works of fiction

A fruitless day at work...

10:00 am: I got Hal Willis' file and had to verify that he was currently working where he said he was. I called the company at the phone number he listed and was greeted with this message, 'Hi. This is Hal Willis, and I ain't home. Leave me a message. Later.' As I later found out, the company that Hal said he worked at was fictitious and the number was for his cell phone. Rule number one when lying on your resume: make sure that you change your answering machine to at least match your imaginary job.

1:43 pm: I had the pleasure of talking to Rosa. She listed on her application that she graduated with an associates degree back in 1977. One call to the school was all it took to find out that Rosa had been taking one class about every two years and then dropped out completely in 1985. She never got a degree. I called her to find out about her attendance in school (and to find out about her past three jobs that she had listed...two of which were mysteriously 'out of business' and the last one had no records of her ever having worked there). So I asked Rosa, 'the school can't seem to find your records...did you graduate in 1977?' After a long, quiet pause, Rosa said, 'yes. Look, I gotta go, I was about to mow the lawn.'

4:48 pm: Before I left for the day, Curtis, who I had called earlier because the high school that he went to claimed that he had never graduated, returned my call. I had phoned him last week and asked him to fax me a copy of his diploma so that I could forward it to the school so that they could verify it so that Curtis would be considered for the job opening. I answered the phone and Curtis told me, 'I already got that job. So, if you want to call the school, go ahead, but I'm not going bother looking to find my diploma for you.'

Ah yes, another worthy applicant back in the workforce.