The pluck of the draw (by Heather)

After six months of mailing resumes all over the city, you finally have a bite. Though under-qualified for the position, you attend the interview anyway because you desperately need work. As the boss starts to ask questions, you notice that he's not reading from your resume—it's someone else's. Instead of correcting him, you go with it. Write this interview.

Not that Jessica knew a lot about interviews, but in her humble opinion, the whole thing had been skewiff from the beginning.

It had started when she showed up at the front desk. She had announced herself, saying: “I’m here for the job interview for the marketing manager position.”

The receptionist had been doing that thing on the headphones where you never know who she’s speaking to. All the while looking at Jess, she’d kept up steady stream of conversation. She’d said, “I’ll put you through” to someone, and she’d said, “Pat Fraser’s here” to someone, and she’d said, “Good morning, Lewis Enterprises, Sarah speaking” to someone. At one point, she’d said “Do you mind getting me a glass of water from the cooler there?” to someone. She kept looking at Jess, who decided that as peculiar as it seemed, she was being asked to get the receptionist a drink. (This was where she felt as if she’d climbed into a foreign film with dodgy subtitles. Mind you, it helped to explain a little when she brought the water back, and the receptionist pointed to her belly which undoubtedly belonged to someone 9¼ months pregnant.)

Finally an older guy who introduced himself as Mel Lewis came to greet her, asking her to follow him to the interview room. He took the chair by the window, where the sun reflected off his shaved head as if it were a mirror. “Pat!” he exclaimed, and Jess wasn’t sure if it was an instruction or he was thinking of his dog or if she’d completely misheard him. So she’d just smiled and nodded sagely.

And now she was truly in a foreign film blur. Mr Lewis commented on her impressive resume, which she wasn’t sure she heard correctly. Then he made some weird remarks about China, asking how had she enjoyed it there, and commenting on what an adventurer she was. She went along with it, cracking a few jokes herself to show him she wasn’t afraid of his peculiar sense of humour. Having set the pattern, she gamely wise-cracked with him about managing the branding team at DuPont and similarly about monitoring R&D. After all, she was desperate for the job and if he wanted humour, she’d jump through the hoops.

However, she noticed fresh perspiration under her arms and began wishing she was anywhere but here. The responsibility for keeping up this insane banter was getting well beyond her. The foreign film was turning into a twilight-zone nightmare.

Actually, her stunned mullet mind reminded her, it had started off skewiff when she’d first found the ad on Job Search. The job was a long way out of her league but (a) she was truly desperate, and (b) you’ve got to take a risk or two every now and then, right? Her post-school year of experience as an accounts assistant (mostly phoning debtors, which she’d been very good at, and checking employee expenses, which she’d been mildly good at) had ended when the company had succumbed to the recession.

Her trance was interrupted when she took a moment to have a good look at the resume in front of Mr Lewis. She suddenly understood why the fonts and margins had seemed wrong, why the resume he was holding had seemed too thick. The top of the page read, “Resume for Pat Fraser”. Simply put, it wasn’t her resume and that all of a sudden clarified a lot of things. She stepped out of the nightmare into a painfully embarrassing real world.

In an attempt to slow the train gently, she said: “Well, I’m not sure I’m the person for this job.”

The train surged on. “Your experience tells a different story,” he said, looking at her closely.

And for the first time, she really looked at the man across from her. As well as the shining plate, he had intelligent eyes and a look on his face at least as confused as her own.

Damn, damn, damn, she thought. She stood up, ears burning and heart thumping agonisingly. “Look, Mr Lewis, I’m sorry to have wasted your time. I just now noticed that you’re looking at completely the wrong resume, I’m not Pat Fraser, and I know for a fact that I don’t have anything like the training or experience you need for the role. So I’ll just take this red face and head on out of here.”

Mr Lewis stood up. “Well, I’m glad to have that cleared up,” he stated dryly. “I have to admit that in all my time in business this was one of the strangest interviews I’ve ever been involved in. But hold on just a moment, please, I have an idea.”

He picked up the phone on a side table and pressed a key. A moment later he said, “Sarah, could you have a word with …” he cupped his hand over the receiver and wryly asked Jess her name, “…with Jessica here and see if she might be suitable as your replacement for the reception position. I’m thinking she has a courage that we might find useful here.”


…And that’s how, an hour later, Jess came to be filling in the New Employee Information form, as fulltime receptionist for Lewis Enterprises.

…And how, 2 years later, she came to be audaciously heading up its little marketing team.

…And how, 10 years later, she came to be breathing deeply while tapping her high heels into the boardroom at HSBC to present her first marketing director’s annual report.

Alternative titles:
The nightmare
The path of courage