How to make a complete dog's dinner of a job interview

Lately it struck me that, in these ever-unstable financial times, many people out there may be going through the unavoidably false and grizzly process of job interviews. Provided you actually manage to get that far of course. These days it’s really not as simple as you might think to even get to the interview stage. Butcher, Baker or Candlestick bloody maker, you had better be one hell of an over-qualified neuro-surgeon with an aptitude for the dramatic arts, accountancy skills and a degree in quantum physics if you wish to get anywhere close. Take this impressive Rhodesian Ridgeback dog for example, he has a nationally recognized qualification in childcare. But can he get a job? Can he walkies as like. One little mistake and... well, it's enough to make you sick, it really is.

I was recently asked, whilst applying for some casual work in a bookshop incidentally, whether I had any publishing experience. Publishing experience? What the bloody hell has that got to do with anything? I’ve got an honours degree in English Literature. Will that do? Apparently not it seems.

My resentment was fuelled further by the fact that I was asked this question by a predictably spotty youth whose expression (and livid chin area) I recognized all too well. He was a Eng Lit undergraduate for sure. If I’d looked I would have, without a doubt, found a Norton Anthology behind the counter as well as a well-thumbed, though probably little understood, copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I mean, come on, does anyone REALLY understand that book? Even if you buy all the York notes in the world and quiz every Professor and Don in the country, it’s still an utterly perplexing read. Not so for my spotty friend though, OH NO. His beady bespectacled eyes dared me to take him on with the irritating assurance that only comes with youth and a few lectures on T.S. Eliot. Twat. He was just waiting for me to ask a question about ‘post-modern narrative experimentation’. You could tell.

I may not have indulged him with the latter but I certainly gave him a bloody good stream- of-consciousness rant our Jim J would have been proud of.

Publishing experience to sell a few books in your poxy mass-market shop where the only room for self expression is when you spill your Starbucks coffee on your “Big Massive Popular Books Company” t-shirt and the spill looks like a map of Britain or is that a woman with a hat holding a small child on her knee I don’t think so thanks all the same small children why is that one staring at me shit I have biro on my face again I hate it when that happens shit someone I know has just walked past as my CV is getting binned by an incompetent minor duck good not suspicious how to deal with this little home counties twerp flirt maybe God no awful idea I’ve told you before inner self you are really shit at flirting it just scares people thank you anyway John is it yes incidentally I didn’t want to fucking publish a book just to flog a few of them to passers by and enjoy regular fag breaks and an excuse to get out the house and get cheap paperbacks yes my attitude is quite wrong John sorry you’re right TWAT I shall immediately go home and study some high-brow literary theory it’s probably the very least I need to do to work in your very nice big shiny American shop lady pram stuck embarrassingly in door out drop bag shit catch coat bye bye then yes bye goodbye.

Stick that in your Joycean pipe John you pretentious little tit. I showed him alright. Publishing experience? Fuck off.

Hmm, slightly off topic. Sorry. John obviously got to me more that I thought there. Where were we? The job interview, yes. It’s a tricky one and by no means as easy as you might think. Especially if you take my recent experiences as examples. I thought I’d hit an all-time low when in the middle of a particularly stifled exchange with a creative director, a dog casually sauntered into the room and vomited up half a cheese sandwich and a baby’s finger on the carpet. OK, I’m lying about the finger, but the enormous beast (Rhodesian Ridgeback I believe) had definitely been imbibing something of a cheese-based nature. It didn’t really help to strike the right tone in an already flagging interview and I don’t mind telling you that it put me right off my stride (and my lunch).

Surprisingly this was not to be the worst experience though. Just the other day I was ushered into an interview at an agency. Instead of passing calmly through to a boardroom or office, I stepped neatly from the civilized world of reception into what appeared to be the bowels of hell. At least the bowels of hell if the devil was in advertising (which I suppose he is in a way). People shouting and throwing muffins at each other. Yes, muffins. People huddled over flimsy plastic tables and chairs, trying to plug in computers or make notes on over-sized sketchpads. I’m sure I actually saw someone lying dead under a table, unnoticed by the ad-crazed throng.

“We’re a little hectic at the moment” explained my guide. “Space is at a bit of a premium, as you can see.”

Hmm… space and any EU directive on humane working conditions I thought to myself. Even cattle get more room than this on the way to the abattoir. Fortunately, we stepped out of the mayhem into… a broom cupboard. Oh well, better than out there where there was a very real chance of getting trampled to death or cannibalized I thought.

A very strange Monty Python sketch then ensued as more and more people, a seemingly endless stream, followed us into our cupboard. How many nuns can you fit in a telephone box? Search me. But I do know how many advertising creatives you can fit in a cupboard. The answer is 7. People jossled for position at the light box behind me as I tried to talk with authority about my portfolio. Then…

…the fire alarm went off. I mean, COME ON, you’ve got to be kidding me? Everybody out! So our happy little band all trooped out of the cupboard one by one, much to the amazement of the people still hurling muffins about outside. It was like that magic trick with the handkerchief up the magician’s sleeve where the hanky just keeps on coming.

So, once outside I thought I would take the opportunity to stave off the residual claustrophobia with a little chat. Oh dear. Seeing as the interview already seemed doomed I thought I’d rescue it with a small anecdote of mine. What did I choose? Yes, you guessed it, the dog vomit story. I even included the bit about the baby’s finger. I mean, what in god’s name possessed me????

So, after death by fire was averted, I and my, by now quite mystified, audience troop back into Dante’s Inferno and back into our cupboard. Then (and you couldn’t write this – spot the obvious irony) the fire alarm went off… again.

“Just ignore it this time” shouted one of my interviewers confidently. So, with the constant threat of an untimely, firey end hanging over us, I proceeded to shout through the rest of my presentation. I had of course already lost my audience at the dog vomit stage so it was all rather pointless by that point.

At the door as I was leaving, the head of copy leant into me conspiratorially and asked,

“Was there really a baby’s finger in its vomit?”
“No, no there wasn’t really.”
Look of utter confusion from him. Look of utter disbelief from me.
The sound of me running away as fast as I possibly could.

It was so weird it was positively post-modern.