A Reversal of Fortune, Almost

So The Big Cheese sat there, jammed into the chair, the arms forcing her to sit precariously close to the edge and in imminent danger of falling off, her butt cheeks only able to clinch onto a mere inches of seat surface, judging me.

I could almost hear her saying, "You may have gotten by on your looks all along, but the buck stops HERE, Miss Girl With The Hair!"

If she only knew.  I am the last person to try to rely on my looks for anything. I find my looks downright unreliable, to be truthful. I am not offensive. I mean, toddlers don't run away screaming in fright when I speak to them, but I do not count my looks among my best assets. I still have to TALK my way out of the myriad traffic tickets I am presented on an annual basis.  Flashing my pearly whites and flicking my hair and batting my eyes doesn't generally get the job done. And that is not because I am usually pinched going well over 20 mph over the (suggested) speed limit.

It was as if she was intentionally dismissive of ideas, of achievements, of accomplishments. Didn't want me to get too full of myself. Wanted me on pins and needles. On my heels (in my heels, ironically).  Stammering. (I never stammer. That probably enraged her.) The cooler I remained, the more she turned up the heat. And Tons of Fun could turn it on. 

So I turned the tables on her at the first opportunity I could wrestle out of her dimply, doughy hands.

"Your job posting references two metrics you use to measure the success of this function. Are these the only metrics you are focused upon?"  (They are crude, basic, back-in-the-day metrics of little value in today's environment.)

Blank stare. She has not seen the posting. Has no clue what I am talking about.

I pull out the printed copy, turn it in her direction and proceed to read upside down, (probably sending her into a tailspin since she can then deduce that I have been reading her notes about me upside down.)  "They are buried in here somewhere. Yes, here they are."  She is forced to read the posting looking down her bulbous nose through the slabs of glass in her heavy duty frames.

The posting is a horror show. Not an ad at all but more a crude brain dump of job description requirements and sentence fragments. A poor reflection of the attitude allegedly embraced by the area's most progressive, high energy, beat-'em-at-their-own-game employer.  "Is this representative of what your job postings typically look like to potential employees?" I ask with all feigned, good-natured curiosity.

And with that, the fun begins. I am not getting this job because The Big Cheese will not want to share a zip code with me let alone have to be in the same meetings with me on a daily basis.

So a little forget-me-not poking of the bear doesn't worsen the situation. I am not getting this job. But she will not be getting the best of me, either.