The Job Interview

“A positive mindset is critical for success,” thought George as he pulled out of his driveway. He was having that mindset right at that moment, and it was a big moment: he was driving downtown for the sixth and final interview for a job at his dream company. Seven years and two degrees; blood, sweat and tears; dreams and disappointments; falling, getting up and dusting off – all have culminated in this day, this moment.

He had his best suit on, and his favourite tie. He was wearing his second most expensive pair of shoes – he didn’t choose the most expensive one because its leather soles made too much noise, and he thought that was a bit too pretentious. He had on the watch he had bought as an investment; an exposed mechanical timepiece that looked bomb on his wrist as he swung the steering wheel. He looked at himself in the rear-view mirror: he looked like a million bucks in his Ray-Bans aviator shades. He had fixed his hair with care, but not too much care; can’t be spending too much time in front of the mirror. He can’t look like he’s trying too hard.

He had taken his mom’s SUV because it was the most reliable car in the family. It had heated leather seats, a sunroof, and a crisp sound system. It provided an all-around comfortable ride; it made him feel like a boss. Act like a boss and you will be a boss. He followed his usual morning routine to the tee: he played his favourite inspirational podcast. The host was a bit cocky, but it rubs off on listeners and boosts their confidence.

George was feeling very confident. He felt it was going to be a big day. Things are about to change forever. Before, he never had any luck with corporate interviews. But that’s because he had been in a bad place – working rough jobs, summer and part-time, to finance his college education; hanging out with the wrong crowd; dealing with toxic people and toxic relationships. That was all prehistory now. The positive energy he learned how to maintain is what got him to pass the previous five interviews at this firm, and what a firm it was! Absolute top of the food chain.

It was almost two years ago that he broke up with his ex-girlfriend. It threw him into a crisis, and from there he was either going to lose it completely, maybe even end up dead, or he was going to break up from all the rest of the negativity in his old life and start a new one. He had a moment of spiritual epiphany that set him on that on the latter path. He cut off all contact with his old friends, broke up with his whole former life as it were, and focused on completing his master’s degree; he got top grades, and now was on his way to career success.

George stopped at his favourite coffee shop and got a large latte – the usual. Then onto the highway, where he switched off the podcast because the host got into his one topic that George found irritating – conspiracy theories. Now was not the time to get irritated, and definitely not a time for dark takes. Only losers think that the elites are that smart, and a lot of them are paranoid because they do too many drugs. George was clean now, and he thought the elites are not much different than anyone else. They only look scary if you are scared.

Instead of the podcast he turned on some inspirational hip-hop instead. It was an old-school mix: Tupac, Biggie, 50 Cent, Ice Cube, Eminem. Grinding, going from rags to riches, balling, that type of stuff. That fit the moment because George saw this job opportunity precisely as his rags-to-riches moment. He was looking at a deep six figures salary, and at his age! Man – he’d buy a nice condo downtown, get a Mercedes or a BMW, get a nice girlfriend, pay off his parents' mortgage. His eyes got teary at that last thought. He was becoming overwhelmed with inspiration, he kept daydreaming about his wonderful future as the hip-hop beats transported him onto a higher plane.

He had barely noticed thirty minutes pass by. He had only noticed, not without excitement, as the dilapidated and low architecture of the suburbs gave way to the skyscrapers and billboards of downtown, but otherwise he almost missed his exit. He brusquely turned onto the off-ramp, earning him some honks from the cars right behind him. This got him back into focus. He snaked a while along the downtown streets but found the address in one go. It was a good omen to find it in one go. He chose to park in the nearest underground garage. It would cost forty dollars, not a sum he normally accepts, but this was a special occasion. He parked and made sure to step out with the right foot first – it was a little superstition of his, and he knew that superstitions are false, he was very rational, but whatever, they can help psychologically.

He showed up at the lobby of the office seventeen minutes before the appointed interview time and announced himself to a fat receptionist lady who appeared to have some trouble understanding who he was and why he was there. “Guess not every role in the company employs top performers,” he thought. Having listless fat ladies as receptionists can even be good, he thought – it helps disarm visitors. Bring them down to earth.

He was ushered into a waiting area with windows opening wide onto the city skyline from that fifty-third floor. The wall opposite the windows held a wide impressionist painting of a summer forest, bringing a calming counterpoint to the tense business setting. George told the receptionist he’d be fine with a glass of water, thank you, and that he had already drunk a coffee. He crossed his legs wide, flashing under his grey suit a long stretch of navy-blue socks. He grabbed a copy of “The Economist” magazine from the coffee table in front of him. He would read about Pakistan’s macroeconomics, a good distraction that can help the mind relax and focus. The Economist has a wonderfully clear and concise essay style.

A couple of minutes later two more young men of roughly his age were brought in. Nick and Devin, they introduced themselves. The three heartily shook hands with each other. They sat down and commenced small talk. Nick said he liked rugby, and he looked like it with his thick neck and slightly mangled ears. Cauliflower. Devin was a tall and slouched nerd; he didn’t fix his tie nor hair well at all, and he said he liked mathematical modelling, and especially statistics, in whose predictive powers he found great beauty and comfort. But overall they seemed like great guys, thought George, he’d work with them. But he wasn’t intimidated.

Soon, the hiring manager showed up. His name was Jeff. He tucked his blond hair behind his ears as he talked. He brought along a sidekick, a big doughboy named Maurice. The five men walked to a bright windowless conference room and settled around the desk, the candidates on one side and their interviewers on the opposite.

They first chit-chatted about the local football team. Everyone pitched in something clever, passing the first test – no one was any sort of a recluse, an antisocial queer or something like that.

Small talk over, they got to the first interview question from Jeff: Walk me through your resume. One by one, the three candidates went earnestly but casually through the highlights of their academic and extracurricular life, including internships. Each of them emphasized how much they loved something about what they had done.

“Great,” said Jeff after they were all done. He flipped through their resumes while Maurice watched on in studied silence. Jeff then tilted sideways in his seat and violently scratched his ass.

“George,” he said. “You’ve changed jobs a lot. Can you tell us a bit about that?”

“Well, Jeff,” George fired off right away, “I think it’s very important to explore early on in one’s career, to discover what one’s really passionate about. I’ve tried many different things: food catering, concrete cutting, drywall, waste removal, et cetera. Finally, after the last summer’s internship at A.T. Kearney, I decided that I’m best suited for work in financial private equity.”

“Hmm,” Jeff scratched his ass again, albeit less violently this time. “But how do you feel about abandoning your current job in waste management? Does your boss know you are planning to leave?”

“Ahem,” George fidgeted a bit. “It’s a good question… I mean, I gotta be completely honest here. Yes, I feel a little bad about leaving the waste management work. I didn’t tell anyone about this interview; I felt like they would think of me as a class traitor, know what I mean? Because everyone there talks about how people with white-collar jobs are high-class parasites who don’t do any real work, just a bunch of privileged ‘douchebags’ as they say, or ‘finance bros’ he-he, you know that’s just the culture there. Of course, I know that’s not true. But there have been unfortunately some scandals in the finance industry, as we all know, so I can understand the resentment to a point. So, anyways, I thought about my career switch and here’s how I resolved it: I said, if I become a private-equity investor, I will be different. I will not forget my roots. I will not forget the real working men and women, the physical labourers; I will remember all the alcoholics and drug addicts and all the dysfunctional, broken, and abusive colleagues I met through my years in those kinds of jobs – and I will be the kind of private-equity investor who represents them and works for them, for the working man. I will strive to reform the system from within and make it work for the people.”

Jeff and Maurice were visibly affected by the unexpected honesty. The other two candidates probably were as well, but it was hard to tell by their stiff and anxious expressions.

“That’s a little harsh,” said Jeff, with some embarrassment. “My brother-in-law is in waste management. He seems to be fine.”

“Oh… Well, that’s not what I meant,” said George. “I didn’t mean dysfunctional in a judgmental way, I just meant dysfunctional in like a victimary way, like, I feel sorry for them because so many of them are like, addicted and violent. But not all of them, for sure! And anyways, I’d never judge any of them.”

“All right, fair enough,” said Jeff. “We got a proper Mother Theresa here. Guess it could be nice for our diversity quota.”

He took a deep breath and switched to Nick the rugby player’s resume. “Nick, your extracurriculars look great. But 2.65 GPA? What’s up with that?”

“Well, Jeff,” answered Nick. “Life is all about trade-offs, and I had to decide what matters to me more: enjoying my precious time in college, getting out there and getting real experiences, or sitting in the classroom and learning theory, most of which I will never use again in real life. So, I opted for the former.”

“Okay,” said Jeff, this time scratching his head, and not his ass, “but in this line of work, we also need a strong theoretical grasp. It’s finance. You gotta calculate on your feet a lot, especially in front of clients.”

“I’m confident I have all the skills necessary for this job,” said Nick.

“Okay. Can you handle a little test then?”

“Sure.”

“There are twenty shillings in a pound and twelve pence in a shilling. So if you want to split a pound among three friends, how much does each friend get?”

“Sorry, what? Could you repeat that please?” asked Nick, who was not ready for such a question and didn’t even hear the first half of it.

“There are twenty shillings in a pound,” repeated Jeff, this time slowly, “okay? and twelve pence in a shilling. So if you have one pound and need to split it evenly among you and two more friends, how many shillings and pence does each of you get.”

“I…” Nick was stuck, “Twenty divided by three… divided by twelve… Eight shillings and… four pennies each?”

“Nope,” said Jeff.

The third candidate, Devin, jumped in: “Six shillings and eightpence!”

“That is correct,” said Jeff.

“Yep, that’s correct,” added George. Jeff and Maurice gave him a sharp look.

“On to you Devin,” Jeff said as he pulled out Devin’s resume. Devin leaned in nervously.

“Devin,” proceeded Nick. “Have you ever thrown anyone under the bus?”

“Well… certainly not literally,” answered Devin. Jeff and Maurice laughed.

“I hope not!” said Jeff. “I mean figuratively, of course. Have you ever thrown anyone under the bus?”

Devin thought about it for a long minute. Then some longer. “Can you clarify what you mean exactly by ‘throwing someone under the bus’?”

“You know, throw someone under the bus,” repeated Jeff. “Sacrifice someone.”

“Oh,” said Devin and thought about it some more. “No, I’ve never done that. Seems quite unethical to be honest, and I’d never do such a thing, at least not knowingly.”

“You’ve never thrown anyone under the bus?” asked Jeff again.

“Nope, can’t say that I had,” repeated Devin.

“Okay,” said Jeff with a nod, and scribbled a bit with his pencil on Devin’s resume. “So, let’s say making yourself look good would make someone else look bad. Would you ever do that?”

“In such a situation,” answered Devin, “I would make myself look good but without highlighting the other guy’s fault. For example, I could try to take him on the side, privately, and point out his mistake and help him correct it. I would frame it as constructive criticism, like it was a learning experience for both of us. Like we’re a team.”

“Okay,” said Jeff, and scribbled something again. “Nick,” he then said, “have you ever thrown anyone under the bus?”

“Yeah,” said Nick. “Sometimes you gotta do it.”

“Go on,” said Jeff.

“Well, to give you a recent example, I threw my ex-girlfriend under the bus. Our relationship was falling apart for some time, and I was starting to get interested in this other girl, and I’m pretty sure she – I mean my ex – was starting to get interested in someone else, too. I decided that it can no longer go on like that, so I told her I’m moving town – coming here – for the sake of my career. I knew she wouldn’t follow me because she lived with her mom, who’s really sick. So I blamed her for not caring about my future and broke up with her.”

“Interesting,” said Jeff. “Guess that is a throw under the bus. Thank you. George, what about you: thrown anyone under the bus lately?”

“Well Jeff,” started George. “I’m not proud to say it, but I have, in fact. Last year we were working on this big PPT presentation and this girl in our group was really stubborn. She and I got into a big conflict that stalled our work, and I…”

“Okay, stop right there,” Jeff interrupted. “It’s fine, you don’t have to answer this question.”

“Did I say something… offensive?” asked George.

“No, no,” said Jeff. “It’s just that stories about PPT presentations are too boring.”

“Oh, okay…,” said George. “Well, sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, no worries,” said Jeff.

After taking a few more notes he exhaled again: “Good!” He slammed the cover of his leather folder onto the candidates’ resumes and the cover letters. “So, gentlemen, this part of the interview is over. Maurice will now hand you out the written test, which you will write until 11:30. Then it’s time for lunch.”

Maurice got up and politely handed each candidate a hard pad with several sheets clamped onto it and a pen tucked into an elastic loop on the side.

“I’ll see you all again after lunch,” said Jeff on his way out. “Maurice will hang out here to invigilate.”

There were exactly nine pages of questions. The first part was three pages long; it was a technical test. There was a brief case study followed by short questions asking for financial calculations requiring an understanding of concepts such as present and future value of money, financial statement entries such as EBITDA, the Black-Scholes equation, etc. George powered through it all but got bogged down a bit on the second part, which asked explain-how-stuff-works types of questions on random topics. George knew how a combustion engine works, but he had very little idea how a sail propels a ship against a headwind. He nevertheless thought he should show some effort, so he drew some diagrams and zigzags and tried to figure it out as he went. By the time he was done, he felt like he may have actually figured out how it actually works.

Now and then he would look up at the other two candidates. He saw that Nick seemed very relaxed. George thought he must be completely lost. Devin on the other hand seemed just as absorbed as George. “Someone’s real eager!” George said to himself.

The third part of the test consisted of ethical conundrum questions: “How would you tell a client that there’s been a mistake in your work?” “How would you handle a difficult client?” That type of thing. George wrote lengthy essays in response to each and had to ask Maurice for scrap paper because he ran out of writing space. He showcased his command of language and made sure to account for all the nuances in his analysis so as to present a considerate and balanced view.

Just as George’s hand was starting to turn numb from all the writing, Maurice reminded the candidates that there are five minutes remaining in the test. George lifted his head and saw that both Nick and Devin had stopped writing. After five minutes, he was done too.

Maurice collected their work and took them to lunch in a restaurant in the building’s ground lobby. But first he dropped off the tests to Jeff, who was sitting in his corner office, for review.

They had a reservation at the restaurant and the four men were led to a table in the middle of a large dining area. They settled in and grabbed the menus to decide what to order. It was Italian food.

George tried to make a choice quickly and get it over with so he can focus on talking up Maurice. However, the task proved difficult because Maurice and the others wouldn’t let the conversation die down even for a minute. Of course, George didn’t want to come off as introverted or OCD or something so he made sure to not look at the menu for longer than about twenty seconds without pitching in with the conversation. He would even count the seconds in his head. But counting in his head and then stopping to say something made him forget what he was looking at on the menu and he would have to start all over each time. Finally, the conversation died down for a little while, and George was able to think.

He was definitely not getting anything messy or slurpy, like spaghetti or a soup. No hand food either, so that means none of the burgers. No pizza either. Though pizza is not technically finger food in an upscale restaurant such was that one, eating a slice of pizza with a knife and a fork struck him as idiotic really under any circumstances. Obviously, he wouldn’t order the most expensive items like steak or lamb chops, nor the cheapest ones, like the club sandwich. The deductive process of elimination soon narrowed his choice to the chicken mushroom risotto. Simple, easy to eat with just a spoon. You could feed it to a baby. The seafood risotto was his second choice, but it carried the risk of including a shrimp or clams, and those things can be awkward to eat.

Everyone was finally ready to order. George went first, asking for a ginger ale with his chicken risotto. To his surprise, Nick also ordered the chicken risotto (with a diet coke), and Devin ordered the seafood risotto (with apple juice). Maurice ordered the lamb chops and a pint of beer. George was a bit surprised about Maurice’s aggressive order. “Comes with the territory, I guess,” he thought. But he also began to wonder whether his order may have been too timid. It was certainly not very original, he thought.

Everyone unfolded their napkins on their laps. There was an intimidating amount of cutlery around George’s plate; he glanced at it but was quickly reassured that the layout matched exactly what he had looked up the previous night on a table manners website. He was all good; he knew how to handle it.

They continued a discussion about a big recent IPO until the risottos arrived. None of the three candidates started eating because Maurice’s lamb chops were still being prepared. Maurice didn’t seem to notice as he got carried away on a rant against the CEO involved in the IPO, his passions apparently boosted by the beer, which had arrived with the risottos and the candidates’ non-alcoholic beverages.

About twenty minutes into his rant, he finally noticed the full plates of the candidates and said: “Oh, guys, don’t wait for my order! Go ahead, eat, your food is getting cold!”

“No, it’s okay! “No worries!” “It’s all good!” replied the candidates.

“No, seriously! The lamb chops always take a while!”

“It’s fine, Maurice, really,” George waved his hands.

“Yeah, I’m not really that hungry,” said Devin.

“Guys, this is ridiculous!” said Maurice.

“It’s really not a big deal,” insisted Nick.

“Let me ask them what’s going on with the lamb.” Maurice waved at the waiter.

He asked about his lamb chops and the waiter went to the kitchen to ask. He returned with some bad news: “Sir, we are very sorry, but the oven is in disrepair, and we can’t serve lamb chops. Please accept our apologies.”

“What!” said Maurice, visibly upset. “Are you kidding me! You come to tell me this half an hour later? After my friends here have been starving themselves waiting for my fuckin’ lamb chops!”

“Sir, we understand and apologize,” said the waited. “As a way of making it up to you, may we offer you our finest ribeye steak? On the house.”

“Hmm,” mused Maurice. “And what about making it up to my friends, who now have to eat soggy, cold risotto?”

“Maurice, I’m good,” said George. “And I’m sure the risotto is still delicious.”

Maurice gave George a dirty look: “Really! Real good negotiation skills George! Is that how you’re gonna cut deals with our clients too?! Insisting they don’t give us stuff? Damn!”

“Well,” George was stunned. “I… I… I didn’t mean it that way…My bad.”

Maurice turned to the others. “Nick, Devin, what do you guys want?”

“I’ll have a tenderloin steak, if possible,” said Nick.

“Can I have the tuna steak tartare?” said Devin.

“Sure, we can do that,” said the waiter, then turned to Maurice. “On the house. Your firm is our VIP client, Mr. Lazare.”

“Ahem,” added George. “On second thought, I could have some dessert after the risotto. How about a creme brûlée?”

“Of course,” smiled the waiter and nodded. “Is that all?”

“How about you also hook up a bottle of that reserve Merlot that came last week?” said Maurice.

“Sir,” said the waiter, “That’s a five-hundred-dollar bottle.”

“Just bring it, man,” said Maurice, “and three glasses. I’ll pay for it. You guys really need to loosen up. Ginger ale! Jeez…”

The waiter nodded and walked away.

“These fucking mouth-breathers!” said Maurice. “Let’s not let this ruin our mood. Where was I…” he continued his critique of the IPO CEO.

George started to eat his risotto.

“You really gonna eat that?” asked Maurice. “It looks like leftovers at this point. You don’t have to do that, man.”

“But I didn’t order anything else.”

“Ah, right,” said Maurice.

“You can have half of my steak tartare,” said Devin. “I’m really not that hungry.”

George could see no other way out of the corner: “all right then, thanks.” He put down his spoon and pushed away his risotto plate.

The wine arrived – it was a magnum bottle – and Maurice eagerly served it to the three candidates. He wouldn’t have any himself as he was already drinking beer. They would wait another twenty minutes for the meat dishes to arrive, during which time Maurice told office war stories. He only paused to write send text messages on his phone every couple of minutes.

He continually egged the candidates on to drink up the wine. “Come on, be a man,” he’d say to one of them. “What, you’re gonna let five hundred bucks go to waste?” he’d say to another. By the time the meat arrived the candidates were each finishing their second glass of wine and their cheeks were turning red. Once it was laid out on the table, Maurice emptied the rest of the wine in their glasses and, at long last, stopped talking. All four men quieted down and started eating. Merely a minute into it, however, Maurice’s phone rang. “Hello! Yep! No, we just started! Okay, got it! Okay. Bye.”

“Guys, it’s Jeff,” explained Maurice, “He’s got a busy afternoon and he’s gotta wrap up your interviews ASAP. He wants us back upstairs in five minutes. Let’s finish this fast and go.”

“I really don’t have to finish,” said Devin. “I’m not very hungry, as I said.”

“Come on,” said Maurice, “you can’t let such a fine tuna tartare go to waste!”

The three young candidates accepted that they must finish their food and the next three minutes were completely devoid of conversation as all four men were busy shoving big chunks of meat down their throats. They wiped their mouths before they even swallowed the last bites and as they were getting up from the table, Maurice raised his pint: “Bottoms up!”

The three young men clicked their glasses with him and finished off their wine. Devin tried to leave some, but Maurice insisted and physically tipped the bottom of Devin’s glass up as the latter was drinking from it, so that it emptied into his mouth. The waiter brought the crème brûlée, and Maurice had them all split it and finish it on their feet. Then, they all rushed out of the restaurant towards the elevator.

They filed into the conference room in which they had spent the morning. Jeff was waiting for them, seated and with their tests stacked in front of him. The candidates got back into their seats.

“How did we do?” George asked him.

“Have a seat,” said Jeff. “Let’s talk about it. Might as well start with your George. You killed the technical part; you are a smart kid. But the rest? Let’s see… Do you or do you not know how a sailboat works?”

“I don’t,” said George, “but I thought I’d give it an honest effort seeing…”

“Honest effort? You make shit up for three straight pages and you call that honesty?”

“I thought the question was more like a challenge…”

“Yeah, but you didn’t write it that way. It doesn’t say anywhere: ‘I don’t know, but here’s what I think.’ It reads like an instruction manual, except the instructions are a complete lie. Everyone would drown if they had to rely on your instructions!”

“I assumed it was implied that…” said George.

“You know what they say about assuming, right?” Jeff interrupted. “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. But fine, I can see a little bit where you are coming from. You could argue that it looks better than what Nick here did for the engine question. He wrote, I quote: ‘I have no idea. Vacuum maybe? Sorry.’ Nick, you give up that quickly when you’re on the rugby pitch, too?”

“As you were just saying Jeff,” said Nick. “I wasn’t going to bullshit you and decided to be straight up.”

“Devin,” Jeff moved on. “You happen to know how both engines and sailboats work. But the same cannot be said with regards to professional relationships. Your idea of handling a difficult client is to report them to the Ethics Commission. I guess if you were the president, you’d use the nuclear option on domestic terrorists, wouldn’t you?”

Everyone except Devin laughed at the joke.

“Well Jeff, with all due respect,” said Devin, “I think it all depends on what is meant by a difficult client.”

“No, Devin, it doesn’t,” replied Jeff. “Anyways… I’m gonna be honest here, you’re all quite mediocre. Not relative to the general population – if it was that, you wouldn’t even be here – I mean mediocre relative to what we usually see. But we really need an analyst right now. So, we’ll hire one of you for sure, but we’re gonna do one more activity. It will be the tiebreaker. Maurice –“

“Right,” answered Maurice. “For the final activity of the day, we’re playing poker.”

He walked over to a steel cabinet in the corner of the room and took out of it a silver poker case. He opened it and explained that they would be playing Texas Hold’em as he laid out the chips for each candidate. He would be the dealer. He took two packs of cards out of the case, shuffled them, and began the game by dealing one of them out to the three players.

George was cautious, Nick was daring, and Devin was terrible. His hands shook whenever he placed his chips in the pot. A few deals in, Nick called Devin all in on the flop. Devin’s hand shook even harder as he lifted his two cards to double-check what they were. Then, he called.

The two opponents flipped over their cards: Nick had a flush draw and Devin had an over-pair. Unless one of the two cards coming up was a diamond, Devin wins. Maurice flipped the new cards slowly and deliberately. He looked intently at Devin shaking. Turn card: jack of clubs, creating a pair with another jack on the flop. Devin now had two pairs, and Nick was still waiting for a diamond. The final card, the river: jack of diamonds. Nick jumped up – “FLUSH!” He screamed.

It was true: he had a flush. But he had forgotten that with three jacks on the table, and two kings in hand, Devin now had a full house, which beats a flush. “FULL HOUSE!” Devin jumped next. “I WIN!”

“Yep,” said Maurice. “You’re out, Nick.”

Nick put his hands to his face, shattered. Devin lunged to the corner towards a trash bin and vomited his wine and tuna tartare into it.

“Thank you, Nick,” said Jeff. “You can watch the rest of the match if you’d like, or you can leave.”

“Screw this shit!” Nick said. “This is ridiculous. This is abuse! This is hazing! I’m out of here! And I’m glad I’m not gonna work for this fucked-up company! Waste of my time!”

Maurice shook his head: “No one is bigger than the process, my friend.”

“Hey – life is hazing!” answered Jeff. “Get used to it.”

“Not my life, bro,” said Nick. He picked up his suit jacket and stormed out.

Jeff pressed a button on the conference phone and asked for a janitor to come and take the fouled trash bin. He then picked it up himself and placed it just outside the door. “Let’s continue. Head-to-head.”

Maurice left for a minute and returned to bring Devin a glass of water and a box of tissues. He also handed him a box of mints. “You can keep the whole pack,” he said.

George and Devin settled back into the poker game head-to-head. Maurice dealt, switching between the two decks of cards. George started winning from the get-go. For the first few deals of the duel, Devin was so distracted by his victory over Nick that he wasn’t paying much attention to what he was doing, which allowed George to chip away at his chip lead. Once he saw that his stack had shrunk, Devin sobered up. But George kept winning. His opponent was ridiculously nervous and easy to read.

Soon enough the faceoff came to a head with Devin this time going all-in – on the turn. George’s heart began to thump. He had pocket sixes, and another six had shown up on the flop, with two other low cards: an off-suit seven and a two. The turn was an ace. Devin must have hit the ace, George thought, and maybe something else on the flop. So, he had one pair, two pairs at best, against George’s winning triple. He had walked right into George’s bear trap. This was George’s moment. He only needed to finish off the bear. He called the all-in.

The two candidates revealed their cards and it was just as George thought. Devin showed an ace and a two, so two pairs. George showed his pocket sixes. His face glowed as Devin looked at his cards in terror. Maurice flipped the final card: a king of hearts. No change: George wins.

George jumped up, lifting his hands in the air. “YES!”

Devin was frozen in spot for a minute, staring at the cards laid out on the table. What he did next froze everyone else in the room. He flew onto his legs and began to violently punch himself on the head with both fists, alternating furiously, then after a couple of seconds he grabbed the closed poker case with both hands and began to violently slam his forehead into it. The whole time he repeated through his teeth: “Stupid! Stupid!” The case was bashed in after several head slams and Devin collapsed back into his chair and buried his head in his arms on the table.

“That was such a stupid call! I’m such an idiot!” he wailed pitifully into his elbows.

“Come now, kid,” consoled Maurice. “You’re taking this all too seriously. It’s just the luck of the draw. It’s not the end of the world, you’ll find yourself another job. It’s just a job, man! It’s just a stupid job.”

 “I really needed this job!” Devin wailed on. “I’m in so much student debt, and I graduated eight months ago! I’ve missed all the trains. And… and… I told everyone I had it locked in already and now I’m gonna look like such a loser! My life is ruined!”

“Sorry, buddy,” said Jeff. “Look, it’s nothing personal. It’s not a big deal, man. Look, how about this: we’ll keep in touch. We’ll email you if there are other suitable openings.”

“Okay, thanks,” said Devin, his voice somewhat back to normal. He lifted his head from his arms and took a tissue with which he blew his nose. “And thanks for the interview opportunity. It was a great learning experience. I hope you can give me feedback in a follow-up email or something.”

Devin swung on his jacket and stood up to leave.

“Sure thing, buddy,” said Jeff. He the door open as Devin left the conference room.

“Wow,” said Maurice. “He was shaky all day, but I did not see that coming.”

“Tell me about it!” Jeff rolled his eyes. “All right George!” he then said, “Welcome to the team!” He suddenly became very friendly. He shook George’s hand in the way of congratulation and even gave him a little side hug.

“Congrats, bro,” said Maurice. He also gave George a friendly handshake and a shoulder squeeze.

“I know it was a bit rough,” said Jeff, “but overall you were actually pretty good!”

“Really?” said George, “It certainly didn’t feel that way.”

“Don’t sell yourself short man,” said Jeff. “Your test results were the best – of the three of you – though not perfect. Experience shows us the test results alone are a very close indicator as to which candidate gets the job in the end.”

“Yeah, especially the first part,” added Maurice. “The other two parts we added just to mess with you and see how you handle it.”

“Wait,” said George, “But what about the poker game? I thought that was the tie breaker?”

“Ha-ha, no,” said Jeff. “Same thing – we were just messing with you. Same thing with the booze downstairs, eh? We don’t usually finish off a bottle of wine for lunch here! It’s all a big stress interview.”

“So what if I lost?” asked George.

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” answered Jeff. “Of course, if you broke down, it’s a deal breaker. The other two guys both broke down. So, really, you beat them both twice! Easy call for us, he-he.”

“I’m so happy to hear that!” said George. “And I’m so grateful for this job opportunity!”

“You should be grateful for your genes,” said Maurice, smiling. “You are a rare talent; you have a high IQ. You’ll go very far; you just gotta be more confident, man!” he squeezed George’s shoulder again.

“Believe in your destiny!” added Jeff.

 “Thanks guys,” said George.

“Look,” said Jeff. “Maurice and I gotta run now. We’ll get in touch with you tomorrow with the onboarding procedure. You’re starting Monday.”

George left the office and, when he got off the elevator on the ground floor, he went into the toilet to splash some cold water on his face and calm down. He did so, then proceeded to one of the toilet stalls. He sat on the toilet and began texting his friends. He called his mom to tell her the good news. His mom was ecstatic with joy; she started crying, and this choked up George a bit too. He said he was coming straight home to tell her all about it. He then posted the good news on Instagram. The likes started pouring even before he had gotten out of the building.

He walked around the block and down a set of stairs that led down to the second basement floor the underground garage where he had parked. He got into the car and pulled out. The forty dollars he had to pay to the porter were such a joke now!

On the highway, he turned that hip-hop back on. He blasted it. He looked at himself in the rear-view mirror again, but now he saw a different man. It was still the same face with the same aviators, but this was now the face of a boss. A winner. He nodded his head to the beat. It was now a sunny afternoon before the rush hour, and the ride along the open highway felt like he was cruising through a dream in his SUV. The American Dream, and the car speeding down the highway its great symbol. The speeding car: true Americana, featured in some of the greatest American works of art and literature.

His thoughts turned philosophical. He thought about what Jeff revealed to him at the end. He wondered about his destiny, and everyone’s destiny: was there such a thing, or was life dominated by the luck of the draw. He thought back again on his past, on all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the disappointments. He had sworn to himself in the darkest moments of his struggle that he would never, ever let success take away his humility, but nevertheless… he couldn’t help but think that it was all meant to be, that all that suffering had a meaning, and that the meaning was beginning to manifest from this day on forward. Yet, he would never, ever become arrogant, he would never lose his soul; he had sworn this. Death was preferable to becoming like one of those people, he thought. Death before dishonour.

He got off the highway in his suburb and drove down the main road not far from his home. He remembered what he had said during the interview, about remembering where he came from. He felt determined more than ever to honour those words. He looked around the monotonous suburb and, perhaps for the first time ever, he felt a sense of pride of being from there. Previously, he had only felt a panicked and relentless urge to escape. But now he was empowered; he felt no longer threatened by his hometown, and he was determined to stay in it. To represent it. To help it. Forget about moving into a condo downtown. This was his home, his ‘hood. It was beautiful too, in its own gritty way.

He decided to stop for his afternoon latte at the coffee shop where he had picked one up in the morning. He ought to complete the cycle, he thought; that would be good luck for the future. Dot the i’s, cross the t’s. As he waited inside the empty intersection for the left turn towards the plaza where the coffee shop was located, he wanted to replay his favourite track: “Lose yourself” by Eminem. It took him a while to scroll to it. The track started playing and when he looked up, he saw that the light in front of him had already turned red. He was facing south-west, and despite the aviators it was hard to see forward. He pressed the gas pedal to clear the intersection. The music was loud, so he did not register the horn honking at him, coming from a waste disposal truck driving straight into him from his right side. By the time he heard it, it was too late to react. The truck picked off his SUV like a fly on a windshield and dragged it out of the intersection, hardly slowing down. Then the truck flipped over as its left tire hit the curb of the adjacent center island, and it fell sideways squarely onto George’s SUV. But George was dead upon the initial impact, his blue-sock-clothed tibial bone protruding grotesquely, sharded, out of his grey suit toward his gaping bloodied face.

For weeks after the funeral, his grieving family would tell their friends how he had just made it big. However, they would eventually stop saying that, because news broke out that the firm for which he had been hired suddenly and unexpectedly declared bankruptcy. Soon after that initial news, it was revealed that they had been cooking their books and running what was essentially a pyramid scheme with their clients’ money. Some of George’s friends who researched the scandal on the internet discovered that Jeff was on trial and facing up to twenty years in jail. Maurice had fled the country.

George just never had any luck with job interviews.