The Job Interview

I'm pretty sure this was the actual stapler.

“Alright,” he grinned and clasped his hands together, a wide grin that led me to believe he loved this part of the job interview. He whipped out a lowly gray stapler and said, “I bought this stapler from you but I’m bringing it back… Sell it back to me.”

“Holy shit, really?” (I’m pretty sure I said something along those lines) I’m no salesman and I don’t normally improv on a regular basis so I expected to fail the shit out of this challenge.

The plainest, most boring-looking stapler ever made and I had to clinch the deal.

Instinctly, the first question that popped to mind was “Well… Sir, did you make sure there was staples in the stapler?” I mean reeeeally, if you work with customers on a day-to-day basis, you’ve got to admit that there’s a good number of dumb people out there. The stupid, it hurts.

The interviewer looked amused and told me he double-checked to make sure that there was staples inside. Hmmm, these staplers must be pieces of shit.

Keeping in mind the fact that I was being interviewed to work for a credit card company, I figured I should dance around the products’ faults and try to highlight any key features. Tell the customer what they want to hear.

I just went for it.

I examined what I had to work with: a plain fucking stapler that I wouldn’t even want to own. Tell the interviewer what he wants to hear. In my head, I pretended that I was a Public Relations person for a stapler company that makes shoddy products.

“This [FORGETABLE COMPANY NAME] stapler has reinforced springs to make sure that your staples stay in place and don’t jam up. Blah blah blah blah blah…” Honestly, I don’t remember what I said, other than that line but I remember I talked my ass off. I basically bullshitted my way through the whole thing.

At long last, the interviewer, with a big smile on his face, extended his hand and said, “Well, it was definitely a pleasure interviewing you today.” I couldn’t tell if he was smiling so much because I made an ass out of myself or what.

“Yeah, I had fun,” was all I could think to say. Truthfully, it actually was.

I absolutely did not think I would get that position at all… But apparently, they saw something in me that they liked because I got the job.