Confessions of a Serial Interviewer by Steven Ra Ga

When I was younger some where between 18 and 25 I found myself looking for steady work. During that time period a friend suggested I try employment agencies, as they help with job placement.

I recall the first one I went to told me I would be making $30,000 per year to start. Because I had little experience companies didn’t want to take on more risk so a smaller salary was more manageable.

The next was a labour agency these guys are kinda ruthless. I learned later in life they work on commission and don’t care much about the person walking through the door.

1st they make you take an exam, I hate exams, I always fail them, it’s part of test anxiety, when I know I have take one I just done preform well.

I recall sitting in a room with people that looked similar to the website “mongols if box mart” and thinking “hmmm, I am not sure I belong here.” After the testing was complete a couple people got top scores, they were excited. Me I got the lowest score a basic fail….

I guess it was a blessing in disguise’s. I found out the tests were to see if you could work an assembly line, guess that’s not in my future lol.

After that the guy said he could get me a job at BLURT, this was a massive company and a factory as big as a football stadium it was huge.

I showed up on the day I was told to, I had my steel shoes on and ready to start work. The manager lead me on a 20min walk to my station where I met another guy. He was Mexican from Mexico I was blown away, I didn’t know there were Mexicans in my city (I grew up in a white community as a kid with little exposure to other races) he was so friendly.

My job was to wrap doors! Haha like really who knew that was a thing. The doors (like front house doors) were in a stack, looked like they just came off the assembly line. Rick and I were tasked with wrapping the doors in shrink wrap and placing them on in a different pile.

This was tough, because Rick and I were different sizes so I had to bend over more and of course I wasn’t strong enough…

Eventually I fucked up, I stood on the door when moving another door. Rick blurted out “Hey man, don’t stand on the doors!” He had that broken english as a second language accent when he spoke, it reminded me of a Cheech & Chong episode so I began to laugh aloud until I realized where I was, oops.

Of course I did it a couple more times on accident.

ALERT!!

A loud noise rang through the factory, and a robotic voice said “Lunch time you have 30mins”.

In steel toe, I had to walk through the whole factory, 20mins later I made it to the cafe and was able to get a couple items to eat.

When the day was done, it was time to grab the bus, but there was only 1 bus and if you missed it you would get stuck in that part of town for hours with nothing to do.

This was before the time it Uber and cabs were expensive.

I finally made it home hours later, I decided that job wasn’t for me.

I went back to the labour office to collect my paycheque, they didn’t want to payment and told me to wait in the lobby.

I wait 5hrs, and tried to be as annoying as possible, laying all over their furniture until they paid me, when the guy finally came out he said “ You know it’s only $60” I said “$60 is a lot of money to me”. He paid me and I left.

When you are broke $1 can mean a lot to you. I never went back to those labour help companies. I just went door to door applying to jobs while handing out paper copies.