Best Interview. Ever.

After that last well-documented string of awesomely bad rejection letters, I'm proud to say that I can now add a hilariously bad interview to my list of job hunting misadventures. I really don't even know where to begin with this story, but here's basically how this whole thing came about:

One of my friends from high school (who was also hopelessly entrenched in the job search process until about 2 weeks ago) had been handing out resumes and trying to do a little networking, much like myself. He finally found a decent job, but shortly thereafter, he was contacted about a "consulting position" (I apologize in advance for my liberal use of quotation marks in this post; I promise they are necessary). Not needing a job for himself anymore, he forwarded all of the info on to me as he thought I may be interested.

In fact, he was completely right - business consulting is something I've been pursuing pretty seriously lately, and I was pumped to get this new lead. Only there was something that made me a little suspicious. There was a certain vagueness about the whole thing that struck me as strange from the very beginning. At first the guy who had contacted my friend said he was with Smith-Gower, a reputable accounting/business services firm in Raleigh. However, no specific firm was ever mentioned in my dealings with contact person.

I finally emailed the guy to try to get a little more clarification. His (direct quote) response to my inquiry was as follows: "We are a consulting company. We specialize in private business development, and we are partnered with about 1200-1500 companies. We do have a few slots open. ..."

Despite not getting the actual name of the company, I felt satisfied. Perhaps my guard has been brought down because of this excrutiating process. Maybe I'm just that desperate. Who knows. The point is, I asked no more questions, and set up an interview time.

Then more weirdness. Instead of me driving up to Raleigh, one of their "associates" just happened to be passing through New Bern this weekend "on business," so they wanted to know if I could just meet the guy at a coffee shop for an informal first interview. Now alarms are really going off in my head. But again, due to desperation or whatever, I agreed to show up.

When I got there, I met the guy, and honestly he seemed nice enough. I felt better. But not for long. We sat down, and started into the basic interview stuff. "What do you feel are your strong points?" "What are your career ambitions?" etc, etc, etc.

Things seem to be going well, but then be pulls out his brochure. On the first page is a chart, divided into four sections: Employee, Business Owner, Investor, and a fourth ambiguously-worded category, which if I could remember I would gladly post here.

"Which of these 4 is the best way to achieve long-term financial security?" he asks. I guess "investments." He says that's a common mistake, but the best answer is actually the gobbilty-gook in category 4, which.....wait for it......is exactly what this company specializes in! Then he throws in, "Andrew makes $4500 a week using the methodology in category 4!"

By this point I'm really skeptical, but I decided to play along. My next, fairly obvious question at this point: "So what exactly do you do, day-to-day?" (He has still yet to reveal the actual name of the company). Then he utters the most priceless words I have ever heard in my life:

"I really shouldn't go into that now. Andrew can explain it much better. You'll meet him during phase 2."

Wow, where to start. You can't tell me at all what I'll be doing in this "job" I'm "interviewing" for? I've heard of "second-round interviews," but what's all this about "phase 2"? Why did you get that creepy tone in your voice when you said that? And who the fuck is this Andrew character? This is quickly turning into that episode of Seinfeld where Mr. Wilhelm is abducted by the Happy Sunshine Carpet Cleaners.

Of course, that's only what I thought to myself. Torn between competing urges to flee the building or stick around to see where on earth this is going, I finally just say "oh, OK," and decide to stick it out. It's amazing what I'll put myself through for the sake of a funny story.

Next he says, "So what happens at most jobs when you miss a day? The work doesn't get done, or you might get fired. Not here. Here (still no mention of the name of the "company") you have an entire support staff who will pick up the slack if you can't come in."

Me: "OK, so how exactly does that work?"

Him: "It's simple, really. You find people to be your employees. Then they work, and you don't have to! It's just like owning your own company and being your own boss! And if your employees hire people under them, then the work of the second-level employees also counts towards your work!"

That's right. In case you haven't figured it out yet, this "interview" was really just a sales pitch to join onto a pyramid scheme. I knew pretty early on after meeting the guy that it was either a pyramid scheme or a religious cult, I just couldn't make up my mind which. Of course, he had to go back to Raleigh to "talk things over with Andrew, but he thought things went really well."

I walked away with perhaps the second-funniest/most awkward story of my life. (Number one being the stalker/hiker-killer I met in Ireland, which I don't think will ever be topped in the funny/awkward area. I've really been meaning to post on this site for anyone who may not have heard it already). But I still never got the name of the company or any information on Andrew.