Do not expect anything to happen the way you had imagined or else you'll end up like I did.
So, there is this footwear re-distributing company near the place I live and they're known to hire students and such losers for packaging crocs and stuff. Since I don't want to spend my vacation only drinking and playing computer games, I've decided to get a job. Here's how it went.
Monday. I woke up early, checked these forums (I know, I have no life) and slowly got ready to bravely venture into the sunny and horribly bright outside world. A bit of exaggeration doesn't hurt, does it? Anyhow the church's bells signalled that nine hours have passed since midnight. In my mind I had an image of how things were going to go, a script playing along in thoughts all the way to the firm's address. How wrong can one's imagination be, you ask? I imagined it something like this...
I walk into the building, on my right is a reception with a grizzled old woman stubbornly typing with two fingers, her hands all wrinkled, stopping mid-air before every key-stroke. I say say that I would like to see the xyz-person (the said person knows my father well) and the receptionist, although sullenly directs me to the second floor of the well lit building. Sunlight pours through the large windows as I make my way up a staircase, the third office on the right is my goal. I knock on the closed, modern looking frosted glass door and step in. The office is clean-looking, stacks of documents neatly arranged, the air is not too different from the one we breathe outside. I introduce myself and are told to sit down.
Yes, the xyz2-person is my father. Indeed he told me that.
I'm looking for a summer job...
July...
Whole month, yes.
I've already registered myself...
While certainly...
Excellent...
Goodbye....you too.
There, I've done it. I have a summer job and all is well. Now I can go back and enjoy the horrible grind that is powertrading.
It could certainly have went like that, couldn't it? Right? Wrong!
I walked into the building, the receptionist's desk was on the left. Cardboard boxes were lying all around it and the whole thing looked quite abandoned. I ran my finger along the desk's surface and a generous amount of dust clang to it. I semi-shouted a greeting into the room adjacent to the desk and got silence as a reply. Not knowing what to do I walked up the curved staircase and found myself in a hallway-like claustrophobic architectural marvel. From all sides crept gloomy piles of office material. A printer here, an apparently useless chair there, a coffee machine over there. The staircase went up into unknown heights, while I stayed there, wondering whether to turn left or right.
Perhaps someone will appear, someone I could ask where the xyz-person is. Nope. Not a soul, not even a sign of life. I went to the right. An open door let some light in, so the place had at lest some light apart from the small red diode attached near a bulbous security camera. I approached the door, leaned a bit so that I could see inside. And what did I see? An empty office with a CRT (CRT!!) monitor on a battered desk. Papers were scattered across it, so that I couldn't even determine what colour the desk's surface was.
Hello!
A woman in her thirties appeared, carrying a cup of coffee.
Ah, I'm sorry to walk in like this, but I'm looking for the xyz-person...and there was no one downstairs and so...
Ok...
Straight don the hallway I went. To the left, past the copying machine, the staircase and the lone window. All the way to the end. Finally the xyz-person is in this office! Indeed she was. Along with a co-worker. And even larger piles of documents.
"What do you want and who are you?" said the xyz-person in an austere voice, her co-worked grinning ominously.
"I'm (name surname) son of (name surname) and I've heard...it is said that...allegedly... that your firm is, hiring students and such..."
"Ah, I'm not the one responsible for those things. (Name surname) is."
I went where I was told to go. Again a dark office, two workers inside, each looking more grumpy than the other.
"Good day, I'm (name surname) and I've heard....it is said that, perhaps...you are supposedly, allegedly, hiring...hiring students and such?"
"Yes, but not now, we have no need whatsoever for people such as you" the one with curly hair and heavy glasses said.
"Oh...uhm, but you see, I was thinking more about July, one month, July", I said, my voice sounding as stranger's.
She threw her glasses on the table and blinked at me, I can swear I saw lightning shoot out of her eyes.
"Yes, and? I have work to do and if I've said that we don't need YOU, we don't need you. Do you understand that, yes?"
I slumped, the one bit of self.confidence I had remaining (I'm not a very confident person) sublimed in an instant.
"Yes, I understand all-right. However if there is a chance that in July...normally there is a need for....in July you...hire...so I've heard."
The responsible person didn't seem happy with that.
"You understand, my dick you understand. But very well. Your number is? We'll call you if something arises."
And so it ended, now I'm waiting for a call I think will never come. The lesson? Be confident my fellow nerds, if you're not, you get stomped. What would I give to be more self-confident? 1 billion credits, that's for sure.
Post your experience in similarly embarrassing, ego-crushing ordeals.
I wish i could write about dull events in such a colourful way. Maybe you should become a writer? 8]
[11:20:20] aerelm: its not fl dev work if you dont have to power through the whole thing on your own
[11:20:32] aerelm: help is for pussy devs like in dota
Indeed. The problem is the person responsible "flipped me off" not because they don't need people (they do), but because she was in such a bad mood and I seemed as someone she could "bully".
For me it was more a case of - hey, it's summer. Everyone who's not old enough to work anywhere else (aka you have a drivers license) simply shows up at the Lane potato farm, and you spent your summer with a pitchfork digging taters. No interview necessary - hey, what's your name? Good, here's your pitchfork, go get started digging.
Man, that was almost 40 years ago. Fun times out in the dirt. Still didn't get as dirty as when I worked for another guy the next summer baling hay. There's just nothing quite like the dirt that you get from the dust as you walk along, picking the bales off the end of the baler and throwing them on a wagon, or riding on the wagon and stacking the bales. Then taking them and unloading them onto the conveyor so they can go up into the hayloft of a barn.
(11-21-2013, 12:53 PM)Jihadjoe Wrote: Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.
Been working at McDonalds since Summer 2012. Pretty laid back interview that I probably tried too hard for, it's certainly not the best job in the world.
Money is money at such an age, though (I was 17). Probably would of shagged the girl that interviewed me.
I was lucky enough to be hired underage (legal age to sell alcohol/cigs/lottery in Canada is 16, I was 15) in a local gas corner, while the owner of the store was away, by the assistant manager. 6 years later, I still part-time there for extra money, since it's above minimum wage.
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