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Dunder Mifflin, Thanks for the memories.

Last week I had the worst, and I mean the WORST, second interview of my life. I didn’t do anything wrong, I was on time, professional and open. However, last Thursday managed to be the longest 9 hours ever. I had interviewed with a Marketing Consulting company earlier in the week and walking out of the interview felt like dynamite. I knew I had nailed it. I was told this company did marketing and marketing research for major companies in the Salt Lake market. The woman interviewing me listed of such companies as Google, Yahoo, IBM, Nike and Staples. Ok, sounds promising.

I got called back for a second interview, a lengthy second interview. I was told that the company likes to have potential employees shadow a real employee for the day so both parties can get a better feel of how things would work if actually hired. Ok, seeing as how I don’t currently have a job that wouldn’t really be a problem. I agreed to be at their office (close to downtown Salt Lake) at 9:30 on Thursday morning.

Thursday comes and I show up a few minutes early, just in case. I am introduced to “Dwayne”, a slightly stumpy, kind of chubby guy in his late 20′s with greasy greasy black hair that is a little too long to be professional and is covered in white, flaky dandruff. Dwayne told me that he had some appointments during the morning and then, because he is technically a “trainer”, at lunch he would talk about the salary, benefits and answer any questions. Alright, sounds good.

Dwayne & I go out to his car and get on the freeway… I feel like I need to stop and explain a little more about this situation. His car was filthy, crumbs and dirt and junk all over the floor, the seats, the dashboard, everything. I probably could have scratched his dash three or four times with my fingernail and not touched the bottom of the grime. Dwayne is also a chain smoker, but I could hardly smell the nicotine due to the overpowering sense of 3-day-old sweat that filled the teeny car as soon as he took his jacket off. Ugh, this is making me sick just thinking about it.

As we headed South I asked where our first appointment was, and was shocked when he said “Spanish Fork” a teeny, tiny, cowboy town over 50 miles away. I had to sit in his car in my freshly dry-cleaned suit (which is safely BACK at the dry cleaners) for over an hour. I tried to ask about the company, the appointment, the clients, trying to get a sense of what, exactly, we would be doing all day. Dwayne was much more interested in learning what I did for fun, what types of books I read. As we got off the freeway and headed to this “appointment” I still had very little idea of what was going on.

We walked into a teeny retail store on main street and Dwayne began his schpiel… the schpiel about how he can guarantee the business owner that by switching to his company they will save a bundle of money on paper, printer ink and copy toner. I was not introduced during the entire conversation, so I stood there like a wall-flower, desperately wishing Spanish Fork had a taxi service to rescue me. In what language is “Marketing Consulting” code for “Door to Door Paper and Ink Salesman”, or “Office Supplies Solicitor” or “Slimy Traveling Salesman”? I was furious, but I knew that the “misunderstanding” wasn’t entirely Dwayne’s fault, so I bit my tongue. I had sat in that filthy car with this creepy man for an hour to go to Spanish Freaking-Fork to interest people in paper?!? Are you kidding? No, thank you. At least in The Office there is a Jim to make jokes with and a Michael to roll your eyes at, and a Dwight to play tricks on… with Dwayne there was nothing. Nine hours of schlepping paper and ink cartridges, it was a sales-call from hell.

After an hour or two of walking up and down Main Street (me in heels and a suit, him in a dirty shirt, wrinkly tie and pants with suspicious gray-ish white stains on them) I was past the furious bit and decided that this was going to make a highly entertaining blog post, so I began taking mental notes.

• Dwayne’s glasses are held together with black electrical tape.
• Dwayne smoked 2 packs of Malboro’s in 9 hours.
• Dwayne’s greasy hair was parted like an accountant from 1984, with dandruff.
• Dwayne had a ready-to-pop zit right inbetween his eyes that disgusted me and also fascinated me, it kept growing throughout the day.
• Dwayne does not have business cards, or sales fliers, or even a phone number. Sketchy.
• Dwayne drank 3 Rockstar energy drinks in the morning.
• Coincidentally he had to stop and pee every 45 minutes.
• Somewhere around 11:00 Dwayne came out of the bathroom with his fly completely open, red boxers hanging out. I decided not to tell him, he never figured it out. I don’t know if the fly down was a convenience thing for his frequent bathroom-breaks, or an air-conditioning system, or what. But I noticed a lot of people noticing the red boxers, and I died laughing inside.
• Dwayne likes to “get on the level” of people he is talking to – which in the normal world means sitting down if they are sitting down. Most places we visited didn’t have extra chairs, so he would cop a squat on the floor, looking less like a slimy salesman and more like he was taking a crap. Which, guessing from the stench that followed him through the day, may have actually been true.
• Dwayne does not think psychology is a science and his idea of economics is based solely on something he read in Playboy magazine. Seriously.
• Dwayne claims to be a “big reader” but hasn’t read anything lately, or in the last 2 years. His favorite book (defined, by him, as the most challenging and rewarding book he ever read) is by Dr. Seuss… which I could support if not for the “psychology is not a science” statement immediately preceeding this conversation.

I was counting down the minutes to 4:30, I was desperate to take a long shower to remove all traces of nicotine, Dwayne-stench and auto-grime, and I wanted to drop off my suit at the dry cleaner as quickly as possible. Well, life sucks a little bit more when you are a door-to-door paper salesman, and his last “appointment” lasted an hour longer than anticipated. Hey, at least the guy bought some paper. We didn’t leave Spanish Fork until 5:45 and I was so beyond being upset, I was just keeping tracks of all the bits and pieces of the day, I had even started taking notes. I asked Dwayne what he was going to tell his manager, what kind of report he was going to give about me. He said he thought I’d be perfect for the job, that I had the confidence (true, but misguided) and personality (wrong) to be really successful. And while I appreciate the statement, there is not a chance in hell. Dwayne asked me if I would be interested in working, for their Company, joining their team, he asked if I thought I would be able to do this all day, every day. My response? “Absolutely, I do.”

When the Boss called to offer me a job I politely explained that I am not interested in working for a company whose representatives are so unprofessional and inconsiderate of time (we got back to SLC over an hour late). I am not interested in working for a company that purposefully misrepresents itself (“Marketing Consulting” anyone?) and though I’m sure the Boss is a lovely person, I am not interested in working for a manager that allows and encourages these behaviors in employees.

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