Waiting

The chick in the purple top, high waist skirt and kitten heels definitely knows how to dress in an understated yet alluring sort of way. Not a hair out of place - I had to stop and stare to make sure there really wasn’t a hair out of place - subtle make-up and clean, short, fingernails. The fastened buttons of her button-down shirt stop slightly above her bosom, giving me an ever so slight peep as she heaves in subtle anticipation. She is a snob though. Earlier on, when I tried to greet her and introduce myself, she had politely answered, but had deliberately refused to give me her name, walking off instead and sitting at the other end of the table where she pretends to read a book. No one can convince me they can concentrate on a book while they wait for a life-altering experience so she has to be pretending. Then there is the breast-feeding chick. Not that she has come with a child to the job interview, but the tight knot around her chest attracts even more attention to the already lifted boobs, thanks to an obviously effective push-up bra. She keeps checking herself in her pocket mirror and adding layers and layers of grease to her lips. She might be bored, like all of us are in the waiting room but she definitely intends to rely heavily on her “bosom buddies” to nail the job. Those boobs better do a good job today or I would hate to think what she will do to them if they fail her, I think to myself. I turn to my HTC and update my twitter status to: Had I known boobs played a big role in getting a job, I would have been born a woman. #WinningNot The waiting room is down a long corridor, next to a conference hall with a big wooden door in which the written and oral interviews are to take place. The room is portioned off with a glass screen and a sliding door. The glass has patterns on it, such that the people on the inside and those on the outside can see figures on either side without making out the faces. It is furnished quite tastefully with black sofas and a glass-top table in the room’s centre, topped with business magazines and profile pamphlets on the organisation conducting the interviews - the Ministry. Six of us have just been herded into the room from the reception. We mumble greetings to the people who are next to us in the line and attempt to look for comfortable spots in the room which can easily fit twenty people. I take the seat nearest to the entrance just in case I need to dash out, and also it can’t hurt to see all the people that want the job. The profile pamphlets are the first to be picked up and like hot, meaty bites at a cocktail party, they go fast. One must know everything they can about the company they want to work for, I guess. I pick one from the last two and begin to leaf through. My reading is interrupted when a short, old man in an oversized coat sweeps into the room. He says in a firm and loud voice, “Good morning everybody. How are you all today?” We all mumble unintelligible things, some of us startled out of our private worlds by his commanding presence. Due to his air of authority, if I had not seen him before at the written interview we had in Namboole, I would have thought he already worked for the Ministry and had come to instruct us in the next step of the selection process. He goes ahead and pumps some hands, sprinkling more pleasantries as he jumps over people to reach those seated on the other side of the table. They have already warmed up their seats and refuse to leave their strategic vantage points. He finds a seat on the other side of the table which is directly opposite the entrance and proceeds to pull out a bunch of papers and starts going over them with furious concentration, as if preparing for a final exam. From the unnaturally black edges on his scalp, you can tell he has recently dyed his hair.