes. Yes, that was what I had been telling people. Until I realized that the truth really didn't help me get a job. So, gritting my teeth, I answered: "It was part of my delusion."
"Part of your delusion?"
"Yeah. Pfft! Come on, Archie - this is America. Our government doesn't do shit like that!"
"Damn straight it doesn't!" Archie forcefully agreed. I looked at the flag pin on his lapel and the picture of the President on the wall behind him and almost believed his enthusiastic embrace of the country. Almost. Because I knew that Andrews Cooper Jones Lodge had, at various times in its history, represented the governments of Libya, Saudi Arabia and, most recently, China, and it wasn't especially concerned with whether they were our allies at the time. The only patriotic feeling influence ever has is towards the money in its bank account.
After a moment to compose himself, Archie said: "Well. Thank you for coming in." Then, he did the "Get Out of My Fucking Office, You Low-life, Time-wasting, Hyphenation-Loving Bastard" paper shuffle on his desk, adding: "You will be notified of our decision just as soon as we make it."
"There's no way I'm getting the job, is there?" I asked.
"Honestly?" Archie responded. "It's down to you and a kid from the mailroom."
"But, it isn't going to be me, is it?" I insisted.
"Weeelllll...the kid in the mailroom has mad stapling skills." I knew he was just repeating a phrase he had overheard one of his son's tutors say because he didn't pronounce the zed at the end of the word "skilz."
"Really? That's what you're basing your decision on?"
"That and the fact that he doesn't waste my time asking me questions that he has already been told will be answered in the fullness of time if he will just be patient."
Ouch. If the statement had been any more pointed, a Spanish picador could have used it to gore a bull in the ring.
I thanked Archie for his time and left.
SOURCE: Harpo's
[http://harpos.org/archive/2012/09/23/dd-9000038]
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