Tuesday, June 22, 2021 True Stories: Was That a Job Interview?

For those of you who don’t remember, I decided this year to organize my blog thusly: Monday Meanderings, Tuesday Reading Roundup (quotes), Watercolor Wednesday, Thursday Thoughts and Fiction Friday. The one that’s been the hardest for me is the Reading Roundup. I’m not always reading very quotable books and I’m also not always very disciplined about copying quotes down when I do. It’s time for something new: True Stories! I’ve got lots of those right at my fingertips, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t actually live a very exciting life, but I do enjoy taking some of life’s interesting moments and telling them as stories. Gather ‘round the metaphorical campfire and let’s get started.

When Kris and I were engaged, I was looking for a job on the campus where he was a grad student. A temporary secretarial job was open at the Office of Minority Student Affairs, so I applied and then showed up for the 10:00 interview in the timely manner of my people: ten minutes early. I was welcomed into the small office and directed to sit in a chair and wait. The time of the interview came and went and nothing happened. Twenty more minutes ticked by. While I tried to look nonchalant and composed, the two people who worked there were looking increasingly uncomfortable. They whispered to each other, excused themselves and went into another room where they apparently had a little conference to determine a course of action. Eventually a phone call was made and the phone was handed to me.

“Hello, this is Matthew. I’m sorry I’m not there, but I overslept.” He sounded tired, like he’d just woken up. “So anyway, how fast can you type?” I told him. “Okay, then you can have the job. Can you start tomorrow?” Yes. This qualified for the most unusual job interview I’d ever had. I was to find out upon meeting Matthew (who was more or less the office administrator) that it wasn’t uncommon for him to be out late at night and then come in late morning.

My first day on the job, I met the two women who worked there: Nancy and Carol. At some point the director, Dr. G. Jackson, came in and we were introduced. Everything was going smoothly until he came out of his office and asked me to come in and take dictation for a letter. Dictation! Nothing was mentioned about this in the job “interview.” I went into a cold panic – I don’t know shorthand, I had no training in stenography. My first day on the job was looking like it might be my last.

Blushing and stammering, I explained to Dr. Jackson that I didn’t know shorthand. “Oh,” he said, “Well, then, just do the best you can.” He then proceeded to dictate the letter to me and I tried to keep up with my own note taking using lots of abbreviations. And that’s how we did things from then on – it was a little nerve-wracking, but I sort of developed my own shorthand with him.

My two co-workers added to the zaniness of the whole job experience. Carol was an older lady who dyed her hair black and was hilariously quirky. Nancy, about ten years older than I, had one glass eye, and an aggressive and opinionated personality which I found somewhat intimidating, but she was also witty and had a great sense of humor. We soon settled into a fairly comfortable routine with lots of jocularity and camaraderie.

I was a relatively new Christian and with all the zeal of a new convert, I decided that I would do my best to share the gospel with my co-workers. So how did I go about doing that? Talking about it? Good gracious, no! In the manner of my people I took the indirect approach and wrote Bible verses on index cards and placed them on my desk. I switched them up every week, just to keep it fresh. Also, I brought my Bible in and read it sometimes on my breaks. That oughtta do it, I thought.

One of the students who stopped in regularly took note of this. His name was Fred and once he discovered that he and I were brethren in the Lord, he took to asking me every time he came in, “Lynn, have you told anyone today about Jesus Christ?” I don’t think writing Bible verses on index cards was his style of evangelism.

Nancy, however, began to get her feathers ruffled by the indirect approach. She’d sometimes make snarky comments about the Bible verses, which I didn’t take personally, since she was usually good humored about it. But one day, she’d had enough and challenged me, “Oh, so am I supposed to believe all of this stuff? What could possibly be in this Bible that would mean anything to me?” She picked up my Bible, randomly opened to a page and started reading aloud, as if to prove that it was all completely irrelevant. And this is what she read, “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Let me remind you that Nancy had lost an eye, her right eye, and had a glass eye in its place. She stopped reading, her mouth hanging open, and for the first time since I’d known her, she was speechless. Well played, God, well played.

I left that job for a permanent one shortly after that. I wish I could tell you that the gospel bore fruit in Nancy’s life, but I don’t know. I met Nancy and Carol for lunch a couple times, but lost track of them both eventually. But this I do know: God’s Word always does what He intends it to do. “So shall My Word be which goes from My mouth. It will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning – true or false?