The Things One Will Do

Probably because of all the job hunting I’ve been doing lately, I had this crazy dream that I applied to be a receptionist at a dance studio, but when I went in for an interview, the woman there was like, “Now, you must dance for me.”  And I was all, “Um, but I’m applying to take calls and do schedules and smile and say ‘Hi!’ all cheerily to people when they walk in.”  But she was like, “You dance now!”  It was really weird and I’m rather glad it was a dream except, oh wait:

It really fucking happened.

I used the internet for job searching to no avail.  Then, I used the paper, to a tiny bit of an avail, but ultimately horridness.  So then I decided on the perfect mix of the two: Craigslist.

Craigslist is great because everything is equal--no ad stands out more than any other.  Of course half of the things are scams, but seeing as I’m kind of a genius I can pick them out.  Where Craigslist fails is that it is up for so much human error.  It makes me the judge, jury and executioner; I can tell from an ad if the writer is a complete moron, but I’m often overly judgmental and a little typo becomes a big deal to me.

That “I” isn’t capitalized!  What a fucking moron!  Ugh, they’re probably a rapist who wants to “interview” me in a van.

But then I send in a resume anyway.

I replied to upwards of thirty ads in one night, a relatively easy task, and one actually replied to me!  First of all, let’s take a look at the ad, verbatim:

Looking for part time-evenings employee to work for [Name of Place] Greet Students ,make phone calls. do schedualing, and reports. Dance backround is helpful but not nessary 

Okay, typos are prevalent, but they actually had the organization’s name and a phone number and address, so I knew it was legit.  They said I had to apply in person.  Fine.  I did on Monday.

I go in, fill out a form, and this woman asks me to come back at 4:30 to dance.  I think I haven’t heard correctly because this woman is some kind of Asian and her English is  questionable, pronunciation skewed.  Dance?  Like, audition?  Yes.  Dance.  But I’ve never danced.

“It okay--I teach you.”

Great.

I’ll find out later that this woman is, as she says it, “not cheap” and has been on Dancing With The Stars.  That’s right--she’s a big deal.

So, I went home and stressed out.  She told me I’d meet my “competitors” when I came back.  I imagined them, long-legged, graceful on heels, perfect bodies, dancing since before they could walk.  I was going to be laughed out of the studio.  It was going to be So You Think You Can Dance? and I was going to be Sex:

But I was determined.  I needed a job and, dammit, this was the only place that responded.  I’ll fucking dance if you say to dance, pride and ability be damned!  I found more suitable dancing clothes than my business casual black slacks and dress shirt.  I’ve seen lots of dancing TV shows, I know what those kids wear.  If I was going to suck at this, I was at least going to look good sucking, so I put on nude pantyhose, black short-shorts, a pink tank top, and my dress heels (she said to wear them).  I looked good.  Too good.  I freaked out and found knee-length shorts and pulled them on over the other three layers covering my already broken-out-into-nervous-sweats vagina.

Back at the studio I sat on their teal, ripped, deflated couch, waiting.  I was early, to show my promptness.  Then another girl comes in.  She’s tall, blonde, smiling wider than her face should have allowed her, and wearing a dress and accessories.  I think she works there already.  Is she going to, like, judge me?  Help me?  I’m scared of her already.  She goes to the counter, “I’m a would-be receptionist for the group interview.”

Shit.

She sits down next to me.  Her ass hit’s the seat, and I immediately hate her.  This hate is only amplified later by her plastic bitchery and possibly egged on slightly by the fact that she’s loads better than me.  Still, I attempt niceties while on the couch, trying to stamp out the embers of hate encircling my brain.  No, don’t attempt, friggin excel at.  I’ve never been that open and cordial to a stranger while not being paid to do so in my life.  She smiles brightly at me and every word out of her mouth is plastic and catty, but she’s smiling so goddamn much you can’t call her out on it or not smile back.  It was horrible.

Example: Dude in the running with us offers her a piece of gum.  She refuses.  He chews nervously and they kind of chat while he does so.  He then gets up and goes and spits out the gum so he’s not chewing it while dancing.  Girl says, “Well, that was full of couth.”  Total bitch move.  However, she’s smiling that re-goddamn-diculous smile and her inflection is amiable, so it’s like “Shit, how do I respond?”  And the only way to react is just to kind of take it and be nervous.

Anyway, she quickly gets out of the conversation with me and starts talking to the temporary receptionist--a grown man who’s used the same joke on her that he used on me a few minutes ago (“Ah, so you’re here to take my job!”) and that he’ll then use on the other three candidates who I see come in.  All of her responses are borderline rude, but done through this ridiculous smile that says, “Oh, I’m only joking--no need to get all huffy” before you even have the chance to huff once.

Enough of her though.  I ended up in a class with about seven other people, none of whom really had any kind of formal training.  This calmed me except they were all in business casual clothes and I was in my Halloween-esque SYTYCD getup.  I was, just for a second, overwhelmingly thrilled to have that fourth layer on and not black hotpants.  We learn to waltz and some other partnered things.  I do acceptably and the teacher is my partner.  She tells me I’m doing good.  Well, I do know how to count music.  We all switch partners.  Now I’m with some girl.  She’s actually nice.  She isn’t, however, rhythmic in any sense of the word.  She’s the male, I have to follow her, but she has a complete disregard for the music.  And her counting isn’t even in any kind of time with itself.  I get yelled at for counting aloud and trying to get her on beat.  This is frustrating because later we’ll get yelled at for being out of time with the music.  I want to scream, “Bitch, I can fucking count!  I’ve played music for almost ten years!  I’m the only one here who knows what ¾ time is!  PLEASE BELIEVE ME!!!”

By the end I’m frustrated, but by God I am smiling like someone’s stapled the corners of my lips to my ears.

I get a short interview with the owner.  He asks me to tell him about myself then interrupts me and actually does all the talking.  We spend less than five minutes together.  There’s no hand shaking.  I do get to tell him about my martial arts training.  Guess what?  He’s trained too.  I find that lots of people tell you this, then they quickly abridge it with some random color they got to (which doesn’t matter because it’s different among different schools, but they don’t know this because they haven’t been practicing long enough to know that) and then you also find out it was when they were ten.  So, to him, martial arts were something his parents made him do to “shut him up.”  Great.

Once I got home I realized we were all asked to come back the next day for another lesson.  So there are two sides to this.  First, the one everyone else sees: “That’s so cool and so much fun--free dance lessons!”  This is true.  It really was fun in it’s own way.  However, it wasn’t recreational for me or anyone else there.  It was a competition for a part-time secretary that, apparently, also needed to be trained in dancing for the school’s parties and stuff.  It was me with no other prospects whatsoever.  It was me, driving to and from having mood swings that brought from tears to elation at the prospects of getting or not getting this job.  It was terrifying and sad and embarrassing.

I also realized that no one had put a cap on where this thing ended.  After another day of classes we were all invited back again.  There were less of us though, people had cut themselves, and the position actually seemed within reach.  I’d committed three days of sweating to them after all, I think I was entitled to a bit of optimism about it.

Finally, on the forth day, I got a second interview directly after the class.  This is the real bullshit part.  The owner tells me they’ve chosen two people from the class to continue on with training for the job.  But this was directly after our lesson--this decision was made before I stepped in the door that day.  This was a completely wasted day.  A day I could have spent in New Lexington seeing my friends instead of rushing back just to be berated for not being amazing at something I’d only just learned a few days prior.  They could have called me, saved me time, gas, bodily fluids.

But here’s the consolation prize--I could continue on if I wanted, just in case someone didn’t “graduate” their program and they still needed somebody.  The fact that I hadn’t been chosen was still sinking in when this was offered to me, so I took it.  I was still smiling but I knew it was kind of falling.  I forgot to thank anyone for whatever opportunity I’d been given.  I don’t even remember how I retrieved my keys before I left.  In a way I was completely heartbroken--it certainly wasn’t my dream job, but I’d devoted so much time and effort to it, and I’d screwed up The Boyfriend’s vacation which we didn’t go on because I had an interview.  I stopped at Giant Eagle on the way home because I was embarrassed and felt like crap about ruining The Boyfriend’s chance at going anywhere.  I had to traverse the store twice in my heels to find bread.

So this post is really coming off way more depressing than I had originally intended.  I don’t mean it to be--it’s behind me now and this is my way of closure.  My intention was to offer you an anecdote about the ridiculousness that has been my past week.  So, to lift the mood, please enjoy this lolcat: