The Job

“When you go to take your lunch, you’ll do it in that room, there. The code is the same one I gave you earlier—it works for all of the locked doors on this floor.” The woman talked down to her clipboard as if that was who she was giving the tour to.

                The girl smiled and nodded. Did she write down the code she was given earlier? Why didn’t she remember being given a code? She scanned her memory while trying to keep up with the woman.

                “This will be your desk.” She motioned to a small table that was one of many, all in arms reach of each other.

                “Oh…” She said hesitantly.

                “Yeah, not a lot of privacy, here. At least you’re in good company. Careful what you search for online.” The woman looked up and—for the first time—made eye-contact with her. She even attempted a wink, and it made the girl blush.         

                The girl smiled and nodded as her way of saying that she appreciated the warning.

                The woman started to walk back in the direction they had come from, but then turned around to face the girl again before she was completely out of ear-shot. She mouthed something slowly and carefully. While it was hard to make out at first, it looked like she said, “YES.”

The woman was nodding her head slowly but expressively. It was as if she was speaking to a child. She stared at the girl with raised eyebrows and wide eyes for a few seconds before dropping her head once more and walking away.

                That was weird, the girl thought.

                She set her bag on the small table and plopped herself into the child-sized chair. She had never had a job like this one. Administrative assistant. What did that even mean? She had yet to meet an administrator. She didn’t have any of the qualifications she thought one would need for an administrative job. She couldn’t believe it when she got the call for the interview.

                The interview process was definitely…unconventional. They asked her questions like:

                “How would you handle a competitive work environment?”

                She said she would compete. She was always a competitor. She liked a challenge.

                They asked her how far she was willing to go to get the job, or, really, any job.

                She said she’d do anything for it. Most of the questions really had more to do with her desire to work than whatever qualities she possessed that would come in handy in the event that she got the job. While it struck her as odd, she would have answered any question to get a job paying what this one was.

They asked her if she would do exactly what the boss asked of her, and she said yes. She knew there could be inappropriate implications in that question. She might end up giving some male higher-up a back massage or something. She didn’t care. She needed this job. This job for her was life or death, and if life meant wearing low-cut blouses and limiting her boundaries for a year or two, she was in for it. She just needed something to get back on her feet, and with what they were paying her, she’d be practically flying in just a few months.

                She was only just getting uncomfortable in her two sizes too small, plastic chair when a man came up to her desk and asked her if she’d fax some papers for him.

                “Of course.” She said with little confidence as she scanned the room for a fax machine. Was she shown a fax machine earlier? She couldn’t remember in the haze of being led through so many different departments. Come to think of it, she wasn’t shown any rooms with things like printers, scanners, or supplies. What was she even shown? Stage freight forgetfulness was not her friend.

                “Yes.” The person said to her forcefully, almost as a command.

                She stared at him, lost in her own thoughts before replying,

“Yes?”

                “Yes.” He said again, only this time, he said it as a way of telling her she was correct. He smiled, dropped the papers on her desk, and walked off.

                She stared at the back of the man’s balding head for many moments before looking down at the bundle of papers that he had dropped onto her desk. She cradled them in her arms and headed over to one of the many small desks near her own.

                There was a young, petite woman with bright blue hair sitting at this particular one. Maybe it was wrong to feel this way, but the girl assumed that bright hair must mean that this woman would be open to talking to strangers. Why are those two things correlated? The girl didn’t know, nor did she have time right now to dive into the psychology behind that one.

                “Hey, um, I’m so sorry to interrupt you. Today is my first day, and I was just asked to fax something. Where is the fax machine?”

                The blue-haired woman lifted her head up and began to laugh.

                The girl began to blush, again, as she shuffled once more through the memories of the rooms she had been shown earlier. Was the location of this machine so obvious that it was funny that she would need to ask?

                “Do you know where the fax machine is?” The blue-haired woman asked back.

                “Um, no, that’s why I came to ask you about…” Before she could finish speaking, a piercing alarm began blaring through the speakers above their heads. She looked up in the assumption that she would see smoke or other heads—just like hers—looking around the room for answers. Instead, she found that she was the only one who seemed alarmed.

                While scanning the room, she noticed that the other cookie-cutter desks were all filled with only young, small, attractive women. She didn’t see a man in sight.

She was relatively small, herself. She was 23. No woman here appeared to be over 25, and some even appeared to be as young as teenagers. This didn’t shock her as much as it should have. She had worked for sketchy, older men before. She knew what qualifications really got you hired in jobs where you’re basically desk art. Although, now the whole, crazy interviewing process make way more sense.

                The alarm stopped after about 30 seconds.

                “What was that?” She asked the blue-haired girl.

                “You don’t know what that was?” She asked back with a sly smile.

                “Um, n…”

                “Number 34, to my office, now.” A voice said from over the intercom.

                Who is number 34? She thought. Do they have numbers? She looked back at the blue-haired woman who was smiling quietly to herself. She wasn’t actually doing anything. She had papers on her desk, but as the girl got a closer look at them, she realized that they were filled with lines of jumbled letters.

                She turned away and began walking back over to her desk. For the first time, she flipped open the first page of the papers she was holding. Again, just letters. Lines of random letters. What the fuck is happening? She thought. Is this company dealing in something so cryptic, they have to communicate in code?

                When she got to her desk, the intercom clicked on once more with the command for number 34 to make their way to the main office.

                She sat down and laid all of the gibberish papers out in front of her. That is when she noticed a number etched into the top left corner of her desk. It said, “#34”. Her head shot up so quickly, she gave herself a neck spasm.

                She collected the non-sense papers and sprinted over to the room she did remember being shown. She opened the door and stepped inside.

                “You don’t need to sit down for this.”

                The man from earlier was sitting in a chair fit for a king. It had a back that reached feet above his own head toward the ceiling. The arm rests were so round and wide that looking at them from the front was like looking at that face of two large cinnamon rolls as the upholstery swirled inward toward the middle.  

                “I like you. I can tell that you will fit in very well, here. You’re the type I could listen to all day. So, let me make this very clear, I will give you one more try. Say it again, and you are done. Do you hear me?”

               Say what again? She thought for a moment before responding.

She took a moment to glance around the room. On one wall, she noticed pictures of young women smiling. 40, to be exact. “Top 40” The wall read.

                She noticed her own picture in the #37 spot. Wow. She already made top 40 and she didn’t even know where the fax machine was? It made her feel extra bad for whoever was in the 38-40 spot.

                As she continued to scan the walls, she noticed that the wall across from the top 40 was…

                Oh, fuck.

                She saw…faces? Women’s faces? It was as if actual faces, skin and all had been removed and slapped onto the wall. Skin, lips, hair, holes where eye-balls used to be. Faces… They couldn’t be real, though, right? These faces also had numbers. They were random and came with years. They said things like, “#17, 2014” and “#23, 2012”.

                They also all had speech bubbles cut out of post-it-notes taped childishly to the corners of their mouths. Every one of the women was being made to say only one word. As she looked closer, she suddenly realized what that blue-haired girl was trying to do when they had spoken earlier.

                “Yes.” She said with a smile.

                “Good.” He smiled back. “Now go file these documents in order.”

                “Yes.” She said, and she walked out.

Bring it on. She thought. Bring it on.