Ok, so God REALLY hated me yesterday.
So I wake up first thing in the morning, with a wicked migraine pounding steadily in my left temple and a heaving stomach threatening to return its pitiful contents to the world in semi-digested form. Last nights beef stew, for the culinaire.
Dragging my sorry-ass out bed, I assumed the position for my daily rogering. Desk chair, desktop computer, SEEK.com. So I half-heartedly send out some job applications, going through the motions like a veteran hooker in a Kings Cross back alley, one weary eye on the time and already thinking of my next appointment.
Which in this case, was the couch, my doona and a DVD. See, I’d decided to give myself a “sick day”, a concept which takes on new meaning when you’re unemployed. And like any legitimate sickie, the day my body had chosen to turn on itself was a perfect one. Outside my window the erratic staccato of unseasonal rain descended from grey skies, and the Fremantle Doctor had started his rounds early.
A good day to be sick, I thought. No sooner had I settled onto the couch with my doona and my dog, did the phone ring. I leapt up to answer it and was somewhat happily surprised to be speaking with a lady to whom I had emailed a resume not half an hour ago, for a job I thought I actually wanted to get. In the midst of my muddle-headed excitement I foolishly agreed to meet with her in two hours time and jumped in the shower.
A comedy of errors so ensues:
1. Fuck! My ass is too big for my favourite power suit pants. I have to wear a PASTEL GREEN suit that still bears the price tags from three years ago because after I bought it I realised I don't actually like pastel green suits.
2. On top of a Big Arse day I am having a Bad Hair Day. I re-style my hair about four times, and then realise my fatal error. Product build-up. My greasy hair makes it look as though I haven’t bothered to shower.
3. Bugger. Forgot the fucking Fremantle Doctor, blowing a gale outside. Within minutes of leaving the house my hair no longer looks as though it has been styled at all.
4. I miss the train by about 30 seconds. Damn Perth trains run early, so it seems. I wait 15 minutes for another, being buffeted by the wind coming right off the ocean.
5. It is now inevitable that I will be late to the interview. Thank you Transperth and your maddening efficiency. I make one of those awkward phone calls apologising in advance and can almost hear her mentally crossing me off the list of candidates as we speak.
6. I get off the train for a ten minute walk at the exact moment that God chose to unleash another bout of unremitting rain on the Perth CBD. Here I am, walking uphill in the rain, my head pounding, my stomach queasy, battered by the wind and late for my interview.
I am reminded of a classic statement my mother once made to me when she picked me up the morning after my Year 10 Formal, pale and hungover. The drive home was conducted in stony silence until she suddenly started laughing, for no reason at all. Stunned, I looked over at her and she said words I will never forget - “Mel, if you don’t laugh, you cry”. It remains as one of my favourite philosophies.
So I’m walking through the street, laughing hysterically and repeatedly muttering to myself ”God, you really hate me today. You must really hate me God”. And laughing some more…And my head is still pounding and it is about now that I start feeling light-headed and want to faint.
7. So I get to the interview, babble some more apologies and have barely caught my breath when the lassie interviewing me hits me with her first question – “So, tell me about yourself”. I think she lost me when she didn’t know what a blog or a fanzine was. I’m such an elitist wank. But then again, it’s a stupid, amateur fucking question.
8. The less said about the interview, the better. Usually an articulate person with a fine line in faux-confidence that easily charms in an interview situation, I am virtually incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence and keep using words in the wrong context or just forgetting them altogether and letting my sentences trail off into an awkward silence that makes me sound retarded. And I can hear myself doing all of this but am powerless to stop. My brain is protesting the day’s punishment.
9. And the worst thing is, I know the girl interviewing me is a semi-literate bogan because she reads things from my resume, but reads them incorrectly, like a dyslexic who sees the word “caramel” and reads it as “camel”. And she seems younger than me, and is much less articulate than I would be on a good day and she seems like she’s been recently promoted and is in over her head and I’m finding it really hard to respect her, let alone work for her.
10. And the job is crap. Placing adverts in Mining and Education journals.
11. Having already decided I wasn’t interested, I padded my way to the end of the interview where out of curiosity I asked about salary. She turns around and says. “What salary do you want?”, which is almost as irritating as her opening question. So I say $39k because I think it’s being conservative (read: polite) and I see the corners of her mouth kind of scrunch down and know that I’ve overstepped the mark. Turns out they were only willing to offer $32k. I try and explain that the salaries in Sydney are much higher than in WA and she misunderstands me and gets all defensive and starts going on about how the cost of living here is much cheaper than it is in Sydney and so on…
And my head is still pounding and I long for my doona. You suck God. So does this post.
