by Elena Macdonald
We sat in rows in the office waiting room. There were twenty of us at first, all hungry and ambitious. Do you really want this? The interviewer asked us each time he exited his office, into the wait room. Yes, we would say. The candidate he thought was the least convincing, the least enthused, would be asked to leave. One woman was on her hands and knees, Yes, she said over and over, even after he’d dismissed her. He had the office guard escort the woman from the waiting room.
I used to work at a call centre. We would answer anywhere between three to fifteen calls a day, with the caller on the other end, someone we’d refer to as sir, giving us an indefinite series of riddles to solve. What can you catch but not throw?
A cold, sir.
I have branches, but no fruit, trunk, or leaves. What am I?
A bank, sir.
There would eventually be one I couldn’t solve. When this happened, the sir on the other end would hang up. I would then have to wait, sometimes hours, for another call, and I would once again begin to answer the sir’s riddles.
The waiting room was now empty. I was the final candidate left. I had delivered each yes with a fierce exhale. I held my breath whenever the interviewer exited his office, preparing for the moment I’d be asked to speak. The guard stood in front of the office door. He was a tall, brawny man, dressed in black cargo pants, a hi-vis jacket and a baseball hat. Tufts of his dark hair pushed out from underneath the hat. He would occasionally acknowledge us, nodding his head and making eye contact with a candidate. He had nodded to me four times in the last hour or so. The second remaining candidate had been dismissed long ago and I had started to lose track of time.
Music thudded from behind the office door. The interviewer had Get Low by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz on repeat. It blurred into a familiar din, slipping through one ear and out the other, almost unnoticed. I had all but tuned it out when the guard spoke. I looked up and said nothing, unsure whether he had addressed me. Do you like this music? the guard asked again. Yes, I told him.
One day, I didn’t receive a single call. No calls, no riddles. I sat there, listening to the others answer their calls and solve their riddles. It was the first time I noticed how loud the office could be: a cacophony of contemplative hums, finger taps, breathy sighs, and one-word responses. I tried to listen to the woman next to me, her voice muffling through the felt panels, and guess the riddle from the sir on the other end based on her answer. But I struggled to solve one before she moved on to the next.
It was not unheard of to go a day without a call, but it was not the norm. The employees who had no calls and answered no riddles, day after day, would inevitably quit. Some of them blamed the work, claiming the riddles were a waste of time and that there were more dignified jobs out there. Others would break down, saying they felt too old or too ugly or too stupid and so things hadn’t worked out. It was often the case that only after they left, having cleared their cubicles and sworn never to solve another riddle, that their phones began to ring.
Get low, get low, get low, get low. The lyrics thumped against the drywall partition. He will call you in soon, the guard told me. I nodded, reassured. I have to be at my other job in two hours, he added. I asked the guard what else he did. I’m a mechanic, he said. The guard said he’d always had two, sometimes three jobs. Before the office, he worked as a bouncer at a venue in the Meatpacking District. The guard had not known much about the venue, he’d never even stepped foot inside it, but he claimed it attracted the worst
kind of people. Patrons were entitled, vain and indulgent. They would enter the venue in a mostly orderly fashion but when leaving, they became vitriolic and aggressive. They called the guard names, raised their voice at him, sometimes even spat on him. Motherfucker–I got called that more than anything else, said the guard. When my mother died, I decided I couldn’t work there any longer.
The music stopped, and the interviewer exited his office. He did not speak but held a broad, pantomime smile. It was the first time I could see his teeth in full. Long, stained teeth like tiled limestone worn from dirtied feet. I looked between the guard and the interviewer, waiting for direction on what to do next. The interviewer then cleared his throat and turned to the guard. He took his left hand and shook it, an act that seemed uncanny and infrequent between the two. The guard then looked at me and nodded before leaving the waiting room. The interviewer continued standing in front of his office, staring at me, smiling. It was not until he heard the faint close of the main entrance door that he began to speak.
Was this your intention all along? To sit there and play the long game? Did you know when you applied you would make it this far? I don’t even think you need to be here. Why are you here? You could be somewhere else. Where they play better music and there are beanbags and a tea station. You could sip peppermint teas and eat Monte Carlos whenever you please. How much for you to fuck off? Fuck off and never come back, never interview again. How much for you to be free? Find a good man, bear his children, and make a life. Is your uterus damaged? Your fallopian tubes, do they leak? How did things get so bad that you ended up here? You are still here. Do you still want to come in?
Yes, I said.
Elena Macdonald is a writer from Eora/Sydney. Her work spans themes of womanhood, migration, and settlement. Most recently, she led communications and storytelling for Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia (CRSA). She is currently completing a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Sydney and working on her first book-length project.
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