Charades

Only after we’ve arrived do they tell us that we will be interviewed as a group. We glance at each other and shrug, because we might as well. We’ve already submitted our resumes, retyped the exact same information from those resumes into the internal hiring portal, and passed the first round of screening questions:

Why do you want this job?

What are your weaknesses?

If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?

What was your most traumatic childhood experience?

Now here we are, ill-fitting suits and fresh pantyhose and new haircuts. The receptionist smiles and ushers us to the conference room to meet our interviewers.

They are large crocodiles. The panel of judges crouches behind the long table, thick, shining tails piled behind them. They spread their webbed claws, clicking against the mahogany as they rifle through a pile of papers. The leftmost reptile turns his snout sideways and looks me up and down. His marbled eye shutters closed as a membrane slides across to moisten it.

I turn to look at my co-interviewees, but they hardly show their nerves. The short girl is determined, jaw set, looking straight ahead. The boy with the slicked back hair clenches his fists. Only the girl wearing slacks returns my look. She licks her lips then faces forward again.

One of the crocodiles slides a piece of paper toward the receptionist. She clears her throat and reads from the paper: “Sell yourself in six words or less.”

We take turns.

“Creative independent with a growth mindset.”

“Recent grad, perfectionist, ready to work.”

“Happy to work nights and weekends.”

I brace myself: “Confused, but excited to be here.”

The crocodiles exhale loudly through their nostrils. It’s hard to tell whether our answers are well-received, but their toothy jaws seem to be grinning cheerfully. They pass another sheet to the receptionist. She reads: “Pretend you are a seed. Without speaking, act as though you are bursting from the soil, sprouting, growing upwards, and blooming into a flower.”

The other three immediately squat down and contort their bodies into round shapes. I follow suit. We push against the invisible dirt packed above us. The girl wearing slacks breaks through the crust first, her palms pressed together, then slowly opening like a seedling’s first leaves. We wiggle upwards, slowly stretching our bodies into stems. Our hands open and close, leaves reaching to the sun of the fluorescent lighting, then finally blossom out from our smiling faces, arms stretched wide and waving like fluttering petals. We freeze.

One of the crocodiles emits a throaty, guttural sound. The receptionist nods and thanks us for our time. As she pulls out a spray bottle to mist her employers’ scales, she miscalculates somehow. The closest crocodile thrashes and snaps its jaws closed around one of her legs. She lets out a gurgling scream while the crocodile spins into a death roll.

We ignore this and turn to the other three crocodiles. “Thank you so much for the opportunity, hope to hear from you soon.” As we walk out into the bright sunlight of the day, shoulders slack with obvious relief, we shake each other’s hands. “Good luck!”