[2] interview

Lets start in the middle or the end as all good stories do… This is how language became unguarded, domesticated it was a singular opportunity. Most of the life between the time of the black suit and now, have been cut, even Stockholm has been cut… How many interviews had he had? hundreds and thousands, many more than Foucault or even the podcasters trying to become public intellectuals. His interviews were usually banal, the kinds of everyday ones that everyone has, in other words the interviews your lives actually depend on living as we you do in the spectacle. When he first had interviews he would be nervous and on the verge falling into an existential crisis. The day before he would be stressed and sleep badly. What would a society that was not dependent on these meetings be like he wondered? Once he had an interview as a part time lecturer teaching ideology and discourse at a university in the south. Before driving to the interview he developed a migraine, took painkillers and drove a hundred and fifty miles before the blowing the interview. Even now the thought of that migraine saving his life worries him. Interviews are part of being the social figure in which labour produces, and that nowadays manifests itself as a form of social and global activity. This explains the moments after which he no longer had any interviews, what follows identifies how this is how it began to end.

Anyway this sample set of interviews was a fairly typical in our deterministic universe… The agency said that they had a job that he might like, an IT support job… At the time he worked in small system support, desktop and office support, I suppose you would call it. He read the specification in their office in farringdon whilst drinking water. We understand that you’ll see the HR department first, then have a managerial and departmental interview, then finally a director will see you… ((That day he had a morning session with his psychotherapist, Tuesday 8Am to 8.50, He has two sessions a week the second session on Friday in the late afternoon, walking up the gravel path, touching the door bell and sitting in the waiting room. He sat in the chair, Stephen sits in the chair opposite. He might be a parent, actually he might be a woman, a human anyway. Certainly human. He looks at my face, he cannot look at hers. We never touch. We will never touch. His eyes never meet the therapists. He pays monthly through the banking app on his phone. During the session he told him about the HR interview with the company. The psychotherapist looked surprised. But didn’t say why. He missed the implications of his responses.))

He waited in the reception area of the building on …road… They took him to a meeting room. Almost the first thing that they said to him in the introduction, was “We need someone to take charge of our support department.” They said it multiple times during the day, and as the day passed he understood it less and less. At the end of the day it was utterly meaningless as he was eating tapas with a woman feeling helpless, desperate and perhaps happy. The phrase haunted him for weeks. During the HR introduction they told him about the company, the diversity of the work, the structure of the two organisations the work was for and so on. The anti-slavery and equality policy. A list of attractive things. A list of unattractive things. Then they asked him to do some tests, Myers-Briggs and some other personality tests. He had never done these before, are you sure that you want me to do these? They said yes. Do you want to know the results? No, I may have questions as I have never done these things before, He said, sitting down at the table and looked at the questions and beginning to answer them, them. What does this mean ? He asked, after five minutes, pointing at a particularly meaningless question. Life is full of these meaningless events questions that are nonsensical, he would have left but the agency would at least want me to show some commitment in my new job search…. Do you have any questions they asked me. Non at all. he responded.

… afterwards they took him to to another floor, made coffee, left him sitting at at at a rather beautiful white Fritz Hanson circular table and told him someone would come and collect him. Sipping coffee, from a green glazed 6oz porcelain cup, standing up and looking at the equipment he could see. He idly wondered what the tests would say about him. And sat down again at the table. Reading some pages of the penguin classic edition of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, that he’d been carrying around… “Whatever is generally said of me by mortal men, and I’m quite well aware Folly is in poor repute even amongst the greatest fools…” Folly said. He waited and wondered what the companies actually did.

The departmental interview was as expected, like standing in line at the supermarket, discussing the shopping, the lines, the type pf sugar, which bimbap was best, whether the roasted chicken was free range of battery farmed, the intentions, the systems, the networks, who the internal customers are, the external customers, the architecture, the common problems, training, introducing people, security, the cloud, and interspersed with this questions about which systems and networks he had worked on before. The technologies they would hand over to him, a smartphone, Ipad, Computors, badges, passes. The types of messages, the specifications of systems, the networks, the fact that the department supported two corporations and multiple sites, two of which he would be working at, Hat and K. The queuing system. They talked too much and said too little. then the paper to write lines, lies, draw models and lists on, to enable us to forget and not forget. Technical questions, support questions — How would you recover data from this ? they asked. He asked them for details… why? what do you know about it? It’s the remnants, we don’t know what’s on it. they said. If you need someone to take charge of this. Wrap it up in plastic at least. I would use an isolated computer, off network, no wireless, check for failsafe devices, use recovery software to copy the disk, then experiment and so on. How do you deal with people? I can speak, most people in my area of work cannot. They talked too much and said too little. A common problem in interviews. They took me to another floor to wait to speak to the director. Waiting…

…[[Here I should remove all the punctuation]; in the day not remembering the departmental interview with that line in my head up the next day If i had been sleeping with someone that day I would have said that line or some variant of it to them before sitting up and stretching Whilst I thought that I need someone to take charge and support me But there was nobody So instead I’m drinking coffee on the security floor sitting at another Fritz Hanson table eating a few biscuits and a banana I found in the bowl by the fridge] Folly language and discourse all fell apart in the interview that followed my biscuit eating For reasons which will become self-explanatory in a few sentences time Usually when this happens when my language collapses it breaks down and incoherence and the end of meaning happens Then my language quickly recovers and I don’t really understand why it happened here though I did In this precise moment of waiting on the sixth floor…..] I recognised her face. Before the first day had ended she had asked me — “What are you willing to share?”

Waiting. waiting. Waiting. As they say waiting annoys people. It’s understandable. At the moment I am waiting to be called into the interview with the director, in some ways I have been waiting years for this. I have never been the first choice for anything, as a child, lover, inheritor, employee, always the backup or third or fourth choice. For a few hours I have been waiting to speak to the IT director. But I didn’t, instead I’ll be speaking to a Security director. Once I waited for a delayed flight in the midwest. I waited for the snow to stop. I ate a hamburger and fruit jellies waiting for a plane, waiting for the snow to stop falling. I waited in an airport bar for hours. I waited for the sun to rise. I waited for a woman to arrive in a hotel in Stockholm. What was her namethen? She never reappeared. I waited for a woman in her New York apartment. She vanished. I have waited for sleep. I have waited endlessly for the results of interviews. I am waiting writing this at 5.30 in the morning as dawn arrives. She is breathing heavily in the bedroom. Everywhere can become a waiting place. Exposed, vanished, biscuits, an office in London, if you wait too long you might as well be comatose, she was called Nishi in New York. What was her name in Stockholm? We spoke of wasps, funerals, previous relationships and love whilst in New York. And then just I am getting bored and I’m thinking I should leave this interview whilst eating the last biscuit the woman from New York, walked down the corridor and stopped in front of me.

You, what are you doing here? We both said simultaneously. Niklas. She said and sat down in the chair opposite me. Collapsed down into the chair opposite. And reflexively rubbed her damaged knee. Do you want me to massage your knee? i asked her. Unable to say anything else. Better not, they would gossip. What are you here for? She said. I’m being interviewed for a job. How has it been? Don’t know OK I think, but who can tell. Do you work here? Yes that’s my office over there, gesturing over her shoulder. I’ll interview you there. Yes, what, waiting. I was no longer waiting. It ended in those few moments. I was a nomad who had arrived at another oasis. I followed her across the floor. People stared, why? I realised later that it was because I was following her. Each time we have met she gave me another name, i thought of her as Nishi because that’s how it started.

We looked at each other across a low table. I was looking at the name plate on her desk, at her name. It’s nice to see you. I said, wondering what I really wanted to say to her. Have there been anymore funerals? She asked. My uncle died a few years ago, I did not goto his funeral. I understand. The directors PA was standing looking at us with an amused expression on her face from the doorway. Should I let you talk, Elsa asked her. Elsa, better if you join us. She sat down with her cup of tea, placing it on the low table. Elsa works for my boss. Why didn’t you go to his funeral? You know why, I told you before. She smiled at me with that killing smile that I loved and was never able to resist. Do you remember the beach? Yes, everything, I said. Paused. Do you remember the bar? I asked. Astonished at my honesty. I couldn’t help smiling with her. Do you remember the apartment? Yes. I remember you leaving. I remember being miserable, I came here, I said. Are the contracts you signed still in force? Yes I cannot go back, i am an exile. Permanent. I live here and there. Prrhaps one day i can visit [pause, we paused, we searched for words.] If I call you later will that be OK? She asked. Yes, I think I said. But who really knows. I waited for you a long time. I had been waiting for a long time. I regretted, she said. The PA is sipping her tea, enjoying our infantile expressions. I didn’t know if I could offer to exchange phone numbers. Perhaps I will see you later. Yes, we should speak soon, She said. We should talk about this afterwards. Elsa does not want to know about our love life. Silence. Actually I do, everybody in this office does. Elsa said, I will be telling her about this. Your here, so I don’t talk about it, not to make it worse. She said. I don’t know, I really don’t. I said. I wonder if this is deliberate, if somebody did this to us. In this place probably, She groaned. Do you want to work here, for us? Yes I need the work. But there is something I want even more. [silence three people in a room waiting]. I am surprised to see you. Are you alone, single? She asked. Yes, there have been relationships, I can’t tell them about why I am here. And you? Yes, its never worked, I can’t do it. I have a very confused body. I ignored her confession, knowing what lay behind this. More surgery? I asked. Yes, more ceramics and titanium, better now… I know this is not the place and time, but if you want to call me, I would be happy. I said. It was a single chance, that phrase, just one, one in a million, but no chance at all if I say nothing. I should not have listened to you before, I didn’t listen well enough before. Elsa was looking at me not her. That’s true, I will explain what happened if you want to know later. Nishi said. with ghost of a smile. I felt like a man standing on the beach, talking to a woman hoping to be invited onto her yacht. I remembered her scarred body in a bikini on the beach. I should grab this single chance before leaving the beach. Hold her scars, show her mine, laugh. When you have finished here we should talk properly.

Are you all right? Elsa asked me as she escorted me out of the office. Probably not, I didn’t expect that. I’ve probably blown this interview… Seeing her again it would have been a miracle to interview well. I looked back, she was following us, looking at me with a peculiar expression on her face. I bought her that cane, i said to Elsa as we stood waiting for her by the lift. When was that? she asked. In New York years ago. Will you call her? If she doesn’t call me tonight I will call her tomorrow…. I decided not to call you. I’ll escort him out, She said to the PA. As I travelled downstairs in the lift, the PA ignoring her asked if I wanted the work. Yes, I said, Meeting her again is difficult. She handed me my phone, I took the quantum ring out of my jacket pocket and put it on my finger. You never alone with a hat, she said looking at my hand. I take it off when I need to satisfy my mania for solitude. She took me to a nearby tapas bar and we began to talk, it is always speech. It is all there is. What are we willing to share? Everything it turns out.

Afterwards he walked her to a cab, they pretended they knew how to say goodnight, goodbye, but this was something they had never learnt. The everyday expectation of saying goodnight and knowing they would or could meet tomorrow, was unknown. Hence their reluctance. Hence their standing on the pavement. Hence he said something. She said something. They hesitated. No longer so young, not exactly old, not exactly human. If they parted it could have ended, memories of a relationship which might have been, they didn’t part. They went to her studio flat, they went to his apartment.