Monday October 2nd, 2006
Fucking X-Box Live / Interview
So two years ago I was living with my brother Scott who owned an X-Box. Not content with merely whipping my ass at Halo 2 he wanted to sign up for X-Box live and play online. I owed him some money so I put the X-Box live membership on my credit card.
Scott has since moved out, with his X-Box. Therefore you can imagine my surprise to get my credit card statement and find I’ve been charged 49.99 for an X-Box live renewal I never authorized, for a service I can’t use, on a game system I don’t own.
I was instantly angry, not the fault of the unlucky operator who would eventually get to answer my fun call, but I’ve heard more than one friend remark about similar events where they cancelled X-Box live memberships and ended up having to pay for them in the end because of various loop holes like their subscription ended on a Tuesday and they played that Wednesday so they owe the 49.99. It took about twenty minutes to hit the right combination of buttons to supposedly be waiting on the line for a real person. Another twenty minutes goes by and my impatience coupled with my need to get ready for my interview forced me to hang up.
I’ve been unemployed for about three months now. (Part of the motivation/time I’ve had for this site.) In that time I’ve realized that there’s no good TV on during the day and it’s amazing how much energy doing nothing takes. My routine has been to wake up and get out of bed (Usually) and go right to the computer. I look for jobs until I end up accidentally or intentionally clicking on a link to porn. I say accidentally because all my porn links are labeled something else so that if someone checks out my computer they don’t think I’m a pervert. If however they click on a link labeled “Driving Directions” I’ll have a lot of explaining to do. Anyway once I click on porn I get sucked into a black hole of pornography that sometimes lasts fifteen minutes, and has been known to last an entire day. Today would not be one of those days.
Looking myself over in the mirror before heading out I realize I look heavier than I did the last time I put on this outfit. Not the confidence booster I needed before my fourth actual interview since I was laid off. Which is to say nothing of the millions of resumes I’ve faxed or e-mailed. Parking my crappy Honda Civic just far enough away that no one will know what I drove to my interview I thought to myself that I really hope I get this job, not because it’s a good job, just that it might help with the whole fat guy shut in thing.
I’m waiting in the lobby less than two minutes when a chunky version of Seth Green comes out to escorts me to “Jeff’s” office. There I meet Jeff, a George Clooney look a like dressed like a used car salesman who gives me a firm handshake and asks me to sit in the hot seat. I expected chunky Seth Green to leave but instead he took a seat in another chair diagonal from both me and Mr. Clooney and looked at my resume. I was kind of shocked when he started to ask me questions since A.) He never introduced himself and B.) It was hard to picture him as a potential boss.
This didn’t throw off my usual bull shit interview mode. If he asked me if I knew how to do something I’ve heard of, I said yes. If he asked me if I knew how to do something I never heard of I said, “It’s been a while” or “I’m familiar but might need a little refresher.” I know I’m getting older but I can quite honestly say this was the first interview in which the person interviewing me referred to me as, “Dude.” I might have been better off coming to the interview in ripped geans and my “I’d fuck me” T-shirt. In the end I don’t think I did a very convincing interview. On the drive home I decided to drown my sorrows in a Wendy’s Frosty and give the X-Box live fucks another try, which turned out to be equally unfruitful.
