Confessions of a Serial Interviewer by Steve Ra Ga

I recall applying to this job, it was a sales associate in an art gallery.

I wrote them a cover letter that read to the tune of “I am a sales expert and I am an artist and I am the best person for the job.”

My 1st day was in joint my interview. I basically was hired on the spot.

It was a new art gallery downtown in one of the malls.

The concept was an art gallery with a twist, they had amazing wall art from some profound artists and then a handful of amateur artists. Their contract was weird it basically said “if you die, we own the rights to your art and all the profits.”. I thought who would sign this. They basically had a sweat shop for art people. When I went to the back room briefly I saw some the art people installing tiles on the floor, like they were doing it on their own behalf.

They business was basically hawking amateur stuff on unsuspecting consumers by entrapping them with the few really big names in the store. They need a sales guy to help sell the art.

Seems simple.

The day I started was their soft launch and it was chaos. There were two owners who each had different ideas of how to run the store. When I got there (owner A) told me to greet customer and go through the process of selling similar to a retail store. (Owner Z) told me only to stay in a very small space by the door and just say hi to customers.

They didn’t give me any back story or any script to follow. When I asked them for a history, one said “it’s similar to a store in Sweden” “great I said, I can tell people that.” “No” one owner said “don’t tell them anything” to me this seemed unorganized and a tad shady.

It was clear the owners were Israeli and I suddenly felt like I was involved in some kind of sting operation.

As time passed (owner Z) decided I would go into the back room and help their Marketing Manager.

When I got to the back room the marketing manager didn’t have clue what was happening, he was just some kid who go the job and said he had a plan, he had allegedly taken a client list from his old job and was going to call everyone on the list to invite them to the grand opening.

I was called into the back room to help because a girl that was roped into calling was getting frustrated by everyone saying no on the other end of the phone. They had no idea why she was calling or how she got their number.

I was there maybe 10 mins when (owner A) peaked his head in and was confused why I was there “No, no, no you are sales you need to be at the front.” He excitedly explained to me. I followed him back to the front. I waited to great people.

Soon an odd looking street kid came zooming up to the front, he had a dirty bmx bike, he wore army clothes and have his face was tattooed. He asked his a certain person was her and that his buddy told him to come as this company was looking for Artist.

Since I was aware of the Artist sweat shop I figured he must have had an interview. So we put his bike in the back and asked him to wait on the couch, he started to show me his art on an old Sony camera. It was some impressive graffiti art, he told me he paints that stuff in less than 20mins. I was very impressed.

(Owner Z) comes out and see the street kid, doesn’t even pause to ask a question before he yells at the kid to get out the store. He immediately profiled him and was disgusted by the kid, he kicked him out and almost forgot his bike, then the owner barked at me about putting the bike in the back room.

Since I need the work I stayed though I was very upset by the way this guy treated the art kid.

By the time my 8hrs were up, I just grabbed my stuff and left. Good riddance I thought.

Had to have been the weirdest job I have ever had .

Update…

I heard recently they went out of business. I also heard one of the artists had to call the police to get their art out of the gallery when the owners refused to give her the art back.

My suspicions were correct that these guys were a couple of con men.