my forehead in piquant little bangs. Thus attired, my pipe between my teeth, my hair in a state of wondrous disarray, I was ready to suggest to the communications industry that it was in the presence of Genius.
The interviews themselves? Ah, well, all this happened fifteen years ago, and even now, at the oddest moments, taking a shower or patting a stray dog, I will suddenly remember, hardly knowing whether to thunder with laughter or hide my head under a pillow. If I was kept waiting beyond a carefully scrutinized five minutes, there was no interview! Rising from my chair and ambling over to the man ’ s secretary, I would bow ever so slightly, the very image of genteel breeding; then suddenly, bringing myself up to a dictatorially rigid posture, I would proclaim, my tone controlled but testy: “ I ’ m sorry, young lady, but will you tell your employer that Mr. Exley had other commitments and couldn ’ t wait. If he wishes to set up another appointment and begin it at the—ah—designated time ” —I would be looking at my empty wrist as though it contained a hundred-jewel job— ” then he knows where to reach me. ” Clicking my heels slightly and smiling my distant smile, I would depart, saying, “ Adieu , my dear, adieu , ” terribly certain I had rendered the girl sexually tractable. To those luckless men more disposed to life ’ s proprieties, those who began the interview on time, I didn ’ t so much walk as drift—I was absolutely wispy—into their carpeted offices where, into their outstretched and eager glad-hands, I would lay a hand as limp and clammy as a dishrag, quite as though I expected them to kiss it! Then, surveying the room with a distastefully arch expression which found the appointments irreparably vulgar, I would fling myself into a chair, stick my Yello-Bole into my jaw, and to their preliminary and “ ice-breaking ” questions begin issuing a sequence of noises not unlike hog noises.
Their questions ran pretty much to a pattern, and for them I had stock replies. If I was asked if I thought I could sell chocolate bars, I always answered in the most negative of ways, saying, “ I haven ’ t the foggiest idea. ” Then I would smile my smile as though to add, “ But, of course, my dear, you can see that I ’ m a genius; and I ’ m certain we can work out some satisfactory arrangement wherein I will try to sell your imbecilic peanut brittle. ” Only once during these interviews did I rise out of my shrieking indifference; it was to a question which, after a number of interviews, I knew would invariably be asked.
“ Why do you want to work for HKI & W? ”
To this preposterous assumption I would come up icily in my chair, fix the interviewer with a deadly menacing gaze—he might have just swatted me right across the face with his desk lamp—and snap, “ I ’ m not at all sure I want to work for HKI & W. Just suppose you tell me why I should want to work for HKI & W. ”
More often that not, taking the offensive had the desired effect, proving so disarming to the man that he was rendered momentarily dumb. Recovering himself, he would be off on a :itany of reasons why HKI & W and I could make a marriage: paid vacations, hospitalization, good working conditions, annual bonuses; while I, in what must have been an infuriating response, shook my head no , decidedly no , to every inducement save high salary, as though I considered them all totally irrelevant. “ We ’ ll call you, ” they ’ d say, extending their glad-hands. No doubt remembering our opening handshake, they would then red-facedly withdraw these hands. I would smile knowingly, as though I never for a moment doubted that indeed they ’ d call.
Did I really believe I ’ d get a job in this way? It would be easy for me to say that I didn ’ t, that for some perverse reason, masochism or a neurotic need to be rejected—a possibility to which I would later in my life give great weight—I was willfully acting
The interviews themselves? Ah, well, all this happened fifteen years ago, and even now, at the oddest moments, taking a shower or patting a stray dog, I will suddenly remember, hardly knowing whether to thunder with laughter or hide my head under a pillow. If I was kept waiting beyond a carefully scrutinized five minutes, there was no interview! Rising from my chair and ambling over to the man ’ s secretary, I would bow ever so slightly, the very image of genteel breeding; then suddenly, bringing myself up to a dictatorially rigid posture, I would proclaim, my tone controlled but testy: “ I ’ m sorry, young lady, but will you tell your employer that Mr. Exley had other commitments and couldn ’ t wait. If he wishes to set up another appointment and begin it at the—ah—designated time ” —I would be looking at my empty wrist as though it contained a hundred-jewel job— ” then he knows where to reach me. ” Clicking my heels slightly and smiling my distant smile, I would depart, saying, “ Adieu , my dear, adieu , ” terribly certain I had rendered the girl sexually tractable. To those luckless men more disposed to life ’ s proprieties, those who began the interview on time, I didn ’ t so much walk as drift—I was absolutely wispy—into their carpeted offices where, into their outstretched and eager glad-hands, I would lay a hand as limp and clammy as a dishrag, quite as though I expected them to kiss it! Then, surveying the room with a distastefully arch expression which found the appointments irreparably vulgar, I would fling myself into a chair, stick my Yello-Bole into my jaw, and to their preliminary and “ ice-breaking ” questions begin issuing a sequence of noises not unlike hog noises.
Their questions ran pretty much to a pattern, and for them I had stock replies. If I was asked if I thought I could sell chocolate bars, I always answered in the most negative of ways, saying, “ I haven ’ t the foggiest idea. ” Then I would smile my smile as though to add, “ But, of course, my dear, you can see that I ’ m a genius; and I ’ m certain we can work out some satisfactory arrangement wherein I will try to sell your imbecilic peanut brittle. ” Only once during these interviews did I rise out of my shrieking indifference; it was to a question which, after a number of interviews, I knew would invariably be asked.
“ Why do you want to work for HKI & W? ”
To this preposterous assumption I would come up icily in my chair, fix the interviewer with a deadly menacing gaze—he might have just swatted me right across the face with his desk lamp—and snap, “ I ’ m not at all sure I want to work for HKI & W. Just suppose you tell me why I should want to work for HKI & W. ”
More often that not, taking the offensive had the desired effect, proving so disarming to the man that he was rendered momentarily dumb. Recovering himself, he would be off on a :itany of reasons why HKI & W and I could make a marriage: paid vacations, hospitalization, good working conditions, annual bonuses; while I, in what must have been an infuriating response, shook my head no , decidedly no , to every inducement save high salary, as though I considered them all totally irrelevant. “ We ’ ll call you, ” they ’ d say, extending their glad-hands. No doubt remembering our opening handshake, they would then red-facedly withdraw these hands. I would smile knowingly, as though I never for a moment doubted that indeed they ’ d call.
Did I really believe I ’ d get a job in this way? It would be easy for me to say that I didn ’ t, that for some perverse reason, masochism or a neurotic need to be rejected—a possibility to which I would later in my life give great weight—I was willfully acting
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