The Hick and I Part One: Hubristic Folly

I went to college.

This isn't the first thought I had as I climbed into the front seat of a Asian Johnny Cash's Ford Mustang. No, the first thought was a folksy bit of wisdom I once had the pleasure of hearing a friend's grandfather uttering: "Like tryin' to fit five pounds of shit into a three pound bucket."

Five pounds of shit. Three pound bucket. In a way nothing seems more quintessentially American than this statement. For starters, it's impossible, obviously. But, why should that stop anyone? After all, this is America, the land where impossible things are possible: revolutions, civil wars, free speech, individual liberties, and the turducken. Pound that shit in, I say, we can make it work.

Except in this instance. Ford Mustangs, and really all sports cars in general, were not designed for people of my girth, to be politically correct. To be politically incorrect: my fat-ass (the proverbial "shit") will not conform to the interior of a car made for skinny people (the proverbial "bucket") who always, seemingly, are on their way to the beach or some other such place where abs glisten like the diamonds of King Solomon's mines and the bodies are rivaled only by the extra's casting department of The O.C.

So, no, I went to college was not my first thought. It did, however, become the dominant thought throughout the day. A day that started so well and quickly revealed itself to be a harsh reminder of what having a degree in a liberal art gets you.

THE BEGINNING (Or: How I Learned To Start Worrying and Hate Alarm Clocks More So Than I Already Do)

It was Monday, November 2nd, 6:14 a.m. and I was having a grand ol' time, not harming anybody, galloping through fields of barley somewhere in the Midwest atop the back of some kind of woolly mammoth/rhino/gorilla hybrid with wings. I was just about to best Joe Lieberman in a joust over universal health care and the right to take Christina Hendricks' hand in marriage when all of a sudden, from the northern sky, came the shrieking portal of Sony, beckoning me back to the land of the waking. I said "Adios" to Joe and shrugged to Christina and the mammorhinrilla took off and the day began.

6:15 and I was already grumpy.

But that isn't unusual for me: I'm not a morning person. Then again I'm not an afternoon person. Or even a night person. By and large, I'm not a person who should ever be woken, for anything, ever. Just let me sleep. I am happy there.

The kicker of it though was the fact that I couldn't even indulge my grumpiness. I had to be upbeat, and happy, and determined, and full of positive self-affirmations. In other words: I had to be an entirely different person.

Why? Because on that Monday I had a job interview. But it wasn't some bullshit "first interview" waste of time. No. This, ladies and gents, was a call-back interview. That's right. No more of any dinky, bring-a-copy-of-the-resume-that-you-already-emailed-but-we-won't-bother-to-print-out-because-we're-just-that-awesome, check-in-with-the-receptionist-who-has -you-penciled-in-as-"Roy," sweat-bullets-for-25-minutes-even-though-you-were-there-on-time, first interview shenanigans. Clearly, I had impressed the good people at The Company (I'm going to try and refrain from mentioning any real names, but if you ask me in person I will gladly tell you) to be invited back for a second interview.

The thought did occur to me, as I pulled onto the parking lot known as the southbound 5 freeway at rush hour, that I didn't really say much of anything during the first interview, mainly because it lasted all of five minutes.

The first interview had taken place a week previous. Here's what happened there: I walked in on-time (but clearly not on-time enough since there were still 10 people ahead of me) and everyone in the waiting area was around my age and were either engrossed by magazines that promised to reveal the courageous battle of Farrah Fawcett's adult children or they were entranced by the classic piece of American cinematheque known as Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen playing on the television. Thinking this was some sort of primary psychological test, and realizing that I had left my library book in the car, I decided to forgo both of these options and proceeded to stare blankly out the window. When I was called in for the interview, the woman spoke very fast which was fine since I countered her every speedy proclamation with a sublimely charming and businesslike display of stuttering and complete lack of eye contact. Also, I'm fairly sure I had ketchup on my face the whole time.

Irregardless, as I careened down the freeway at the break-neck pace of 23 miles per hour, I arrived at the only logical conclusion: I must retain some sort of inherent employable quality. My person must give off an instantly marketable musk, a sparkle of self-starter go-getter-ness mixed with a dash of commitment to excellence and a soupçon of "Hire this guy, now!" I am money, baby, pure money. And now I will finally make some. Probably with benefits and a secretary. It'll be like Mad Men except without all the sexual harassment and slightly more boozy board meetings! Adama-rama, let's rock this show!

And then I looked at the clock and realized I was late. I had just pulled off the 101 when my phone rang and an equally fast-talking secretary asked me if I was on my way.

"I-I-I-- yes, ma'am, I'm f-five min-minutes away," I said.

"Okaygreatseeyousoon." Seriously, they must make everyone employed by The Company take a "How to Speak Like Six from Blossom" class.

THE MIDDLE (Or: The Hick Makes Himself Known and I Put Up With Motormouths)

I parked the car, jogged to the door (which looks super professional in slacks and a blazer), took the elevator up, and I had arrived.

"Where's my paycheck at?!?" my inner monologue screamed as I walked in the door. My inner monologue sometimes takes on the persona of Tracy Morgan.

Seated around the room were slightly-less-than 10 people, again all around my age. They all looked... what's the polite way to say this... there isn't any. They all looked stupid. Really stupid people are what they all looked like--incredibly gullible, young people who were very stupid. Why I thought I was somehow smarter than them, I don't know. But that was the first time the I went to college thought popped into my head.

In the interest of full disclosure (also full schadenfreude) my superiority was and is completely ill founded, because as I walked in I was handed a form to fill out. The form read something along the lines of I would be participating in a day-long training session and it was completely voluntary (which is ridiculous, really, since nothing is voluntary in a job interview--you either do it or you don't get the job. If it were voluntary, then I would opt to skip the interview, the job itself, and go straight to retirement and pull down a fat retirement bonus and 401k). Now, the form didn't specify when the day-long training would be and, naive goofball that I am, I thought they meant that if the second interview went well, then I would be called back to take part in the training.

I'm an idiot. But I still had hours to realize that.

I was called into a small room by a man who (sur-fucking-prise) spoke around the same speed as Christie's auctioneer. We had a very brief conversation, meaning he asked me how the drive was and by the time I decoded his rapid-fire question and spat out "Fine" he had already asked me, like, three other questions.

He closed the door to the room behind us. This was where I met The Hick.

The Hick has a real name, but I honestly don't remember it. "The Hick" moniker didn't come till later but right away I could tell there was something about this guy that just screamed "yokel." And not in one of those salt-of-the-earth ways that conservative talking heads love to fetishize. He just seemed like the type of guy who possesses no sense of irony at all whatsoever (I turned out to be spot on about that). Fast-Talking-Boss-Man told me The Hick would be supervising and training me for the day.

I balked at this, and they probably saw it. At no point was I told that this "second interview" would be a training day nor had they told me it would last the entire day. For a second, I wondered why they hadn't made that clear. Then I worried that perhaps they had told me, but since they speak at a speed that only the most devout Red Bull drinker can understand, I had not understood them. But, no, they hadn't. Know how I know? Because I realized that they hadn't told me anything about the company. I knew they were a "marketing" company, but other than that the first interviewer just spewed a lot of buzzwords like "motivated" and "communications" and "clients" and "assembling promotions." I knew nothing about what the hell kind of job I was up for. That was when I started to worry.

The sudden realization that I would be stuck with The Hick for the rest of the day was disconcerting, to say the least, but I figured this was the closest to employment I had been in months. We left the building and went back to the parking lot.

"So, you have a copy of your resume?" The Hick asked once we were situated in the very professional surroundings that is the space between a Honda Pilot and a PT Cruiser.

"Wait, what?" I said, which, really, every potential employer wants to hear. No, I didn't have a copy of my resume. This was not because I'm stupid (although re-reading this makes me think otherwise) it was because when the secretary had invited me for this "second interview"/training day/I-just-got-totally-bamboozled-didn't-I? festival I had asked her, precisely: "Should I bring anything? Another copy of resume?"

"No, no," she said. "We already have your information on file."

And they did. In fact, if you count the one I emailed them when I responded to the online ad, the one I handed to the other secretary and the one I gave to the first interviewer they had my information on file in triplicate.

"No, sir," I said. "I was told I didn't need to bring another copy."

"So you don't have a copy?" The Hick asked.

"No, I'm sorry."

"You really don't have one."

"The secretary told me that my resume would be on file."

Now it was The Hick's turn to balk, which just made him look more Hick-ish.

My musk of marketability, my dash of employability was fading quickly. Now, I just smelled like Old Spice.

In his defense (and this will be the last time I defend him, as you'll see) he was pretty cool with the whole thing. He asked me where had I worked before and what I liked about it and some basic questions.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I would be gone the whole day. I needed to clear this up.

"Sorry, sir, but are we going to be training the whole day?"

"Yep. We're going to Slauson Avenue." (Note: despite living near Los Angeles for almost ten years, I retain little-to-no geographical knowledge of the city proper. So if the name Slauson Avenue is familiar to you then you're reacting how I should have reacted upon hearing the name for the first time.)

Instead, I went: "Ah. I should probably move my car then."

And move my car I did to a side street about two blocks away from the office building.

When I got back, I met the rest of the cast of characters.

First there was a guy who I immediately branded Asian Johnny Cash. Asian Johnny Cash wore all black, drove a black Ford Mustang, and had the quiet, intimidating disposition that seemingly all county-western singers pre-Garth Brooks managed to retain. He regarded everything warily and had the appropriate reaction when he heard where we were headed, which was: "Aw, shit."

I called the other guy The Austrian because he had an accent and I thought it was Austrian (I was right). He talked more than Asian Johnny Cash but rarely said anything worth listening to.

I should note, just so I don't come across as a total prick, that these three also clearly forgot my name within five minutes of meeting me. For the rest of the day I was referred to as "Hey" or "This guy" or "Man." I can only imagine what stupid nickname they gave me, but I'm hoping it was something along the lines of Fatty McSchmuckschmuck, as that would have been the most accurate.

"We carpool," The Hick told me as we headed over to Asian Johnny Cash's Mustang.

Suburban flabby-guy shithead that I am actually had the thought: "Oh, how green."

We were off. It was 9:30 in the morning. And I still thought things would turn around at some point.

I'm going to stop here for now. There's a lot more to this story (including run-ins with all manner of fascinating people and an instance in which I almost push The Hick into traffic).

Check back in a few days for the rest. Same Quorum time. Same Quorum address. Same Quorum humiliation!

For now I'll just say:

TO BE CONTINUED...