05.15.08
Bud Guthrie had written a paean to the grizzly, calling it the "living, snorting incarnation of the wildness and grandeur of America."
Fuck North Face. SO, I rush in five minutes late for my interview. The one guy, Jack? Jake? doesn't seem like he cares, he shows me to the back office and we sit down. I figure the interview will be all right, Jack/Jake seems like a nice guy. There's another guy on the phone and Jack/Jake waits for him to finish. The guy turns and looks at me. We introduce ourselves and he grabs my application from a pile.
"So, you are at Virginia Commonwealth?"
"Yeah...Yes."
"And you worked at Restoration Hardware for not too long..."
Yeah, I think to myself, it clearly says SEASONAL underneath.
"Why is that?"
"Because it was just for the season."
"So what kind of work did you do? It says here sales floor, used radio headset, cashier experience, have you done returns?"
"Yes" I lie. Every return I ever attempted was met with tears of frustration from my manager.
"What else did you do?"
"I would handle customers and radio back to the stockroom or get it myself."
"And how did you find it?"
"It was kinda hard" and then realizing I was going to talk myself into a corner I recover, "but I got the hang of it after a day or two." A lie. It took me three weeks to fully verse myself in the vast nomenclature required.
"Why was it hard?"
"I dunno, there was just a lot of small differences between the products, and knowing their codes..."
"And you worked at AMC up in the mall but only for a month."
"Yeah, it was junior year around when I was getting my college stuff together."
He asks for the number for Restoration Hardware and how I would describe myself. I try to stall for time and give him the number for the store first.
"Okay, again how would you describe yourself?" I swear he's glaring at me.
"Dilligent, I'm really good with working long stretches of time." I leave off the part about it being on art projects, not retail.
"Well it says here you put noon to close on Sundays? You go to church?" he adds with a hint of derision. I nod, lies lies LIES. He continues, "You do know that people start as early as 9 and that we close at 9:30?"
"Oh...?" I falter. "Well...I just um...put noon...because um...at Restoration Hardware we'd stay there as late as 1 in the morning sometimes so I just figured..."
"Well why don't you REALLY put the hours you can work on here?" He hands me the application again.
I mumble "I guess I'm available open to close..."
"You put full time down? So you're looking for forty hours a week?"
"Yeah something like that."
"Something like that? What, more? Less?"
"Yeah, I mean, more or less forty."
"So basically as much as you can?"
I nod helplessly knowing that if I'm hired I will kick myself for agreeing to that but I just want to get away from this douche ASAP and will say anything.
"So why do you think you'd be a good person to work at North Face?"
"Well, I like hiking, I go with my dad sometimes, I've got a fairly basic knowledge of some of the equipment."
"You hike? When's the last time you hiked?"
"Winter break. We went down to Old Rag" I omit the "three years ago" part.
"So what sort of equipment are you familiar with?"
"Well I've got a pair of hiking boots."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
I panic, I dont know if he wants the brand of the boots, theyre still in the box they came in so I tell one of the first truths of the interview. "Actually I haven't really used them much...Umm..."
"Well aside from these boots that you" he pauses and smirks "own...have you ever been to this store?"
"I've browsed a few times, my dad has bought a couple fleece jackets from here."
"And what do you know about the brand?"
"Well it's um, outdoors stuff obviously, and it's fairly upscale...and..." seriously, what the fuck does he want me to say? He sits and waits for some grand thesis statement when really, what the fuck can you really say about a store that sells fleece jackets to overprivlieged white girls?
"So why did you come to this store looking for a job? What made this store stand out? We're not the only ones hiring."
"Like I said, I like the outdoors, and I dunno, I thought it would be a good fit for me."
"But what about the store made you think that?"
"I dunno..." I say all the while thinking "I ALREADY TOLD YOU YOU SMIRKING COCK JACKASS. I LIKE HIKING, YOU SELL SHIT DESIGNED FOR THE PURPOSE OF HIKING"
"So why didn't you go back to Restoration Hardware?" Seriously is this guy testing me like in the movies where they just keep acting like an asshole as a covert test of moral fiber? Because if so he is out of luck, I have no backbone whatsoever.
"I dunno, the people were um...pushy?"
"Pushy? What makes you think that's any different here?"
"I guess it seems like the type of people who shop here would seem less stressed about things?"
"Less stressed? Like how? It's the same mall. The same people shop here."
"Yeah," I say, starting to let my annoyance show, "but I don't think your target customer is the same type of person to drop fifty bucks on outlet plates."
"Why not?"
"Because, I just. do. not. think. so." Because I like to think that hikers are go with the flow types even though I know in the back of my head that most people who shop here are douche straws more concerned with how good their shit looks than actually enjoying hiking. Because I want to believe that the people that shop here could not possibly be as anal as the majority of customers at Restoration Hardware who were prone to bitching at me because we only had Chocolate colored towels and not Expresso. Because you sir, are a giant penist face and I won't try to backtrack my answer.
At this point he keeps talking and looks over my application one more time and I just want to get up and yell "FORGET IT FUCK YOU"
"Any questions for us?" he asks looking at Jack/Jake and then resuming his unwavering stare back at my eyes as if they'll divulge the real truth about me and how I would fit in with his horrible fucking retail family.
I think of asking when I'd hear back from them, but considering I'd just been through the smuggest interrogation of my life, I decide not to be presumptuous. So i just say "No."
"No?"
"No."
"Well, all right." he shoots a look at Jack/Jake and gets up and shakes my hand again. He's much shorter than I thought, probably 5'5 and I note with a hint of victory that he's wearing cargo shorts.
Jack/Jake opens the door and says "Thanks for coming." I mumble and walk out.
I think about ripping down the help wanted sign out front of the store but don't when I realize the cashier lady is staring at me.
Fuck jobs. I need to go back to Club OTB and make sure that they still know they hired me. At this rate I'm totally cool with being a fiery Latina hostess.
ratherbored at 14:41