Dr. Saigon

So its over! The course is done and after all that toil comes...well more toil but first I have to win the opportunity to toil in the strange human tradition known as job interviews.

There was an ad in the paper and I called to register my interest and the woman told me with no enthusiasm whatever that I could fax my resume, but of its not 1990 and nobody has a fax machine, so I asked if I could email it but no, there was no email address. Right. When I said I could just drop it off as I live locally, she said I'd get a call back to arrange an interview. She's a bit boring, but perhaps they hired a zombie receptionist, equally opportunities?

A different woman called back with the same flat voice, and I wondered if this lack of life was the result of some virus that ate away the soul. Can you come in on Saturday at 11? I could and she gave me the address. Later she calls back and says that the dentist won't be able to stay after he sees patients on Saturday, would I be able to come in at 7.30? I paused noticeably then said o-k.

Already I don't want the job because they sound like a real bag of smelly gas over there, who needs that?

I got there at 7.30 in the morning but...I was the only one there. The receptionist came at 8 and then we waited together for the dentist who decided to show up at quarter past 8 god bless him. There were a number of degrees on the wall of course but the only one I remember was issued from Saigon University? Huh?! Is that even real?

While we waited for this dentist with dubious qualifications (for a start, we'll discuss the rest of his dubiosity later) I tried to make conversation with her but I felt like an annoyance, she obviously had lots of boringness to do.

So then I gave my resume and we're having an interview. I say interview but he's just basically reading snippets off the resume and then expecting me to say something about it I felt like I was the only one who had ever been to an interview.

"Collecting typewriters" he says first, reading the hobbies section "what does that mean?"
There's only one thing that can possibly mean.
"err...y'know typewriters, I collect them" he just continued staring at the paper. Time passed. "You know...typing machines?"
"oh" he said and I realised that he was the carrier if this virus that infected his receptionists.

I was trying to be charming as is my strategy at interviews but holy hell, this man had no personality at all. Nothing. My attempts to be charming were useless, it was like pouring diamonds into a bin.

He continued to read bits off the resume and I would then elaborate, all the time he just stared at the page. He told me there was so much work there, so much work very busy. I'm so tired, he says. As if I care if he's tired! I don't give two shits if he's on fire!

Much was made of my history as a dental nurse...you're fortunate Internet Reader that
1) you haven't ever been a dental nurse and
2) that I've never told you the story of how I became one because its so boring! Who wants to hear that? If ever there was a book published on the subject, Gabriel would break the seventh seal and destroy the world entire. It was years ago and it doesn't matter.

For the rest of this mockery of an interview he told me how it was very interesting, "very in-teresting" that I was a male dental nurse. I told him matter-of-factly that it's not that unusual and he wanted to know who I worked for and why I did it for so long. Hey, here's something fuckface, I didn't know what I wanted to do, I'm not a robot like you programmed by my parents into becoming a dentist, at least I made a decision and didn't inherit it.

Some time ago in Saigon...
ROBOT VOICE: Affirmative father I will become a dentist please insert text books beep beep beep.

He did not tell me when I'd hear about the job, which fits in with the level of professionalism evident throughout the whole process. I want him to offer it to me so I can reject him, then I'll punch him in the face and ride off into the sunset on a powerful horse, smoke and rainbows billowing from my lungs.