Adult, Content. Number 3: Job
I decided it was time I got a job. It was either that or a parking fine, and I decided one paid better than the other, so I drove off and headed for the job centre. I was a little off-target and ended up at the job right. Fortunately, I didn't go to the job left. I wasn't even sure if there was a job left. I guessed I'd have a better idea when I checked at the job centre.
I waited in the queue at the job centre for my turn, so to pass the time I watched the decorator who was painting one of the walls. After a few minutes, he stopped working and waited for the coat of paint to dry, so I watched that. It wasn't that bad. I turned to look at the other side of the room, where I watched a kettle boil from start to finish.
Eventually it was my turn to speak to the job advisor, so she led me inside to a boxfile on the third shelf and told me to have a seat. There was paperwork everywhere. She asked me if I thought there was a draft in here, so I told here I thought so but I wasn't about to search for it. She began by taking my name and address: I demanded that she give them back immediately. It's bad enough not having a job, without not having an identity as well.
Then she asked me what skills I had. I said I could type in shorthand. She asked me how fast. I said one hundred words a minute so she asked me to prove it by copying out a page of text she had on her desk. After a couple of minutes, I had typed thirty-nine words. I told her I could type at one hundred words per minute, but I could only read at about twelve. The explanation took a quarter of an hour, because I could only speak at four words a minute. Thankfully, that's how fast she could listen. She said that if that was the case I should just type something from my head. After one minute, I had typed two words, because I couldn't remember how to spell the second one.
She asked me if I had any other talents. I said that my face was instantly recognisable. She smiled and said that she thought she had seen my face before when I came in. I said I thought the same thing this morning in the bathroom, but I just couldn't remember where. She said in that case, she had the perfect job for me, and handed me a card. It was a Hallmark card congratulating me on getting a new job. The job description said Professional Scapegoat. I thanked her and left the way I came in: with a slight limp and humming the tune to "Goldfinger".
The office of my new employer was at the end of a cul-de-sac. I became worried immediately I was in a dead-end job. I was directed up the stairs by a hat stand, which was pointing that way, and found the boss's office. He was expecting me, standing behind the door with a penny whistle, which I got a blast of as I entered. It deafened me in one ear and blinded me in the other. The whistle, he explained, was blown at the start and end of the shift. I asked how people knew which one was which. He said that was a good point and made a note of it on his tambourine.
The job, he started to explain, required me to be on hand to take the blame. I asked what sort of blame. He replied that we mainly dealt with human blame, occasionally animal blame, and where it was needed electrical, adhesive or pudding blame. I received pay bonuses for meeting my blame target, and a special hair bobble. Apart from a secretary, a work experience boy and the five piece jazz band that played by the photocopier, I would be working alone. I etched all of this information into the table with a Swiss army knife, folded it up and put it in my pocket. Then I was directed to my office with an appropriate hatstand.
The office was just slightly narrower than the door, which was fine because so was I. I was just working out the microwave when a lady entered the room from above. She said she had the office next to me, vertically, and that we would be sharing a ceiling. I said that surely my ceiling was her floor. She said that's not the way she looked at it, so I tried to look at it in a different way and pulled my shoulder. That didn't help so I pushed my shoulder. My shoulder didn't like that and shrugged me off.
I asked her what sort of thing's she had taken the blame for. She said she had just finished taking the blame for a man who had sellotaped together an entire playground of children and mailed to Aberdeen. She worked with another man who took responsibility for the Post Office clerk who had weighed the package and put a stamp on it. Before that, she had accepted full responsibility for the M25 between junctions 12 and 23. She said it was important to accept blame early in this job to get noticed. Mostly, she accepted blame before ten o'clock, but some people got up at five just admit fault.
The lady walked out of the room and stood in the corridor for ten minutes before she returned to say she had be told to tell me that everyone was to meet by the jazz band for a team talk. I followed the lady out of the room, only I went through the side door, and she went back through the top one. The jazz band was tuning up as I sat down on the trumpet player by mistake while she sat down on the drummer on purpose and played a solo with him because she had left her sticks at the drycleaners.
The team leader went through the messages, with his finger when he poked them too hard, then said he had two announcements. The first concerned the delayed 14.12 service from Birmingham New Street to Reading, but the second was much more serious, and he dropped the ridiculous pose, from a height of about three feet. Someone had filled the water cooler with peas, and he wanted to know who had done it. Sensing that keeping quiet would not be a good start in this job, I stood forward and declared proudly that it was me, on a scrap on paper I handed to him.
Afterwards, when I was packing up my things the lady came in. She asked if she could have her ceiling back, now I was leaving. I said that that was fine. I then asked her if she could give the jazz band their trumpeter back for me, who I had accidentally picked up with my coat. As I left I saw I'd left my car double parked, and I had got a parking fine. Actually I got two: one for each parking. I drove away in the direction of the hatstand.
I waited in the queue at the job centre for my turn, so to pass the time I watched the decorator who was painting one of the walls. After a few minutes, he stopped working and waited for the coat of paint to dry, so I watched that. It wasn't that bad. I turned to look at the other side of the room, where I watched a kettle boil from start to finish.
Eventually it was my turn to speak to the job advisor, so she led me inside to a boxfile on the third shelf and told me to have a seat. There was paperwork everywhere. She asked me if I thought there was a draft in here, so I told here I thought so but I wasn't about to search for it. She began by taking my name and address: I demanded that she give them back immediately. It's bad enough not having a job, without not having an identity as well.
Then she asked me what skills I had. I said I could type in shorthand. She asked me how fast. I said one hundred words a minute so she asked me to prove it by copying out a page of text she had on her desk. After a couple of minutes, I had typed thirty-nine words. I told her I could type at one hundred words per minute, but I could only read at about twelve. The explanation took a quarter of an hour, because I could only speak at four words a minute. Thankfully, that's how fast she could listen. She said that if that was the case I should just type something from my head. After one minute, I had typed two words, because I couldn't remember how to spell the second one.
She asked me if I had any other talents. I said that my face was instantly recognisable. She smiled and said that she thought she had seen my face before when I came in. I said I thought the same thing this morning in the bathroom, but I just couldn't remember where. She said in that case, she had the perfect job for me, and handed me a card. It was a Hallmark card congratulating me on getting a new job. The job description said Professional Scapegoat. I thanked her and left the way I came in: with a slight limp and humming the tune to "Goldfinger".
The office of my new employer was at the end of a cul-de-sac. I became worried immediately I was in a dead-end job. I was directed up the stairs by a hat stand, which was pointing that way, and found the boss's office. He was expecting me, standing behind the door with a penny whistle, which I got a blast of as I entered. It deafened me in one ear and blinded me in the other. The whistle, he explained, was blown at the start and end of the shift. I asked how people knew which one was which. He said that was a good point and made a note of it on his tambourine.
The job, he started to explain, required me to be on hand to take the blame. I asked what sort of blame. He replied that we mainly dealt with human blame, occasionally animal blame, and where it was needed electrical, adhesive or pudding blame. I received pay bonuses for meeting my blame target, and a special hair bobble. Apart from a secretary, a work experience boy and the five piece jazz band that played by the photocopier, I would be working alone. I etched all of this information into the table with a Swiss army knife, folded it up and put it in my pocket. Then I was directed to my office with an appropriate hatstand.
The office was just slightly narrower than the door, which was fine because so was I. I was just working out the microwave when a lady entered the room from above. She said she had the office next to me, vertically, and that we would be sharing a ceiling. I said that surely my ceiling was her floor. She said that's not the way she looked at it, so I tried to look at it in a different way and pulled my shoulder. That didn't help so I pushed my shoulder. My shoulder didn't like that and shrugged me off.
I asked her what sort of thing's she had taken the blame for. She said she had just finished taking the blame for a man who had sellotaped together an entire playground of children and mailed to Aberdeen. She worked with another man who took responsibility for the Post Office clerk who had weighed the package and put a stamp on it. Before that, she had accepted full responsibility for the M25 between junctions 12 and 23. She said it was important to accept blame early in this job to get noticed. Mostly, she accepted blame before ten o'clock, but some people got up at five just admit fault.
The lady walked out of the room and stood in the corridor for ten minutes before she returned to say she had be told to tell me that everyone was to meet by the jazz band for a team talk. I followed the lady out of the room, only I went through the side door, and she went back through the top one. The jazz band was tuning up as I sat down on the trumpet player by mistake while she sat down on the drummer on purpose and played a solo with him because she had left her sticks at the drycleaners.
The team leader went through the messages, with his finger when he poked them too hard, then said he had two announcements. The first concerned the delayed 14.12 service from Birmingham New Street to Reading, but the second was much more serious, and he dropped the ridiculous pose, from a height of about three feet. Someone had filled the water cooler with peas, and he wanted to know who had done it. Sensing that keeping quiet would not be a good start in this job, I stood forward and declared proudly that it was me, on a scrap on paper I handed to him.
Afterwards, when I was packing up my things the lady came in. She asked if she could have her ceiling back, now I was leaving. I said that that was fine. I then asked her if she could give the jazz band their trumpeter back for me, who I had accidentally picked up with my coat. As I left I saw I'd left my car double parked, and I had got a parking fine. Actually I got two: one for each parking. I drove away in the direction of the hatstand.
