It's Dan MacRae

(I wrote this as part of my Aw NFL Naw column, but I figured I’d post it here as well. I’m feeling all multiposty and junk.)

Today I went to a job interview that was one of those “parade of red flags” type job interviews. I’m desperate for a job (Did you know McDonalds only accepts online applications? I didn’t.), so I’ve been applying for a whole slate of questionable positions. Just vague positions that have to do with “customer service” and putting in writing that you’re “not a cop, because you have to tell me if you are”. Yesterday I went to a preliminary interview where I basically just had to agree that I would go to a second interview. All I knew was that I would be helping a water heater company with their customers and that I would sometimes be going to residences to assist with that. That was cool by me. Actually, it wasn’t, but I’m desperate for dough and I’m not pretty enough to hustle out on the streets.

Today’s interview wasn’t really an interview. It was more of a gathering of pleasant 20 and 30somethings wedged into the main area of the business (located in a depressing North York office building), where we would learn about the new job that we had now been hired for just by showing up. I saw a Wheel Of Fortune style wheel that was clearly used for bonuses. I’ve seen those before at the saddest of the sad call centres. Those places normally have government warnings placed on the wall after the company faced a lot of legal action for unsafe working practices and loose rules about employees getting burned on their genitals by their manager’s cigarettes. (red flag) The guy running the interview/meeting/waitwhathappened started off by telling us to walk to the back of the room and look at the paycheques. We did (I did mostly to be polite) and we got the “have you ever made that much money before” speech. (red flag) It was something that I imagine happens in those Rich Dad seminars where the local Kirk Van Houtens compare notes about how they attempted to borrow a feeling. We got the aggressive pitch of how much money we could make in one week. Some people in the room had actually made “that much money” in a week, but played along because it’s not good to interrupt someone that imagines their life mirrors the exciting bits from Boiler Room. I spent the meeting hearing about how we need to go to non-customers houses (red flag), go to their basement (red flag) and tell them to buy our “government approved” water heater (red flag). And who wouldn’t want to invite a mystery man from the street to corner them in their basement and pressure them into a buying water heater to meet “government” regulations? (red flag) Our orientation guru dropped the term “retarded” a lot (red flag) while explaining how we would be going door to door tomorrow. I sat through the meeting, wrote down fake notes and looked at the security camera in the main room. (red flag) I’m going to double check to see if McDonalds got my online application.

I also tried applying for a few drug testing studies, but the hours are kind of shit. I mean, Boxing Day? You want me to prostitute my health on Boxing Day? If I’m going to be coughing up a mutated spleen for the sake of science, you can at least give me Boxing Day off. I’m really prissy this week, aren’t I?