My interview.

So, I got a call the other day for an interview, for a life insurance company. Short version: I did not get the job. (The long version is much, much funnier.)

I was told by the recruiter on the phone that they got my resume on Monster, and would like to set up an interview with me. I had to ask what sort of company they were, and what kind of job they were looking to fill. That was my first warning; that information should have been volunteered freely, and without me having to ask.

I checked out the company's website beforehand; it was a real company, but they didn't have a record of the office I was headed toward. I chalked it up (tentatively) to the recruiter's explanation that "We only opened this office about a month ago". A red flag still went up in my mind.

So, I pulled up to the building at about ten minutes before the appointed time. It was a nice, professional looking office building. Points for them. I looked at the building directory, which not only didn't list the company, it didn't list the office I'd been sent to. The gates are down and red lights flashing at this point.

Undaunted, I went up the stairs and down the hall to a door, next to which the suite number I'd been given by the recruiter was printed out on a piece of paper and taped to the wall. This was the only suite in the building not to have its number etched in a glass plaque next to their door. "Danger, danger Will Robinson!" sounded briefly in my head.

I walked inside, and it looked more like a conference room than an office. There was a smaller room inside, containing two desks. If I were going to put up some "official"-looking business in a day or two, I like to think I'd have spent a little less on inspirational posters every two feet, and more on nicer chairs. Or, at the very least, I would have printed out two sets of business cards; one for each person in the "office". Several fog horns blasted simultaneously at my consciousness.

I handed them the requisite resume, and got an application in return. It was not quite the professionally laid out and Xeroxed thing I've come to expect from McDonald's (or my last employer, for that matter). (It asked for, among other things, my SSN. I did not give it.) The navigator from the Titanic asked to have a word, urgently.

Before I had a chance to finish filling out the resume, I and the other applicants were interrupted by the guy organizing this whole thing, "Ben". (The quotes aren't indicative of an alias; I just don't trust him to have given his real name.) He wanted to give a little talk about what this company was all about, and assured us that we were free to leave at any time. That's right- he just assured us that we were not, at the moment, imprisoned. Then his partner locked the door (from the inside, of course; I never felt as though I couldn't actually get up and leave). Then we got folders with papers inside. I idly pondered my chances of survival, should I have found it necessary to jump out the second-story window.

During Ben's spiel, one of the other audience members asked some question about the company. Ben's answer was reasonably eloquent and reflected well on the company. I wondered briefly how long they'd rehearsed it. While Ben talked, I leafed through the papers in the folder his cohort had handed us. I found a price sheet for training that the company offered. I got up and left.

There is a perfectly innocent explanation for everything I've seen. There's also the explanation I'm actually going to believe. Call me biased.