Head Hunters

1-3-2001

To start, I was glad for Harry Potter, the English accent that has taken over the voices in my head was comforting and I made the drive to Oakbrook Terrace flawlessly. Once there, however, I felt lost, I had only an address and no visual picture of where I was going... I went to the wrong building and almost slipped on the slick marble. Feeling stupid I got back in my car and found the right parking garage and parked. I missed the elevator so I waited.

When I got off of the elevator a man was standing there. "What was the floor you were just on?" He asked me. I was startled. I mumbled, backed up and tried hard to say, "What was the question?" The second time I understood. "Two" I said. "Two? And not three?" "Yes two." He disappeared around the corner.
I found the elevators inside. I pushed the number 13 and shuddered. The last job was on the 13th floor. I shifted my weight back and forth to get the full rush of riding an elevator. It was fast. The doors opened and I stood in front of a giant letter U with an elongated C encircling it like a halo. It was the right logo, I had looked up the website the night before. I was in the right place

As I later would discover I was lucky that there was someone at the desk. "Can I help you?" she asked, and I wondered if anyone could. "I have a ten o clock appointment with Lauren" I said, glancing at the clock above her. 10:10. "Have you filled out one of our forms before?" she said her eyes telling me that the whole appointment formality was a scam. "No." I said and she explained the forms to me and I pretended to pay attention. I took the forms and sat down. She hurried away.
I started with the checklist, thousands of computer terms I sifted through, most of them I had heard of but the rating system was not thought-out well. The categories were "1. School, 2. Junior, 3. Average. 4. Above average and 5. Expert." There was also a space for the number of years. I made up my own system and checked off all of my knowledge depending on if it was stuff I liked to do or not. I flipped back to the resume section filling out what I could, feeling stupid for not bringing reference addresses with me.

A woman came in and stood around a while. She asked a young Indian man if anyone had been at the desk in a while. He said no and she rang the bell. A fat woman came out and gave her the forms. The other lobbyists handed in their clipboards and she left. They were called out one by one and I took extra time on my forms. I finished but no one was at the desk. I didn't want to ring the bell or talk to the fat lady so I just sat and listened.
I could hear people shouting in the other room but not what they were saying, and I realized that below it all there was a familiar sound. I couldn't place it at first it seemed like a hum but it comforted me. I tried to focus in on it. The hum changed and I found I knew what the next sound would be, then I remembered it, the singing started but I couldn't hear it well. I sang in my head instead. It progressed and I tried to keep up, veering off rhythm. Then for some reason the talking died down and I heard the first clear words. "And when I go there I go there with you"

The bell-ringing girl put her clipboard on the desk. I got up and placed mine exactly in line with hers. "Good idea" I said. She nodded. Finally the fat lady came in and took the clipboards. She came back a few seconds later and said "he'll be with you in a minute, and so will she". The other girl got a man I thought, wondering if I should have put the name Laurie n the box marked "recruiter. A good-looking young man came into the room and looked me in the eye. "Ian" he said and I got up he told me his name but I didn't hear it. He asked how I found the place and I said fine but it was hard to tell which building. He smiled sort of emptily and said, "Yes, they aren't marked well."

So we sat down and he explained the open office philosophy as if it was this amazing thing and explained that after he looked through my form if I could just give him 20 or 30 minutes he would go and talk to his colleagues and try and get some leads and maybe even a phone interview. I was kind of confused but I said it sounded fine. He went through my form and my resume and I felt proud of my accomplishments. He seemed to respond favorably to things I said and I felt like I answered questions pretty well. Although I felt really stupid every time I saw a section I hadn't filled out. I wanted badly to make excuses but I restrained myself.
He finished with the form and told me some more formalities and then asked if I had 20 or 30 minutes once more. Sure I said, that will be fine. And I sat in the lobby. Two lobby ladies were talking about kids and how bad the drive was. One didn't like her drive to work and she wanted something closer. The other had just graduated after 6 years of school and raising kids. She kept saying she couldn't find work because she had a degree in Information Systems Management and not computer science and she didn't have any experience. I felt bad-- and young. Recruiters came in and talked to people, they said company names and asked about late shifts nodded a lot and then said goodbye. My guy came back in asked me if he had written the address to the Children's Village website correctly. He forgot an S and he left. I thought about going in to tell him that most of the site was mine but there was some bad new stuff that I didn't do. He came back in and said the address didn't work. I looked at what he had written down and said it was right. That it worked last night. He shook his head and walked away. I picked up a Newsweek and read the cartoons. One of them said something about a dotcom. Then I remembered. I told him the site was a dotorg but it was a dotcom, I almost got up to tell him but I thought better of it

A young woman came in with an old woman to tell a chubby young man about some crap data entry job at Motorola and he pretended to be excited, mentioning several times he would take anything, smirking to conceal his desperation. The old lady stood behind the desk a moment trying to look official and a young woman came in from behind a frosted glass door that I had been watching for reflections of my guy. " My guy" I thought, I don't remember his name. The young woman was wearing a trench coat and sneakers and she looked pissed off. "What is it this time?" the old lady asked. "I' don't feel well” said the young one. The old lady gave her a nasty look. "Sit down and I'll deal with you in a minute and she did.

I pulled my guy's card out of my pocket and found his name. Brent. I looked up and the sick girl was gone. Maybe she snuck out. Brent came back with a list. I told him about the .com and he smiled and wrote it down. The list had cool names like Black Dog and Planet Interactive. They sounded promising. He asked if I had two more minutes and I said yes. He came back two minutes later and said some banter about checking with colleagues and making presentations and then said it was lunch time and to call him on Friday if I didn't hear from him first. So I packed up and said good luck to the chubby guy who reminded me that I put my envelope under my chair. I thanked him a little too much but I was grateful. I pulled on my hood and hit the elevator button got on an up elevator by accident but I had where the streets have no name in my head.

And I was back to Harry Potter, I cheered out loud when he won the quidditch match and I kept shouting at the radio as the suspense built. I got on the wrong freeway and had to get off at the other end of the city. I drove slowly and calmly engrossed in the plot, cheering for Harry, being worried about him. And then I was home, for the first time I took Harry in with me, I lay on the floor and listened until it was the end. Harry was looking forward to the best summer ever. So was I.