Interview Didn't Go Well, but the Job Did

Were you ever belittled during a job interview? I was.

In December 1970, I was on a layoff from the Second Best Electric Company (SBEC), and collecting unemployment benefits, aka a weekly check. I had just completed my first accounting class at the local community college and had registered for another evening accounting class during the spring semester.

On Thursday, December 31, I went to the Department of Employment Security (DES) to discuss employment opportunities with a counselor. After he reviewed my work history and education background, he thumbed through a stack of index cards to determine if I was qualified for any of the available jobs. “How would you like to work for a CPA?” he asked, flashing a Cheshire cat grin. “Mr. C is looking for a receptionist who can help with the bookkeeping.”

That sounded like a good opportunity. I liked accounting, and I had done very well in the class. I also had worked temporarily in the accounts receivable area at the SBEC, so I did have some experience in basic bookkeeping procedures, well, mostly in auditing accounts receivable balances. Getting experience in small business bookkeeping seemed like something that eventually might get me a better job, preferably in a larger city that had more opportunities.

The counselor wrote out a card introducing me to Mr. C, gave me directions on how to get there, and wished me good luck.

At first, I thought I had walked into an empty office. Then I heard voices coming from somewhere. I ventured farther into the front office, peeked into another room, and discovered two more offices. An older woman was sitting in the back office, talking to someone I couldn’t see. When she noticed me, she came out and asked me what I was doing there. I explained that a DES counselor had sent me for a job interview with Mr. C. She frowned, rolled her eyes, and went back into the office, where she muttered something I didn’t catch. A few minutes later, Mr. C. shuffled out.

Mr. C looked past retirement age, way past retirement age. He also looked as if he had slept in his suit that seemed to be a size too big. After greeting me with a scowl and a growl, he parked me at the shabby not-so-chic receptionist’s desk and told me he would be back in a few minutes. He then proceeded to keep me waiting for what seemed like forever while he chatted with the woman.

I gave up trying to eavesdrop on their conversation and picked up a coffee-stained document I found on the desk. I spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to make sense of a convoluted list of office rules that referenced Mr. C’s wife and his brother who apparently were partners in the business. I wondered where the brother was and how old he was. I assumed the woman talking with Mr. C was Mrs. C.

I put the list aside and checked out my potential office. A couple of metal file cabinets sat against one wall. Additional standard equipment included a telephone, a manual typewriter of undetermined age, and a bulky machine studded with what looked like a half-zillion numbered keys. It had no electrical cord attached; instead, the machine had a lever on one side.

I really don’t want to do this, I thought. A few minutes later, I made up my mind to go back to the DES office and ask for another referral. Before I could sneak out, the woman came and told me that Mr. C would deign to speak with me. She ushered me through the second office that had cardboard boxes piled several feet high against one wall. A tin box about the size of an apartment refrigerator sat on the other side of the room, along with more cardboard boxes and a few metal storage cabinets.

Mr. C’s cluttered office looked as if it hadn’t been updated — or dusted — since the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration. In addition to the outdated furniture and office equipment, packages of snack food and jars of Planter’s peanuts were strewn over a second desk. Mr. C pointed at the chair the woman had recently vacated. Against my better judgement, I handed him the introductory card and sat down.

I don’t remember most of the things we discussed. But I did mention that I had used an electric typewriter and an adding machine at my previous job. Mr. C sneered and said, “Electric typewriters and adding machines are no good for this type of work.” In answer to one of my questions, he told me the machine with the half-zillion keys was a comptometer, which, apparently, was good for this type of work. He then belittled the accounting class I had just completed and informed me that I knew absolutely nothing about accounting.

I guess he wasn’t impressed by my A in the accounting class.

Mr. C’s patronizing attitude made me feel like the dumbest thing on two feet. I wanted to get up and walk out. But what would he tell the DES counselor?

Despite my perceived shortcomings, he offered me the receptionist/bookkeeper position. I wanted a job, but not that one. Working there wouldn’t be a good fit for me — mainly because of Mr. C’s crummy attitude and the prehistoric office equipment I would be required to use. And then there was his wife. I probably would have to work under her supervision. If she was anything like him, would I be able to get along with her?

My first instinct was to tell him thank you, but no thank you.

However, I knew the DES counselor would follow up with Mr. C. So I felt I had no choice; it was either accept the job or lose my unemployment benefits. I accepted the job and went home and spent the long weekend sobbing intermittently.

I showed up for work on Monday, resigned to making the best of it until I could find a more suitable job. I arrived before Mr. C did and was greeted by my new co-worker who was sweeping the front office. I thought it odd that his wife had arrived before he did. And she seemed surprised to see me. She was horrified when I addressed her as Mrs. C. Oh, wonderful, she wasn’t his wife. Her name was Esther, and she was his secretary/ bookkeeper.

Mr. C strolled into the office about twenty minutes later. He also seemed surprised to see me. I figured that, for some unknown reason, they never expected me to show up. After Mr. C left the office, presumably to visit a client, Esther confided that I was a replacement for a previous DES referral who had turned out to be an unreliable slacker. When I asked about the list of rules, she told me to disregard it. Mr. C’s brother and his wife no longer worked there. So far, that news was the most positive thing about the job.

After I got to know Esther, she admitted she didn’t like working for Mr. C. She planned to stick it out because she wanted to retire in a few years. I later learned she had walked out on her long-term former employer about ten months before because of a conflict of interest with his wife. Although she had interviewed at other companies, Mr. C was the only one who had offered her a job.

I suspected that Esther also was a DES referral.

Esther and I were a great team. We worked with minimal supervision. We knew what had to be done, and we did it well and on time. If there was a chore one of us didn’t particularly like to do, we compromised. For example, Esther agreed to keep on sweeping and dusting the front office on Monday. And I agreed to maintain and operate the tin behemoth in Esther’s office, which turned out to be an ancient copier, aka the glorified ditto machine.

Mr. C usually was out of the office for part of the day. And when he was there, he seldom discussed anything with us. Most of the time, he didn’t even say good morning when he arrived. And if he did, he just sort of growled it at us on the way to his office. When there was something special that had to be done, he left us hand-scribbled instructions that often were confusing. He always wrote them in one paragraph, no matter how long they were. In hindsight, I think Mr. C would have loved e-mail. E-mail would have saved him from spending money on yellow legal pads and generic sticky notes. And the e-mail messages would have at least been legible.

My starting wage was $2.00 an hour, which was more than the current minimum wage; however, I received only a five-cent an hour raise each year during the next two years. To keep us around, Mr. C paid us a small annual bonus in May. The promise of that money was like a carrot on a stick, so to speak. The bonus was our reward for not bailing during tax time.

Our workload could get super crazy during tax time, which lasted from the middle of January to the April deadline. One year, Mr. C took pity on us and hired a part-time employee to help out. Lillian was a previous DES referral who had worked in our office for a short time a few years before. She needed a temporary second job and had contacted Mr. C. I was put in charge of training Lillian. As it turned out, I also was in charge of correcting most of her work.

Although clients appreciated our efforts, Mr. C never praised us for doing a good job in keeping the office running smoothly. On the other hand, he never complained about our work. I assumed I was doing a good job, but it would have been nice to have received some positive feedback.

One morning, about three months after I had started working for Mr. C, a personnel specialist from the SBEC called my parents’ house and told my mother she had a job for me. When I got the message, I considered the offer for five minutes. Then I told Mom, “Call the SBEC and tell them I’m not coming back. And ask them to please send me the money I contributed to the pension fund.”

The way things were going at the SBEC, I eventually would have been laid off again. I didn’t want to work for Mr. C forever. However, I realized that experience working in a CPA office would look better on a resume than experience auditing accounts receivable balances or doing whatever busy work the SBEC personnel specialist had in mind for me.

I worked for Mr. C for two and a half years. I prepared monthly write-ups and all types of tax-related forms, including quarterly payroll tax reports, sales tax reports, and individual and small business income tax returns. I prepared a weekly payroll and wrote payroll checks for a popular restaurant. I also typed annual financial statements on translucent master copies and made duplicate copies on the glorified ditto machine.

Among my “other duties as required,” I deciphered many of Mr. C’s hand-scribbled hieroglyphics and edited them into intelligible documents, including letters to clients and the IRS. I searched through old client records stored in the cardboard boxes and located documents needed for IRS audits. And I learned how to fib to clients, IRS agents, and a process server.

I left when felt I had learned everything I could learn there, along with a few things I didn’t necessarily want to learn. It was time for me to move on. After I gave my notice to Mr. C, Esther told me how pleased he had been when I accepted the job.

[Note: For another story about Mr. C, please see the blog post following this essay: “We Suspected He Lied About His Age.”]

Excerpt from Adventures in Working
copyright 2019