So you want job interview stories, eh?
I've got a few doozies. Here's my best:
A few years ago, I had an interview, arranged through a temp agency, at a firm on the southern tip of Manhattan. This was long before the Towers went down, btw.
So anyway, due to train delays, I was running late as I approached the building, though I was probably less than 5 minutes off the time I'd wanted to make. I figured I could carry it off if I ran for the elevator. So this I did.
And only then, after the doors had closed, did I realize that I was on the wrong elevator (not stopping at my floor). So I did what any of you would probably do in that situation - I took it back to the lobby & ran to the right elevator bank. When I heard a security guard yelling at someone, I ignored him - surely he couldn't be talking to me, right?
Wrong. He was. He flagged me down and insisted that I come to the security guard desk or else I'd be forcibly removed from the premises.
"I can't have you running amuck in this building,” he explained to me when I got to him.
He was absolutely convinced that I was there to commit some heinous crime and would hear nothing to the contrary. Two maintenance workers joined him as I tried to reason with the dullard. The trio of cretins stood around, glowering menacingly at me. One of the broom pushers flat out called me a liar when I told them why I was there. "You're not here for any job interview," he said.
Finally I talked him into calling the firm where I was scheduled to interview (ten + minutes ago, by now). Well, it seems the person who was to interview me was out sick, which resulted in another ten minutes delay while they scrambled around looking for the names of the applicants he had been going to see that day. At last, they found the list and my name on it.
Even then the dumbass was unconvinced. Or maybe just trying to save face. In any event, he stood right there, after an executive had vouched for me and said the following to the exec:
"Well, alright, but it's on your head if he does anything wrong."
Needless to say, I didn't get the gig.
Sorry for the length, btw. But it's a good story, isn't it?
(Evil Sausage, Wed 26 Jan 2005, 2:52, Reply)