Tara didn’t stick around Spartansburg a minute longer then she had to. She could FEEL her future slipping away from her sitting in her old room from high school. She could feel the small town gravity sucking her back in. There’s no good jobs so you can’t save money, so you can’t move out, so you can’t go somewhere with a job. And then you take a job waitressing to make ends meet and before you know if you have nothing on your CV in the last five years except selling fried crap to the same twenty people every week.
Tara was NOT falling into that future meant for her. Not after all this work. So she grinded out application, after application, after application. And it worked. She got a job back in Charleston. She would sleep in her car until she found a place to live.
When she told her mother, she hit the roof. ‘No daughter of mine is going to be homeless while we have a perfectly good roof over our heads!’ Tara didn’t make any progress arguing with her so…she just started packing.
Her mother, of course, tried to argue against it until literally the last minute.
“Are you sure about this honey?”
“I’m sure, mama.”
“Living if your car? Really?” Seeing the pain on her mother’s face was the only thing that gave Tara any reason to reconsider this. But it didn’t change anything.
“Really, I can do this!I want to do this”
April started tearing up, and hid her face.
“Mama, come on, it’s not gonna be that bad–”
“It’s not that. I’m just…I must have done something right raising you, I guess. Your mother’s proud of you.”
They hugged, Tara packed the last box of toiletries into her car, and drove off into the early morning dark. In a few hours she’d have the interview of her life on her hands.
–
The local branch of the Yeng corporation looked like the nicest place Tara had ever applied to. A big glass corporate tower a stones throw from the beach with enough real estate to surround the wide entryway with a sand-and-palm-tree garden before giving way to a parking lot with rows of handicapped and executive parking, and a neighboring parking tower for the rest. After getting her parking validated, Tara was still an hour early for this interview.
She could sit in her car, and try to read or scroll on her phone or…walk around and take in the neighborhood or…showing up early was professional but would showing up an hour early come off as desperate?
She decided to bite the bullet and head inside. The air conditioning was refreshing, even at this early hour in the morning, and even though most people weren’t in yet, the office still had an active, positive buzz. The secretary didn’t seem surprised to see her so early, and directed her towards, a waiting room where there was like a whole breakfast platter laid out. Bacon, Bagels, French Toast sticks, danishes, fruit salad, there was even some yogurt parfaits, and behind that they had coffee, tea and milk.
Tara thought they had shuffled her off somewhere a morning meeting was planned. It wasn’t until yet another secretary assured her that “those are for you” that she gave into her growling stomach and stacked bacon onto a bagel.
‘Those are for you’ She wasn’t even working here yet, and they were already treating her better than her last company! That actually made Tara more nervous. She’d heard things about Yeng while working in Charleston. Supposed to compensate well but VERY competitive in the kind of corporate position she was applying to. Tara knew she was good but was she breakfast-platter-just-for-applying good?
“Ms. West? Ms. Black will see you now.”
Tara was taken aback by the woman conducting her interview. She was young woman, tall, with a striking nose that was almost but not as big as her own, long black hair, beautiful olive skin…and stacked to the roof, jesus. Sure Piper was on the heavy side, okay, she was downright fat if Tara was being fair, but she wore it in such…high places.
And it’s not like these things jumped out at Tara all the time but the pants suit-dress shirt combo Ms. Black was wearing was so low cut and revealing it–…well Tara thought these things might jump out at her.
Tara steadied herself.
“Ms. Black?” Tara asked, extending a hand.
“Please, call me Piper. Tara, right?”
“Yeah.”
Piper stood up to shake her hand “Relax! I try to keep things fun here. Plus, your CV looked great.”
“Oh uh, thank you...Piper. That’s very kind of you.” Tara said sitting. Piper’s chair creaked and her tits bounces as she sat.
“So…lets get all the cliches out of the way. Strengths and weaknesses?”
“Well, I respond well to challenges. When there’s a new crisis I’m always the first one into the fray. But the opposite of that I’d say is my greatest weakness. When things stagnate, I tend to stagnate, and I need to work on that. Which uh, serves as a twofer because that is also why I wanted to work at this company…if we’re getting all the cliches out of the way!”
“We are! And that’s on the list!” Piper smiled, glad to see she was getting into the spirit of things.
“Where do you see yourself in five years.”
“At the Yeng Corporation.”
Piper smirked. “Doesn’t that go against the whole, stagnation, thing?”
Tara smirked back, trying to match Piper’s energy. “I didn’t say I’d be working at the same job. Yeng has a reputation for advancement opportunities.”
“You did your research.”
“I like to be prepared.”
“Well! I’m satisfied!” Piper said, turning her computer monitor around to face Tara. “Now all that we need is for you to take our personality test.”
“Okay, sure…” Tara said taking the mouse and keyboard. “Why don’t you do this one online as part of the application?”
“Oh, the Doc thought it would work better if we did this on the spot, you know? Got you in ‘interview’ mode. I’ll just step out and give you some privacy…”
It was the most unorthodox part of a job application Tara had ever seen. It asked her five times in a row, ‘are you who you say you are?’ ‘When was the last time you saw your mother in a dream’, but the question that Tara spent the most time thinking about:
”What would you do if the Yeng Corporation asked you to?”
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