Not In a Hurry

March 24, 2009

Deborah went on an interview with what was advertised as a "commercial construction company." Although she didn't know what that was, exactly, it didn't really matter — it was for a part-time bookkeeping job, and numbers are numbers.

The company turned out to be just one guy who had rented out some space from a friend of his who happened to have a little extra space on the second floor of a wholesale bead shop. The floor was filled with boxes of beads — glass beads, plastic beads, wooden beads, crystal beads, and on and on. In a small clearing was a desk and a couple of chairs — dingy and beat up like a police interrogation room circa 1978.

"How do you find anything in here?" Deborah asked as she sat down.

"I'm building a separate office soon," he said. In the meantime, he told her he didn't spend much time there. It was not his only business. "I own a lot of properties," he said, as if that would explain everything. It didn't, but Deborah didn't care.

She wasn't enthused about the job, and until the office was built, if it ever would be, the work environment was shit. But it was a job. Also, it was near the jewelry supply store that Deborah goes to at least once a week. When working elsewhere, she often finds herself running back and forth to the jewelry supply store to pick up materials. If she got this job, it would be convenient. On the other hand, whatever money she made at the job would likely be too easily spent. To illustrate my point, before her interview, Deborah stopped into the jewelry supply shop to pick up a couple of things.

"If I want to make jewelry," she said, "I need supplies."

True enough.

The employees of the jewelry supply shop are generally impatient, cranky, and unhelpful. They can afford to be because the shop is the best place in the city to get a lot of things, and the only place to get others. Deborah has been going there for nine years, and a few of the employees have warmed up to her. The owner gives her advice sometimes, and a couple of the cashiers might go so far as to smile, or at least say hello.

Not all of them, however, and Deborah goes out of her way to avoid the nastiest of the bunch. Sometimes, though, when the store is crowded — which it almost always is — it's unavoidable.

As she was being rung up out by a woman who is undoubtedly the most miserable of the lot, the transaction was interrupted by a svelte young fop dressed in design-school finery. A good-looking little shit is how Deborah described him. He sidled up to the counter, said something in Spanish to the cashier, and the cashier said something sweetly back. Said in a tone Deborah never realized the squat old crank was capable of. The cashier dropped what she was doing and began ringing up the little shit.

"What the..." Deborah muttered. "Excuse me, but I'm in a hurry, too."

The kid smirked. "That's funny, because I'm not in a hurry at all."

"I'll be with you in a minute," the cashier said to Deborah without looking up.

Deborah fumed.

When I got off work, I met her and we rode the subway home together,

"How'd the interview go?" I asked.

"The interview? Oh yeah, I forgot all about it. I hope I don't get it."