“Excuse me,
is this some kind of joke?” And before I could answer, “because I find all of
this very irregular. Is this supposed to
be some kind of exercise in lateral thinking? Or a situational contingency?”
“I’m afraid
I don’t know what that means. Can you explain it?”
“I won’t
explain it.”
At this,
Johnny started to fidget in his seat.
“You can’t,
or you won’t?”
“I won’t.”
Johnny’s
fidgeting grew worse. His chair creaked.
“Well, I’m
sure it’s something we don’t need here at the panty-waist company anyway,” I
said. “Why don’t you tell us about your past experience?”
Timothy Nutz-Rockefeller III remained silent.
“It looks
like you’ve had responsibility for many, em, processes and such, or what say
you?”
“It’s all
there in my resume. My references are indexed in my online profile, with
recommendations. Do you have any specific questions related to them?”
“Do we have
any questions? Well, I don’t know. Will, do you have a question?” Will was
staring moodily at her dress shoes.
“Question?
Yes, what is an interaction initiator?”
“As an
interaction initiator, I had responsibility for cross-departmental
communication initiatives, which - in
the case of my employer, MacKenzie – meant linking the intranet with chat
functions, and tying it into the MacKenzie’s worldwide ERP system, among other
things.”
“OK, that’s
enough of that. Tell me, Nutz, why are you here? We don’t want our ERP system
linked to anything. So what are you all about?”
“About?”
“Yes, where
are you from?”
“I was born
in Salem, Oregon, actually.”
“And is
that where you became a crystal ship?”
“I’m not
familiar with that.”
“A crystal
ship? Well, what does it sound like? An intricately carved vessel. One with
countless, gleaming facets. Transparent, but full of unknown quantities. Boxes.
A fragile construction that shatters when it strikes something, or hits the
wrong pitch.”
“That’s not
me.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“Johnny,
what do you say?”
“Yeah.”
“Will?”
She nodded.
“A vote?”
Johnny,
Will and I all raised our hands. Then there was silence.
“This is
absurd.”
“If you
don’t want the job, then so be it. We’ll find another. Someone who isn’t a
crystal ship.” I couldn’t account for my feelings at this point, and felt a
sudden onrush of tears. Will pulled my head towards her bosom, and there I lay
for a while.
Timothy
Nutz-Rockefeller III stood, pulled back his chair and firmly exited the room.
“The Topic” remained on the table top, untouched, leaking and stinking.
“It wasn’t
how I’d imagined it going. I’m afraid he had us. Shall we call him back? Offer
him the job? What do you think?”
Will just
continued to stroke my temple.
Johnny sat
rubbing his thumbs with his finger-tips, and then shouted: “I’ve got it. The
D-51A would be perfect for that new M-1 Abrams tank design. They’re needing a
textile-based bushing for the turret cannon.” Johnny was a genius at finding
new, and useless, applications for panty-waists. In that respect, one might even
call him a crystal ship, too.
Yet another
failure of our vaunted HR process. I felt miserable, spent.
“Why do you
suppose he was so hard with us?” I asked no one in particular, and no one
responded.
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