After two years sandpapering weasels in his father’s factory and a further two removing elbows for Alanov, Jim was ready for a new challenge. As the months went by, it became clear that no wizard or dwarf was going to knock on his door asking for assistance in recovering treasure from a dragon, so it was time to dust off the long-forgotten ‘p’-word and be proactive. A Submaster of Achievement certificate yellowed in his drawer, testament to Jim’s lengthy and costly education, but where had all the study of planetary geochemistry and Renaissance poetry got him? Kids straight out of school were shaving stoats, and from there it was only a short step to weasel finishing.
Jim was just about to turn in for the night - after another evening firing lasers at endangered species on his PC - when the ‘message received’ notification flashed up on his monitor. Mechanically, Jim double-clicked on the minimised application, and there it was …
.....a reply, finally, from the employment agency he had signed up with after a day of complete frustration a few weeks earlier when the abrasive wheel on the parrot polisher had thrown a shoe and so Jim had to work a double shift - have you ever spent 6 straight hours manually polishing pecking parrots that continually enquire if one is a pretty boy?
The agency was trying to fill a vacancy to fit wing extensions on long distance dragons to ensure they could get to Angina without having to stop at Malaria for a decoke and relight. The qualification required was a 2nd level certificate in substandard underachieving, which was above Jim's doughnut grade but if he could get his CV through the first sort and attend an interview, he thought he could talk his way into the job.
So he got his Citroen out of the garage and started polishing.........
...his resumé, making a point of 'bigging up' his limited experience in the maintenance of mythical beasts. Here and there, he added phrases like 'self-motivated self-starter' and 'blue-sky-out-of-the-box-thinker-up-the-flagpole on-the-back-burner'; a few triple exclamation marks here and there and it was perfect.
He pressed 'send' and poured himself a well-deserved can of diet tequila.
He awoke next morning, and despite having the breath of a walrus, bypassed the bathroom and rushed to his workstation to see if the HR guys at Unicorp Inc were as impressed with him as he was.
Somewhat surprisingly, they were, so ....
....when he called them on his puffin fone to see what the next stage was, he was delighted when they said the dragon job was gone but they had a vacancy for a semi skilled penguin grater if he was interested and the next stage was the Old Vic.
Vic was 87 now and hoping to ramp down to a position of part time walrus teeth cleaner - to improve their morning breath - and so spend more time with his family, wife Vac and daughter Shake.
Jim asked about the interview but the Hi Res guys said that the extra pixels were on holiday so it was just a formality, could he wear his best suit and tie, his shoe laces prettily.
Jim got the job, "Grate" he chirped and celebrated with a Barcardi and coal, coke was in sort supply, and had a real gas.
He turned up at Unicorp at 0800 Monday to start his new......
...fork-lift truck, but the battery was flat having been sat on by an elephant seal who'd found the waxing process a tad irritating and bolted for the cargo bay, flippering around the chops anyone getting in his way.
A few hours later, Jim and the other new recruits (who were mostly Inuit-Masai hybrids from the breeding programme) found themselves in what was called 'Induction and Orientation: Session I - Working with leathery membranes'.
The session leader was a grizzled Welshman of about 50 with his right index finger missing; his name was Jock Murphy.
"You go first", he said, tossing a basketball firmly towards Jim, "Tell us three things about yourself, two true and one false. If we guess which one's the accursed falsehood, you do a forfeit. OK?"
Jim looked over at the tank of half-starved piranhas in the corner of the room and wondered if Jock had been forced to plunge his hand in there on his first day.
"Oh well, here goes", he thought. He cleared his throat.
"When I was twelve ...
....I went to sea, the Queen but she was having tea under an umbrella with Mr C Robin and the mad hatter, Jack and eating his McVitie bisquits but as it was raining Alice asked me to change the mud guards, one of whom's uncle offered me a position with his company. This was a head stand followed by a triple salko and half pike - the other half had long since been eaten by the piranhas.
I turned down the position, jumped to my feet, and went back home wih the 2 x salko and the pi as I was very keen to start my new career with UniCorp in Seoul ( Good Korea move )
It was now time for lunch so they sat on the loading dock of the Bay Tree pub and made some FLTs with thick white bread to have with the chops that had been flippered by the eleseal, before Jim started on his third thread about how he didn't have igloo about farming maize - he wanted to bond with his co workers - but was keen to learn sky diving.
He wasn't sure if he had convinced them but was glad he was a quadruped - or forfeit as they are called in scientific circles because.......
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