Help Wanted
By Steve Koppman
He told the receptionist his name and the license number of his once-white ’79 Chevy Nova as the sign in the parking lot demanded. The unfamiliar clothes pressed tightly: charcoal-grey suit cleaned that morning, paisley silk tie, polished black Oxfords. Behind a stately wooden door was a brightly lit men’s room with deep mahogany sinks, a ceiling mirror, and a constant buzz. He smiled, by way of practice, at his reflection behind the sink. Under his open jacket, he saw the white shirt badly wrinkled above the belt. When did that happen? He inhaled deeply and tucked the shirt deeper into his pants, pulling the belt a notch tighter, bunching the pants at the waist. He loosened the belt and the shirt sagged, incurably wrinkled. It wasn’t 1:30 yet and the interview was already compromised.
Otherwise, though, he consoled himself, he didn’t look half bad. He ran warm water over his palms and dried them with paper towels. It was supposed to help. He combed his hair again and swept at the profusion of dandruff on his dark pinstriped shoulders. Back in the lobby, he let himself down into a big green chair that felt like it might actually swallow him. Why hadn’t she told him his shirt was wrinkled? Why hadn’t he seen it? He knew he could never keep up the constant struggle to look right. Couldn’t he do it for just one afternoon, though? Be a grown-up for one day of his life?
He pulled his son’s little old leather-banded watch out of his shirt pocket. Why didn’t they make watches that ticked any more? With hands? It was the nineties now. And, more to the point, 1:28. He’d almost lost track again. He propped himself up with effort from the large chair. Standing again, briefly not remembering why, he felt his suit hanging perfectly upon him as if he were a mannequin, as if he were standing there for the purpose of displaying it. In the distance, inside a squarish white island, the middle-aged black receptionist’s head re-emerged, laughing with plump young white men in blue uniforms.
“I couldn’t believe it, some guy in the doorway,” he heard a guard say as he approached the oasis of desks.
“My brother in Alaska says it’s lots better sleeping out here.”
“For sure.”
“People sleep anywhere. Remember some of ’em huddling over vents in the street back home. Nice and warm.”
He hoped they didn’t see him wince. The receptionist laughed when he asked for Competitive Analysis. They needed numbers. The corporation was much too large and complex for them to know specific departments. She held the handset silently after he gave her Joe’s name and number. “He’ll be down,” she said finally, tilting the handset upward.
He readjusted himself back into the huge chair, and again, worked to find the optimal position in which to appear alert yet relaxed, decisive and imperturbable. He needed to tilt, balance gently forward, ready to move in any direction, be happy, strong, self-starting, action-oriented, for that inevitable definitive moment when Joe, the branch chief’s associate with whom he’d spoken briefly on the phone the week before, should first encounter him. Most hiring decisions, he knew, were made within the first three to five seconds of contact if not sooner. Joe should come quickly, when nothing was obviously awry but a mildly wrinkled shirt, when his mind and body were in near-ideal equilibrium. His challenge, his perhaps insurmountable opportunity, was to stay in balance, present the right picture for as many consecutive moments as turned out to be necessary.
Each time a man entered the lobby through the building’s long corridor, he held his lips in a slightly but not overly self-satisfied smile, orienting forward, widening his eyes and firming his posture. Presenting himself each time, he felt the perverse but passionate hope welling up inside that this was not, in fact, Joe. And, as if heeding his unspoken plea, each new entrant looked beyond him with purpose. Already he felt his endurance waning. He tried to look hopefully but not pleadingly at each new arrival, moving again and again through the cycle of preparation and relaxation.
One passed him by without eye contact but carried a shiny black attaché case to the empty sofa across from him. The man’s face looked unnaturally red under wavy blond hair. He wondered vaguely if the man’s complexion were fashionable or embarrassing and whether it evidenced sunburn or alcoholism. The man wore a greenish-grey suit and carried a new-looking case like everyone in the lobby but himself and the people at the reception desk. The man’s hair was combed back in an irritatingly insouciant wave. Though short, he stood tall and maintained a pugnacious, almost angry expression. The man’s blue eyes refused to engage his own, shifting their gaze toward the distant borders of the great room. His red face maintained an unchanging demeanor for minutes at a time, lips stuck in an uncompromising expression. This fellow knew enough to carry an attaché case even if nothing were in it. His suit was doubtless one of many. He was more than ready to face challenges and explore opportunities, play the game like a chessboard knight with the horse head’s unblinking plastic eyes.
He was suddenly aware it had been a few minutes since he’d been to the reception desk. This was not a place where people hurried, not like the ragged research shops he was used to, always hungry, in a constant storm of frantic activity, perpetually behind by nature, as if pretending to be real businesses. This was, after all, a great corporation, synonymous with the industry in this part of the world, whose tentacles stretched in a veritable stranglehold across the globe. He pulled the little watch out of his shirt pocket again and saw to his surprise that more than fifteen minutes had passed. His eyebrows jerked up as he thought of returning to the reception desk. He didn’t want to draw attention, having learned from hard experience such was almost invariably negative.
This job meant too much to him now, his last chance, he knew, at forty-five, to move from the world where people struggled endlessly to get by to that merciful place he’d known when, out of college, he’d been promising, where the select and hard-working and meritorious were hustled out of crowded desperate channels, brought to higher levels where people walk on padded carpets and receive benefits and say, There but for fortune go I—this was his last chance, he felt sure.
He stood, tottering slightly, grabbing an arm of the plush chair, hoping the red-faced man wasn’t looking. The distance to the reception desk looked greater each time he assayed it. He lifted his head and squared his shoulders, trying to hold himself erect, steady, self-confident and assertive yet humble and agreeable, self-motivated, an organizational entrepreneur, at once a self-starter and team player, in case Joe might at the last moment appear or the reception people or anyone else nearby turn out to influence his fate. You never knew.
“You’re still here,” the woman said softly, raising her eyebrows, apparently surprised, though she had only four visitors to watch in the giant lobby. Presumably, he tried to reassure himself, Joe was very busy, as were they all, no doubt communicating, coordinating, facilitating, understandably not about to alter his schedule, rush down out of order, quicken his meetings or truncate interpersonal interactions for the narrow convenience of others. Could it take this long, though, to get here? He knew the building complex was very large. The woman looked busily down at her desk. Would she call Joe? Had she in fact spoken with Joe in person? She pressed buttons and held out the receiver, explaining that, like last time, she’d reached only Joe’s voice mail. It sounded to her well-trained ears like Joe was on the other line and would probably be off soon. Had Joe really been on the phone twenty minutes while he waited?
His stomach was hot, his heart pounded as he returned again to his chair. But he needed to stay calm at all costs. Joe might well arrive at any moment. He looked toward the man across from him and saw suddenly to his left, as if it had just been placed there, a simple white desk phone sitting serenely on a small circular table. The man seemed to lean slightly toward the phone as if guarding it while gazing off into the distance, jaw protruding, mouth curled, hands resting comfortably on his thighs. This guy seemed born to an attitude he himself had to work desperately to simulate momentarily. Here was someone who could surely move frictionless across shifting hierarchies, putting aside sentiment, relocating without disturbance or despair from one management, one party line, one city to another, as the organization demanded, unworried by family, friends, the atmosphere of the neighborhood he might know, make an acceptable salary and so have two or possibly even three children, even if they did have to change schools every couple of years, and whether or not they eventually came to hate him, which could of course happen to anyone.
He wondered if he should frankly let the receptionist see him on the phone even though she’d said she’d handle calling. He needed to pay more attention to what people said, what they meant, how they felt about him. But then what was the phone there for? He stood up with decision, stepped to the table and quickly pressed the touch-tone buttons. Without a ring, he hit Joe’s voice mail. Joe’s voice said he was not available right now but to leave a message and he would call back just as soon as possible.
Last week they’d been so enthusiastic. We really want to talk to you. You seem well-qualified to meet our needs. It was like he was a long-lost brother. Might he actually have to return home in defeat, having wasted a full day of preparation that in their self-employed poverty they could hardly afford, an acutely painful practice interview with his wife, of all people, a day of getting himself into just the right frame of mind, sleeping late, exercising, ingesting just the right amounts of caffeine at just the right moments to be in just the right physical and mental equilibrium, finding his one old but still serviceable suit in the back of the closet, getting the right white shirt washed, good shoes shined, this out-of-the-way location circled on the map.
He modulated his voice, holding his hand near the mouthpiece, hoping to keep the man from hearing. “I’m waiting in the Main Lobby. It’s almost a half-hour now past our appointment time. I don’t have any other number.”
He needed above all to keep a grip on himself. They were probably testing him. They always were. He might well be failing. He was trying to be a team player, the quiet guy holding his own patiently behind the scenes. But maybe he risked seeming too passive and feckless. The company was growing daily more entrepreneurial, as was the whole country, the world. He took the little watch out again. 2:06. He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. Thirty-six minutes. Hands shaking, heart pounding, fearing he was on the verge of panic, he lifted himself evenly out of the chair. He remembered those emaciated black Somalis he’d seen on the news the night before, skinny fluid hands outstretched, eyeballs bobbing and indistinct, voices low, musical, pathetic, begging food from Western soldiers.
He saw a small white head now behind the reception desk. She was young and fresh-looking with brown eyes, wide face, and a serious expression. A sign behind her said “SERVE THE CUSTOMER” in big block letters. He stood over her and recounted his afternoon’s history. She looked impassive while he spoke, as if receiving a painful but necessary injection. “Are there any other numbers for Competitive Analysis?” he thought to ask.
“I can’t reveal any,” she said. “I would have to be the one to make contact.” While recognizing a potential breakthrough, he worried such a call could be misinterpreted. Receptionists were careless, and hardly there to help him. Joe had three messages already; why did he keep bothering them? But too much time was passing. Turning away from him, she pressed buttons and, before he could again exhale, was speaking in a voice too quiet for him to make out. The red digital numbers on the clock behind her desk said it had been three minutes already. “She’ll be down,” she said finally and looked away. His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
The red-faced man disappeared and reappeared. The man’s hair looked unnaturally blond to him now, almost orange. His suit was a ridiculous green. The man sat like he’d been glued to the sofa, eyes fixed mechanically on some distant point as if something horrible had been done to his brain. But who was he to take satisfaction in this guy’s weaknesses? His own life was a nightmare, and as if waking, he felt again the horror, trapped in this terrible moment in this despicable history, desperately competing, probably with at least twenty-five or fifty other perfectly well-qualified individuals, for a droneship in this machine he detested.
He tried to remember what he could tell his interrogators but his mind was blank. “Waiting long?” he mumbled to the man, who seemed not to hear him. “They keep you waiting,” he murmured. The man seemed to look even further into the distance. “Been here almost an hour,” he added. The man gave no acknowledgment.
A stout woman with short black hair, wearing a flowered dress, approached the reception desk like she belonged there and bent over it, away from the lobby, while she and the receptionist chatted for several minutes. There was, of course, no rush. It was more of the game he must endure. The man across from him was still, peaceful, resigned to the pain, so triumphant over it.
They’d tried to teach him. Go to bed early to get up early. Go to work, then you can spend your money. Do what the boss says so you’ll have a job. When you’re old, you can retire and travel. What do you want to do? his aunts asked whenever they saw him growing up, What do you want to do? Then later, What are you doing? What are you doing? Oh, really, do you like that? He’d won a victory of sorts, he realized, over a lifetime: no one asked any longer.
The large woman propped herself up from the reception desk, still talking, blocking the young one from view. He began walking toward them, trying to catch the receptionist’s eye, stepping silently across the thick carpet and stopping ten feet from the desk. The large woman giggled. He stood a minute more while she continued talking to the receptionist in a low but excited voice, occasionally breaking into a laugh. Then she turned toward him and said: “Mr. Scaduto has to go out of town in ten minutes. Will that be enough for you?”
His hands moved up and outward. His mouth moved before he heard his thin voice. “I’ve been waiting almost an hour.”
“Really?” asked the woman as he moved closer.
“I left three messages,” he said, holding his hands out.
“Really?” she repeated, nodding.
He began explaining his case again from the beginning, how he’d come early, how the receptionist had told him Joe would be coming, how he had waited, she’d called again, he’d called himself; he talked and talked like he couldn’t stop talking, but he didn’t tell her he’d been afraid to make a fuss because he’d made trouble so many times before, been incorrigible, unassimilable, expelled from this womb that meant safety, security, a nice place to live for a family, that this job meant everything to him now, how this was his last, last, last chance. He had only one life, after all, how could they crush him, not even knowing him, how, how, how could they do it, and why? Though he said none of this, he felt himself begging her with his eyes. And through the haze, he saw the hard red-faced man striding with his attaché case toward the reception desk as if about to demand something.
“Really?” the large woman kept saying, looking intently at him, shaking her head. “Really? I’m so sorry. It’s really inexcusable. But I need to know if you’re willing to speak with Mr. Scaduto in the time he now has available.”
“I guess so, I’m here,” he shrugged before returning, shaking, to his chair, heart thumping in his ears.
“Still waiting?” the man, back across from him, seemed to ask in a low voice without turning toward him. He nodded. Maybe the voice had just been inside his own head. He wondered if he might finally actually be hallucinating.
“You too?”
The man spoke again, seemingly without moving his lips. “They’re slower since they laid off ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand?”
“You don’t read the news?”
“Ten thousand?”
“Can’t blame ’em.”
“No?”
“I do what five people did. Seven.” He paused. “Who you waiting for?” the man asked, almost inaudibly.
“Scaduto. Chief of Competitive Analysis.”
“Butcher,” the man replied instantly, looking even further away. “Literally skin you alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“Literally eat you for lunch,” he emphasized, looking suddenly toward but not at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Ninety fucking hours a week,” he hissed, turning away again. “Then out on your ass!”
“You know him?” he asked idiotically.
The man looked contemptuous as he turned his whole body toward the distant windows. “Can’t say,” he held out an open palm, with a voice now barely loud enough to hear. “Proprietary information.” The large woman stood next to them like she’d been there a while.
“Mr. Scaduto happens to still be tied up,” she announced. “To avoid imposing on you further, he’s asked me to start with a few introductory questions.”
He followed her to two chairs at the side of the lobby. “Mr. Scaduto has requested me to speak with all applicants to be sure they’re aware of the requirements of the position,” she said. “The position is an at-will position. The incumbent will serve at the pleasure of the company for the duration of his or her tenure. The position is an exempt position. He or she may make no claim for overtime or other protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The position is a probationary position. The incumbent will be evaluated continuously throughout his or her employment and be subject to immediate dismissal in the event of unexceptional performance review. The position is a temporary position. It may terminate at any time and the incumbent will receive no notice prior to termination. Do any of these considerations affect your interest in the position in any way?”
“Ah—no.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” she pressed.
“Yes—yes—yes.”
“Why do you want to work for us?” she asked, opening her notebook.
“Ah—well—ah—that’s a large question.”
“You’ve been self-employed a long time,” she said dubiously.
They’d asked him in, after all. They said he could meet their needs. He was prepared for a serious but basically cordial conversation, building in stages, in an office, with someone who’d already said he was interested. He could barely think now, sitting in the open lobby with this acerbic secretary.
“It’s a good company. A great company. I’ve been studying it for many years. Yours, I mean. It’s here—in my field—” She took notes rapidly. He thought maybe he should slow down to give her time. His mind was blank anyway.
“Which field?” she asked.
“Which field?” he replied, unbelieving. “Yours. You’ve seen my resume?”
“I’m just asking a few questions to help Mr. Scaduto understand where you’re coming from,” she said with impatience.
“Industry research.” She nodded. “Analysis. I’m very happy being self-employed,” he went on, inhaling deeply, “but I’ve increasingly gotten the sense of the value there could be in joining together with a good company, a great company like yours, if a good opportunity were to come up. Kind of,” and he felt himself shudder, “a ‘win-win.’ ”
“What do you want to be doing—say, in five years?” she asked, still looking down.
“Working here.” She looked up and smiled knowingly.
“Can you say more about that?”
“Well, in this industry, I think at this time in the evolution of the industry, this is just the best place to be—at this time. For someone like me—who’s so focused on that industry. It’s kind of a unique opportunity—” he rambled.
“Can you tell me anything more about yourself—in brief?”
“Well, I tried to give a sense of my—ah, qualifications—in the package I sent you, my resume, samples, list of publications. I’m a good analyst. I’ve worked for Dataquest for years. I understand the industry well. You’ve seen my resume? Examples of my work?”
She nodded. “Well, thank you so much. I think we have a much better sense of the situation now.”
He returned to his chair. The red-faced man was gone. Suited figures passed near him as they traveled through the lobby. He thought of years inside these brightly lit corridors stretching endlessly ahead. The choices were terrible and worse, the only question being which was which. Could he put the corporate face on day after day after day like this just-cleaned suit? Who was he kidding? If he knew they’d let him in, maybe he could see more clearly what he should do. It would be good not to lie awake over the rent, his wife leaving, his last life slipping away while he dithered. But was this really his only choice? The question suddenly tortured him. Could he build up his own business, learn more about the industry, devote himself more than he ever really had, work seventy, eighty hours a week if need be, whatever it took, so he could make a life outside this prison? And why was he only thinking this seriously now? Had he really tried like others had, single-mindedly, putting all else aside, fighting for his life and his future, their future, focusing for once on what he must do? Should he stay for the ridiculous denouement or walk out now with pride? A thin young blond girl passed the reception desk. She looked about fourteen. Probably she was somebody’s daughter; he gazed at her as she marched across the giant room before stopping strangely before him.
“I just wanted to let you know so you won’t be surprised,” she began in a quiet voice. “Mr. Scaduto has been forced to leave for San Francisco International Airport. He has to be on a plane to Los Angeles and he wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised?” he repeated. “W—was he kidnapped?” he stammered.
“Excuse me?”
“He was forced to leave. Hijacked?”
“I’m sorry?”
“He was forced onto a plane?”
“Oh, no, I just meant he was compelled to attend a critical business meeting.”
“Something sudden?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Scheduled at the last minute?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I had an appointment with him. I’ve been waiting more than an hour.”
“He wants you to know he’s very very sorry. But Mr. Scaduto runs on a very tight schedule. Would you care to schedule another appointment for a mutually convenient time?”
“I’ve been waiting here for an hour!” His hands moved in front of him as if detached from his control. He tried to speak but no more came out. This couldn’t be happening. It never ended. There was always worse. And he was never ready. He knew he must look to her like some sort of maniac.
“I’d be happy to schedule another appointment for you at a mutually convenient time, if you’d be willing to come visit us again?” she repeated, raising her blond eyebrows hopefully.
He shook his head and shrugged. “Okay,” he managed. She smiled and nodded and walked away.
So they still wanted him to come back. That was something Scaduto still considered worth doing, after all. The job was still, at least, a possibility. Nothing had, after all, changed. But how could they operate like this? And it wasn’t like it would be over after this interview. This was the price not of admission but just consideration. What kind of life could he have here? How could he learn to take it all the time? He clearly didn’t belong. What would he say to them all day? So there was a bright side as he contemplated three, maybe four more decades, struggling futilely to get by; it made a dismal kind of sense, this couldn’t be for everyone. He didn’t know, never learned how to prevaricate smoothly, seamlessly through the day so everyone could pretend he was happy to be there, he just wanted the money, the safety, but didn’t know how to ride the horse to get there again and again and again long hours every day. But then again, he thought, could he only feel even this level of detachment because the possibility was still alive? If it were just a matter of coming back one more day he still really did have to try, didn’t he? He’d come one day, why not another, after all. If it were worth it today, wouldn’t it be worth it another day? He felt ready once again now, filled despite himself with a rush of energy and something like hope, as ready as he’d been all day, maybe as he’d ever been. He saw the red-faced man passing through the lobby now from the elevator with his attaché case, a slight smile on his face for the first time, proceeding steadily without turning toward him as he headed for the distant exit. And as he saw the blond girl walking toward him again, he hoped beyond hoping it could be all right, longed beyond longing to be waiting for Scaduto, just like before, anxious but buoyed by the chance for a new future, distant and horrific and impossible though it might be.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, almost warmly. “I may have misspoken. There may have unfortunately been some kind of miscommunication. I’m afraid that actually, in fact, the position for which you had applied has, in fact, apparently already been filled.”
She was smiling like he should be relieved. Things, after all, were finally straightened out after all this confusion. The features on his face struggled to find expression. Maybe he could go back to grad school. Maybe he could win the lottery. Maybe he could move back, with or without wife and offspring, into his parents’ apartment. Maybe he could finally devote himself to literature or the future of children or world revolution. Maybe he could turn into a grasshopper.
“Would you care for us to hold on to your resume,” the blond girl was asking, “in case another appropriate opening should develop?”
He looked at her and then away, shaking his head involuntarily. The silence between them grew and grew. He looked briefly again into her eyes.
“Please,” he said, so low she could barely hear him next to her. “Why not?”