A PICTURE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS

The Interview Under the Stairs

Try being a tourist in London while you’re figuring out your next career move.

Please pick up. I really want this job.

The phone rings once, twice, three times. With each ring, my heart pounds faster.

Two days ago, I was contacted for an interview for an eight-month internship in Toronto, Canada. Getting all of my ducks in a row while I’m preparing to sell myself to a potential employer is nerve-wracking enough.

But I’m not even in Canada. I’m thousands of miles away on exchange in London, England. And of course, I had to take this call straight after I was done classes and smack dab in the middle of one of the city’s most touristy areas.

Across the River Thames, I could see the London Eye, the tallest ferris wheel in Europe. Of course, when an attraction has the accolade, “tallest anything” attached to it, a ton of people are going to be at said attraction.

While it was my first time in the U.K. and I eagerly soaked in seeing world-famous sights like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London, the London Eye was underwhelming to me. There are ferris wheels all over the world, and I wasn’t going to spend £30 for city view porn (Sally Prag, if riding it is actually worth the hype, please let me know). So I took my obligatory tourist snaps of the Eye when I began exploring the city and thought that would be the end of it.

Yet here I was, staring at this ferris wheel with a horrified look on my face. How on earth was I going to find anywhere on this crowded bridge, with people brushing against me left, right and centre (ah, ye olde pre-social distancing days) to take a phone call that could land me my first corporate big girl job?

It was not an “eye-deal” situation, to say the least.

The Girl Who Takes a Phone Call Under the Stairs

Among the throng of people, I spot a staircase at the bridge’s outskirts that offers a reprieve from human contact. I bolt down the stairs and find a dark slab of concrete to sit on. I can still hear the chatter of tourists above me, but at least I can also hear myself think. Perhaps the Dursleys meant well by forcing Harry Potter to be holed up in a cupboard under the stairs.

I take a deep breath and pull up the job description on my phone. I’m mentally rehearsing the answers I have prepared to convince the person on the other end of the line that yes, I, a twenty-two-year-old whose resumé consisted of working at my local mall’s chocolate shop, could add value to the external communications team of a multimillion dollar corporation.

Finally, the digital minutes on my phone clock shift and it’s time for my interview. I’m staring at it now, waiting for it to ring.

But it never does.

Enter: Panic

Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. In that span of time, no less than twenty million thoughts flood my brain’s neural pathways.

Maybe they’re in a meeting and just running late. It’s no big deal.

Okay, but they know I’m abroad, right? Do they have the right number to reach me?

What if they found my existential third-person Facebook statuses from 2008 and decided not to hire me? I mean, I wouldn’t blame them.

What if they just hate me and withdrew my interview offer?????? OH GOD NOOOOO.

Few things are as terrifying as the paranoia from full-blown panic.

I’m antsy from having my eyes glued to my phone and decide to take matters into my own hands. After some expert Googling, I find the phone number for the company’s reception desk and dial it with shaky fingers.

Long distance charges be damned. I would not let this search for a quiet corner in one of London’s most touristy areas be in vain.

Resourcefulness Saves The Day

The phone rings once, twice, three times. With each ring, my heart pounds faster.

“ Company X reception. How may I help you today?”

“Hi there, I have an interview scheduled with Melissa but never received her call. Could you please connect me to her office?”

“Please hold.”

I’m holding the line and my breath as each ring only adds to the agony I’ve been feeling.

“Company X, Melissa speaking.”

“Hi Melissa, it’s Bernice. I was expecting a call from you and my phone never rang, so I thought I’d reach out.”

“Oh, hello Bernice! We were trying to get ahold of you and the call wasn’t going through. I’m glad you were able to reach us.”

The breath rushes out of me as an exhale of relief. I’d be able to do this interview after all.

I don’t remember much else about the call, aside from trying to regain my composure enough to stumble through standard interview questions. When I finally hang up, I lean back against the concrete staircase with a sigh.

Whether I get this job or not, I knew I would remember this moment. Not many people can say they had a job interview for a position in Toronto while they were huddled under a staircase near the London Eye.

In case you were wondering, I did get the job. And it wasn’t because I wowed them with the answers to their interview questions.

Three months later, I’m talking to my boss about my interview experience. As I describe my chaotic ordeal, she laughs and says, “As soon as you called us, we knew we were hiring you. Anyone resourceful enough to find a way to reach us was someone worth having on our team.”

All of the preparation and work experience in the world didn’t matter, as it was my resourcefulness that they valued in the end.

Despite how overrated it is, I’ll always think of the London Eye fondly. It helped this twenty-something light a fire in her she didn’t know she had.

Thanks for reading! If you can stomach more of my puns, check this piece out:

This story is a response to Gaurav Jain’s amazing prompt, A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words.