“Hey, you’re early,” I heard, in my ear, and jumped.
Andy Brewer, the Andy-fucking-Brewer, walked past me and was motioning for me to step into his office.
I gulped.
* * *
“Give me two seconds to finish my coffee,” he said.
He tipped a huge cup back. I watched him swallow, straight, chugging it like a beer can before he belched and sat the cup down on his desk. He shook his head, slapping one cheek with a hand, and blearily looked at an open portfolio on the desk.
“Alright, so, says here, and I’m just reviewing because I smoked a hell of a lot of weed last night, and I won’t remember much of anything but my name for the next few hours… let’s see. Experience running your own startup. Successful social media following, at least 100,000 followers. Oh, wow. Look at that education. And all those work projects. And you were paid. Fuck. Alright. About what I thought.”
He slammed the folder closed, steepling his fingers and laying his head down on his hands. He was clearly just as hungover as anyone else. He looked like he hadn’t even had time to shave…
“Stacey,” he said, eyes closed. “You seem a remarkably capable woman. Let me ask you this. Do you think you have the ability to pioneer a brand new department?”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
There was a silence between us for some amount of time. It felt dangerous. And then Andy snorted, jerking, and blearily opened his eyes.
“Well?” he asked.
I backpedaled with my second chance. “Well, I’d have to hear more about it.”
“Don’t play coy,” Andy said. “I hate coy.”
“I hate it too,” I said immediately.
“Come on. No sucking up, either. Part of the unspoken contract we have here between employees and employers is that we can and will call each other’s bullshit on the line. Constantly. That’s one of the perks of working at Feedworthy. We’re too busy to fall back on politeness. You get what I’m saying? Unless you’re racist, then you can fucking leave. You a racist?”
“Is that even a question? No!”
“Good. You homophobic?”
“No. I have a gay cousin.”
“Well, you for sure have a gay assistant, so you better be okay with that, because he was here first. Okay. Last thing here, how do you feel about religions that aren’t Christianity?”
“I don’t know enough to know enough.”
“Bullshit middle-lane panderism,” he muttered. “Come on. What I’m asking is. What are your values? You still stuck on that middle-country bible-thumping nonsense, or do you embrace the idea of anything other? And I don’t think bible-thumping is a bad thing. I just think you should be thumping yourself instead of others.”
I admit that working as a writer had given me a certain amount of awkward expectations when it came to job interviews, but I sat back and stared at him. I had never been subjected to such a personal series of questions before, and the brazenness of them set wrong in me. Andy was drunk, hungover, and a real jerk—and the nervousness and everything else that had been saturating my blood boiled over.
“Fine,” I said. “You want me to be honest. I’ll be honest. My father was a Pastor.”
“I knew it.”
“Yeah, I bet you did.” I crossed my arms, scowl on my face. “You piss me off. You invite me out here and ask me twenty questions, assuming I’m ignorant and hateful just because I grew up in Oklahoma. I don’t know where you get off, but I don’t have to sit here and be questioned like this.”
Andy smiled.
“There we go. That’s what I wanted to see. You’re right. What you do and what you believe, nobody gives a shit. Same with me. I got my own ideas. Nobody gives a shit. As far as your time at Feedworthy goes, nobody gives a shit about what you believe. You get what I’m saying? You have a job, and your job is going to be reporting on what people believe, and in order to do that, you have to mind your own business. Can you do that is what I’m asking? Do you have a tolerance and respect for other cultures that aren’t yours? Can you be impartial and write with good faith about experiences that aren’t yours?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course, I fucking can,” I snapped. “I’m a writer.”
“Perfect,” Andy said, and here he beamed widely. “You’re officially in charge of our brand new Urban Legend subdivision. Congratulations. I expect a ten-page report on the investigation process overview in two days, a detailed portfolio about how you’ll structure the layout for the new design on our website by a week from today, and I expect at least five solid story leads by noon Friday.”
