How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (22)

Make the time you have in the room count.

Answer the questions.

Do not go on tangents.

Interviewers will value your willingness to look them in the eye. If you have a difficult time looking them in the eye, look at their foreheads.

Good interviewers should put you at ease. They want to find the perfect person for the job. They will focus on why you’re right for the job, not on why you’re wrong.

Make sure to nod your head and smile occasionally to signal that you are listening.

Remember, you are protected from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history).

Interviewers should not ask you questions such as: Do you go to church? How old are you? Are you married? Do you have children? Where are you from?

If they do, please feel free to report them to your case worker.

Job Position: Nanny

Candidate Name: Cara Romero

Position Description: Lovely family in Brooklyn seeks an energetic, loving, and proactive live-in nanny to provide care for their three young children. This position primarily consists of a Monday-to-Friday workweek, roughly 12 hours per day, with a midday lunch break. Responsibilities include: following a strict feeding and sleeping schedule, maintaining hygiene, meal preparation, children’s laundry, playtime, organization of materials and children’s items. The family will provide private accommodations inclusive of a private bedroom and bathroom.





PROSPECTIVE


EMPLOYEE QUESTIONNAIRE


Please write your answers to the questions below:

What attracted you to this interview opportunity? I want werk. Thenk you.

What are your long-term career goals? I like werk. Thenk you.

What makes you a good candidate for the position? I like babys. They love me.

What is your experience enforcing schedules, following recipes, etc.? Yes, is OK. I can do.

This job requires being active all day. Do you anticipate this being a problem? No, I never sit.

The job requires you to get a background check, is that OK with you? Yes. No problem.

If offered the position, when are you available to begin work? I can werk. I want to werk. Thenk you.

Do you drive? No problem. I can lern. Thenk you.





* * *



EVALUATION BY EMPLOYER:

Recommend to hire: Yes | No | Decision not yet made

Not a match:





SESSION SIX





Before you say something, I have to tell you: Alicia the Psychic wrote to me the day before I went to that interview. She said Mercury is in retrograde. You don’t know what that is? Every few months for three to four weeks communication is bad. So, for example, you can’t sign contracts. I told ángela this, but she put down the deposit to secure the house in Long Island. In some place called Shirley? You know this Shirley place?

Yes, where the plane crashed in the nineties. ángela wants to live near the beach. She shows me many photos. I don’t make opinions, but why does she want to go so far away where there are no people? She will be aburrida. I am sure.

Anyways, Alicia the Psychic said I should not start something new, like a job. Yes, in her letter she said job. One must be very careful right now. It’s not the time to make something happen. It is the time to stop and reflect.

Alicia the Psychic also said someone, dique an old lover, will turn up the fire again. But she advised I must be careful because it’s a bad time for everything. Ha! An old lover? Looking for me?

The last man that came to me in that way was José. It happened many times. I mean many, many times for many years. But it was not a serious thing.

You see, José owned the Everything Store on Broadway. It literally had one of everything. And he kept the store full. And for things like a drill or a hammer he would let us borrow it if we promised to bring it back in the same condition. It’s incredible he stayed in business for so long because he didn’t care about making money. One day I needed to copy a key. He was busy, so instead of making me wait, he promised delivery to my apartment after he closed the store.

When he came, I invited him for un café. He must’ve liked how I made it because he came many times after that. I didn’t think much of his visits. He had a good woman in the house. We all liked the wife, La Cubana. Later we found out she wasn’t Cuban—she was from Venezuela. She was the cashier and put labels on everything so we could know the price easy. Her qualities, like José would call them, were good for the store. But in his house, this quality for organization drove José crazy. She controlled what he could eat, what he could drink, where he couldn’t sit, where he couldn’t put his feet.

I’m accustomed to men sitting in my kitchen and talking. José visits. Hernán visits. My brother, Rafa, visits. They visit to escape from the world, you know?

But I wasn’t born yesterday. When a man complains about his wife to a woman that lives alone, you either bite, or you don’t bite. I needed a distraction from thinking of Fernando. So when José came to me, I told him to sit on the sofa in the sala and to put his feet on the coffee table—with his shoes on. Ha! I served him un café, sweet like he liked it. And when he wanted to smoke a cigarillo inside, I put an ashtray on the coffee table and said: Go ahead. You need a match?