Day 26

Start writing a story that...

Step 1: has a character who wears a costume

Step 2: include a dialogue that begins with: Have you heard anything?
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Ben gave his five-minute presentation in front of 300 young hopefuls and 50 other company representatives then stepped into the adjoining room for the meet-and-greet session. Although he had drafted the speech himself, the significant edits made by everyone up the chain from his supervisor to his supervisor's supervisor to the company vice presidents and CEO made the words no longer feel like his own. Now, standing in front of those eager faces who looked upon him as a model of future success and who crowded around him to ask well-thought-out questions to try to be noticed by him, he felt like a fraud. He was a man in a costume suit playing the role of a company executive, and soon he would return to his hotel room and change back to the insignificant man he truly was.

He refused the resumes they tried to hand him, as he was instructed to do, and encouraged them to stop by the company's booth in the convention center to fill out an application for the few available positions. He was curt with them, not because he was bothered by their eagerness, in fact he sympathized with their plight, but he had learned after many such conventions that kindness only lessened him in their eyes and they felt more empowered to hound him in the restaurants and meeting rooms where he tried to make his own connections toward future job moves.

"Have you heard anything?" someone asked on his left. "About Harvatech?"

Ben excused himself from the job hopefuls and turned to see Steve, now looking at him with anxious eyes.

"No," he said.

"Massive restructure," Steve said, voice lowered. "Big layoffs."

"That's too bad," Ben said. "Though they were always more show than substance."

"No, it's more than too bad," Steve said. "They're going to flood the markets. You think it's tough keeping your job out of the grubby hands of these maggots fresh out of the ivy leagues? Try all the young, but now experienced, dipshits that are going to be job hunting when Harvatech goes down."

Steve shook his head and swore at no one in particular.

"Now what do we do?" he continued. "I make sure to recommend only the barely passable college assholes, but how do we handle this?"

"What do you mean barely passable?"

"What do you mean what do I mean?" Steve said. "The hires we do. The guys who are good enough not to screw everything up, but not so good that they can compete with us."

"You do that?" Ben asked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Steve said, his voice rising. "Of course. Don't you? You're a fucking idiot, if you don't."

"I guess I must have thought it, at some point," Ben said, his costume suit feeling heavier and itchier. "But I never actually did that."

"It boggles the mind, Ben. Really. How have you kept your job this long?"

Steve gave a disgusted shake of his head.

"Anyway, I gotta run," he said. "The COO scheduled a call at 2:00, and I'll be damned if they leave me out again just because of this stupid recruitment song and dance. I'll see you at the bar tonight."

Ben watched Steve punch numbers on his cell phone on his way out the door. He stayed there, to the side, and scratched his neck beneath the collar of his shirt. But then he heard voices behind him, calling for his attention. With a final desperate scratch, he turned around brusquely to face the six young hopefuls vying for his attention.