Caring Sharing Co-op

It was an awfully long hour between getting back from my school run and the funeral people calling me for my interview.

I kept myself busy doing all the things that the internet suggested like getting a drink of water and eating breakfast first so as not to feel hungry, and going for a wee so as not to feel like a long car journey, and then I ran out of useful things to do so I sat for ages fidgeting and reading stuff online about people who arrange funerals and trying to imagine what they might sound like on the phone in order that I could manage to do a decent impersonation of one.

When the phone actually rang it didn’t at all matter what a person who arranged funerals might sound like, because the chap doing the call had never been anywhere near a funeral director. He was from the company’s HR department and didn’t seem very interested in making conversation. His job, he explained, was to ask me a list of set questions, none of which he could clarify or interpret or elaborate on, because he was only there to read the questions and then write down my answers.

This wasn’t especially inspiring, since I had loads of questions of my own, partly because I had completely forgotten that I had ever applied for the job in the first place and couldn’t actually remember exactly what it was. Anyway, he couldn’t answer any of them, so in that sense no matter how badly I did at being asked questions over the phone, he was notably worse.

He didn’t know how many people worked there, or if the job was due to expansion or somebody leaving, or what qualities they were looking for, or what I might do in the course of an average day, or even what hours were involved. I certainly wouldn’t have given him a job.

After that I got off on the wrong foot anyway, because the first question he asked me was: “What do you like doing in your spare time?” and I was so surprised that I had to bite back the shocked answer: “Actually I really don’t think that it’s any of your bloody business, it’s a job, not a date,” because it seemed such an intrusive personal thing to ask, and in any case I can’t see that a liking for gardening might make me any more suitable than something such as a preference for Formula One racing or collecting erotic art or doing amateur self-tattooing.

I was so surprised I can’t remember what I said, probably that I like to read library books. Certainly it was much later in the day before it occurred to me that I might have said: “Writing an online diary,” which I didn’t think to mention at all: but I was so put out by the question anyway that it’s a good job I didn’t just say: “Sex” and leave him to work that one out.

It didn’t get any better. I was cross with him then, and it turned out that the rest of the questions were so mind bogglingly rubbish that it just got worse. After a few minutes he asked me if I minded people getting upset in front of me, and I snapped “If I did, then I wouldn’t be applying for a job in a funeral parlour, would I?” The question “How do you feel about doing accurate work?” was so ridiculous that I could barely answer at all. Does anybody ever say: “Oh, I don’t give a shit about accurate work,” I wonder?

When he had said a polite version of: “Yes, well, don’t call us,” and hung up I went and crawled back into bed where Mark was sleeping off the nightclub shift, for a reassuring cuddle, and he told me that it was all ridiculous rubbish and I felt better. The phone rang again then, and it was for him, somebody wanting him to go and work for them, and I listened sadly to him talking with fluid lucidity about electrical diagrams and compressed air and pumps and hydraulic things, and then laugh and share a joke with the person on the other end of the phone, and I felt unemployable all over again.

The more I thought about it during the day the more I felt cross instead of sad. They had disturbed my equilibrium, my contented, balanced life, with a lot of anxiety, and then hadn’t even had the courtesy to give me a proper interview, a proper talk to somebody who knew and understood the job, who was involved and interested and genuinely wanted to get to know who I was and what I had to offer.

After thinking that for a while, the more I thought that I didn’t mind not getting a job with them really.

I am back on the taxi rank now, and I have got a suspicion that I am likely to stay here.

I don’t mind at all. It’s a splendid view.