20 Minutes
To my surpise, I arrive much too early for my interview. Realizing I am more than 20 minutes prompt, I start fumbling for reasons to the seemingly glorious reinvention in my sense of time.
I figure it can only be either of two things. One, I am damn too serious about this opportunity; or two, I am simply bargaining for more time in my new BCBG skirt suit and my Ď‹ber fashionable Enzo Angiolinis.
I would have savored the spare time to pick up where I left off with Iyanla Vanzant, but an almost too condescending woman, with a far more polished pomp than I can ever muster, walks up to me and announces (in unanppealing staccato voice) that the director is ready to see me now.
"I presume you already know the protocol…."
That dragging your expensive pumps has become fashionable these days?
"…that we only give you 20 minutes to say your piece. Satisfied or not, I will have to politely…"
Well you should!
"…thank you for your time and show you the door. It’s pretty simple…"
How you make your applicants feel like they’re pawns and not individuals?
"…how the company feels an efficient Marketing Manager can market herself in less than 15 minutes, the first 5 minutes, of course, being a simple exchange of standard pleasantries," she concludes as we reach the door of the most techno-modern office I have ever seen in my entire working life.
I take my seat across the director’s table, and Ms. Condescending takes hers across mine, a leather planner and an expensive pen on hand.
I start with my pleasantries, carefully stating my name as if I were taking oath in some big, jam-packed auditorium.
I hesitate for a second, then I regain my composure and say, "I understand you need a 20-minute Marketing Manager, Mr. Fuller. I would have loved to take up your 20 minutes but then again I figured my career is all about long-term decisions and laborious debates, about what not to pursue and what not to bother with, about what to even discuss and what to simply dispense with."
"I regret having wasted almost 3 minutes of your time today, but if I may be excused, I’d like to spend the next 20 minutes talking to my agent please. Thank you."
I carefully rise from my seat and head straight for the door. As a last hoorah, I add pageantry to my gait and casually look back to see a hand with a pen suspended in mid-air and a pair of eyes transfixed on my Angiolinis.
Two hours later, in the coffee shop of a five star hotel, I pick up my agent’s call on my mobile.
"See me in my office in 20 minutes. I just stepped out of the Bantam Press headquarters. I have your offer on hand."
"Alright, spare me the protocol and spill the beans."
"Marketing Manager for Commercial Publications. Asking price of more than double your current package under negotiation but all other concessions are in."
"Hmmm…living, learning, light, luminosity. Opportunity, oneness, openness. Vastness, versatility, virtue, victory. Enlightenment, eternity, endurance, endeavor," UNTIL TODAY, Iyanla Vanzant’s illustrious work, transports me back to the waiting lounge. Checking my watch, I see I have five more minutes to my 10:00 am interview.
FICTION / FB
