“Yeah, first time on a train for a long time. I was a teacher in Hull, I’m on the way to an interview for an English teacher at Caludon Castle Comprehensive on Gas Street”
“Oh really! Well good luck” The train was coming to a halt and it was my stop. “It was really nice to meet you, Ethan. If you get the job then there’s no doubt I might bump into you again, hopefully, sometime in the near future.”
“Well thank you; I’m going to need it! It was nice to meet you too, take care!” She walked off in her pin striped trousers and jacket with her briefcase in her hand. I’d be lying if said meeting her hadn’t cheered me up a little bit.
It was approaching 8:45am and my interview was at 9:30. I had time to grab a quick coffee and maybe a bite to eat before being interrogated by a table full of sad, jumped-up sods in suits. Stereotypical I know, but I hate interviews; the thought of them makes my stomach crawl. I can remember back in 1998 when I had an interview for a school in Newcastle, I got on bad terms with the interviewers when I criticized the way they’d set the interview up. They had placed a row of desks on stage blocks and placed one chair on the floor below it, it was a very old fashioned, ineffective method and I was not impressed; I told them to shove the job. I suppose you could call me obnoxious or maybe headstrong but I have always been a keen believer in doing things my way.
I have always looked at people as projects, I could stare at them for hours on end trying to understand them; I’m not a stalker or a deviant, but curiosity is what feeds my imagination. I had to search for this new school, on the way I would be looking out for people to ‘study’, as I would like to refer to it, and see if I could guess what their occupations are or if they have families and so on. On my way out of the railway station I saw the lady from the train again, Beth. “Hello again!” I said in a much brighter tone than before.
“Oh hello there” she said in a really sweet voice.
“I caught the sun!”
“Yeah, I’d noticed!” She said with a friendly laugh.
“More public transport?”
“Yeah, unfortunately! I’m saving for a car.”
“You must be young?”
“Hey cheeky, you shouldn’t ask a lady her age!” She had a beamer of a smile; it made me feel warm. “Well alright then, yeah I’m only 22. And you?”
“25 and feeling a lot older! Are you married?” I asked in trepidation.
“No, single” She smiled. The bus was clear in the background “Oooh, that’s me! Are you catching the bus?”
“Yes, but I don’t know which one, I’m going to…”
“Caludon Castle Comprehensive” she interrupted with an undoubting smile “Yes I remember, this is the one then!” We got on the bus, but there was little conversation, it was if she was hiding something. I explained to her what my problems with interviews were. I criticized the interviewers and said that they were all precocious bastards with bureaucratic minds. If there’s anything I cant stand it’s those arrogant individuals who think they know what it’s all about. I must have winged about this for the whole of the bus journey. She laughed at my opinions and said she’d love me to work with her for a day and see what I thought then, but she wouldn’t tell me what her job was. Maybe she was ashamed of it or she thought I was some kind of weirdo and didn’t want to divulge anything about herself in case I was a rapist or something; I just didn’t know.
“Well I must be off, the schools interview room is the first gate you see from the next bus stop. It was nice to meet you again, oh and good luck!” she smiled as she slowly walked down the bus. “Thank you!” I called. She turned and waved. I remembered her mention the schools interview room, how would she know where it was?
The thought stayed with me whilst I was sitting outside the room. Hordes of school kids passed me when the bell rang, they were completely oblivious to me and this added to the stress and the sheer terror of the moment. The infinite drone of the bell sent my heartbeat racing, I could picture a brown, square desk in a dark blue room with six suited idiots, I then started to picture the interviewers and began to laugh at them, I immediately stopped as the door opened and there she was! “I’ll try not to be a precocious bastard with a bureaucratic mind, Ethan.” She looked at me with a cheeky smile.
“BETH!” I gasped with an embarrassed laugh.
The result? I got the job.
