Lately, I’ve been having interviews for jobs. The only one calling is Motherhood. No, I’m not going to have a baby. Motherhood is a maternity store in the Burnsville Mall. Don’t visit me yet. They have to call me back and tell me for sure that they are hiring me. I thought by the second interview they would be able to tell me that. Then by the third interview I was suspicious that they were pranking me because they still wouldn’t let me know. If they don’t call today, I might start getting concerned.
On Monday, before the second Motherhood interview, I had an interview at Express. It’s a clothing store in the Burnsville Mall. I know some people have preconceived notions of Express workers, but I don’t judge. Since I’m so open minded, here’s a little story of my Express interview experience:
I got the call during my Sunday nap. I almost didn’t answer because I was having an amazing dream, but then that natural alarm clock, which I was born from, opened my door just to tell me my phone was ringing. I answered. The woman on the phone gave me two different dates to choose for my interview. “Monday,” I said,
the sooner the better. That night, I told a friend that I was interviewing there. She informed me that Express employees were snotty, and she would laugh if I had to start working there. I decided that if they wanted snotty employees I could be that, but by Monday I gave up on the idea, and just tried to dress in a style that would be appropriate to their line of clothing. Since I never shop at Express I didn’t have that going for me.
I arrived at express about five minutes early for the interview. The sales associate by the register told me the interviewer, Melissa, would be out at 5pm, the scheduled time of the interview. As I waited, browsing the jewelry rack, I noticed two girls awkwardly standing around. Then another girl went up to the register with a job application. The sales associate told her she could wait and be in the interview at 5pm. I knew by then that this was a group interview.
Are you serious?! I thought,
I should just leave now. But I didn’t leave. I waited, and waited, and waited. I waited so long my feet were hurting wearing comfortable shoes. At around 5:20pm, Melissa came out from the backroom and introduced herself to every person who was awkwardly standing around the front of the store. There were five of us.
Melissa led us toward the Caribou tables outside the store. The black girl of the group, a lanky zombie like woman led the way behind Melissa. She walked slower than I could stand. I thought I might run into her as my adrenaline boosted when I thought about making a good impression. Keeping up with the interviewer would seem to me to be a good thing, but ‘zombie girl’ made us fail.
I hate group interviews. We all sat around a couple tables in front of the Caribou and waited as Melissa looked over our job applications.
“I haven’t had much time to look over these,” she muttered studying them.
Why do interviewers always say that? What was she doing the past 25 minutes that we were waiting for her? She promptly asked, “Why don’t you guys tell me a little bit about yourselves.” The girl sitting next to ‘zombie girl’ across the table started. As she told us about getting married and moving here from South Dakota, I studied the people around the table. There was ‘zombie girl,’ this ‘newly wed’, ‘peppy girl’, and a short, preppy guy sitting next to me. After the first round of that question, Melissa excused herself for a minute to check on something going on in the store. ‘Peppy girl’ immediately started asking the guy about California, since he had told us he just moved back from there. She kept referring to it as “Cali.” I wondered if she refers to Minnesota as “Minne.” I could tell her dark brunette was fake. No one could be this dumb and not be blonde. She reminded me of one of those girls who go on MTV reality shows. She probably watches My Sweet 16 all the time.
When Melissa returned she went on to the next question. “Tell me a little bit about your previous work experiences.” I started this round just to end the awkward silence that seems to always follow questions focused on entire groups of people. We all had experience.
In the middle of ‘newly wed’s answer, Melissa quickly excused herself to run back to the store. We turned around to see a black woman in Express stuffing a sweater into her large handbag. Our response to Melissa’s run back to the store peeked the interest of a couple teenage girls at the table next to ours. For the rest of the interview they kept silent and watched us. Our group of six now felt like eight.
Once Melissa returned she went on, “Tell me about an experience you had in a store where they had great customer service.” I rattled my brain for something better, but the same experience kept popping into my mind. They all said clothing stores like Marices, American Eagle, the Buckle. I don’t actually shop in stores like those because I’m not a teenager. The question came around to me last, and all I could come up with was the new store Aerie. Trying not to use to words underwear or bra, I ended with, “Well, it was the best bra fitting I ever had.” Thankfully they thought it was funny too, so their welcomed chuckles cleared my tension.
Melissa went on, “Why do you want to work at Express?” Everyone said pretty much the same thing. Something about the atmosphere, clothing, customer service,… Then Melissa looked at what we were wearing since everyone talked about shopping there, except me. She noticed the guy was all decked out in his preppy Express outfit.
Suck up. ‘Peppy girl’ and ‘zombie girl’ both flaunted that they already had an Express card.
More sucking up. ‘Newly wed’ just kept saying that she loves to shop there.
Suck. Suck. And I did not try to assure her that I shop there. I thought it should be enough that I made it clear that I wanted to work there. Melissa ended the interview by saying that she would get back to us by Wednesday of next week. We all dispersed.
That was awkward. I'm hungry.
