Chapter 1 of Comfortably Awkward

Chapter One

A Bright Future

           

As I stood up from his fancy leather chair, I knew that I had become one of them. I knew that I had gotten the job when Mr. McMillen firmly shook my hand and smiled at me as if to say, “Welcome to Hell!” His red hair and devilish smile made me think of Satan. But he wasn’t the Devil. He was the CEO of McMillen Brokerage, a multi-million dollar brokerage firm. I would probably be better off if he actually was the Devil because the Devil was probably a lot easier to talk to than this phony.

            I could see right through McMillen’s twenty-five hundred dollar suit that he wore so flauntingly. I’m sure he had dreams when he was a kid so I wondered how he became a greedy stockbroker. And now, this fifty-something year old dictator is about to be my new boss. For the rest of my life, I will have to kiss this guy’s ass just to survive and then after he retires, there will be another robot taking his place.

            As soon as I walk out of here, I’ll have to start acting, thinking and speaking like one of them. Instead of watching football on Sundays, I will be analyzing financial statements. I’ll be seeing numbers, numbers, and more numbers. The refreshing smell of a barbeque on a boiling hot July afternoon will be nothing short of a fantasy. I’m officially a robot, just like the rest of them.

            It took two long interviews to land me a third and final one. McMillen asked me all kinds of absurd questions that I expected, but was still annoyed to hear.

            “Where do you want to be in five years?”

            “Why do you want to work here at McMillen Brokerage?”

            “Have you ever been fired from a job?”

            I never knew how to answer these kinds of questions. Am I supposed to be honest or am I supposed to tell him what he wants to hear? Either way, I would be lying. I don’t know where I will be in five years. The only reason I would want to work there is to make money. Isn’t that obvious? Does he really think I want to be a stockbroker for the pleasure of helping people? And even if I was fired from a previous job, I sure as hell won’t be telling the guy interviewing me.

            These CEOs act like they’re doing you a huge favor. They make you think that it is a privilege to just be in their presence, let alone work for them. And if you are lucky enough to make it through these interviews, they will bless you with an entry-level position. Of course you will start at $35,000 a year, which is peanuts nowadays and since no one is hiring, they make you think that you’re way ahead of the game. But houses and cars still cost the same as they did before the economy crashed and any kind of living requirements or luxury goods are constantly increasing in price.

            Every interview I’ve ever been on has been the most stressful and most meaningless ten minutes of my life. You sit there and you have to make sure everything is absolutely perfect. The knot in your tie has to be tight enough to display maturity, but if it’s too tight the interviewer sees it as weakness because he knows that you were worrying about tying it. If your back isn’t sitting up straight at a perfect one hundred-eighty degree angle, the interviewer will think you have confidence problems because you slouch. And don’t even think about being honest because companies don’t want honest people; they want people who will lie and cheat in order to further advance the company. Interviews are a joke and I despised every second I spent in an office sitting across a desk while being interviewed.

            I guess I should feel extremely lucky to get a job within a year of graduating college. I’ll have my $35,000 a year and I’ll get to spend the next forty years in a cubicle looking at a computer screen from eight in the morning till seven at night. I will get to interact with all types of people on the phone and in person and I’ll have to act like trading stocks has been my life-long dream. And if I’m lucky, Mr. McMillen may give me a raise somewhere down the road. It will take a lot of hard work, but someday, I may be in Mr. McMillen’s position. I could only be so fortunate. I think back to what he told me just a few moments ago.