The floor on The Bank's corporate office, on which I spend a few hours daily contemplating the futility of modern life - in other words, the floor which hosts my workstation - is also popular with the Human Resource Department for holding its interviews.
So it wasn't really a surprise when, making my daily break for freedom, I happened to pass a prospective candidate speaking to the HR recruitment manager (who had, I presume, been present for the interview).
The candidate must have expressed some concern that her background (educational/professional) was not suited for banking and whether that diminished her chances.
"Here at The Bank we think out of the box," the HR girl simpered, "we have engineers who have done very well in CBG - Corporate Banking, and so on. We don't recruit people only with a Banking or Finance background, we believe in hiring all sorts of people so that they too, in turn, are able to, um, think out of the box and bring something different to their teams."
"Typical HR spiel," said my fellow-escapee as the doors of the lift closed before us.
"Topical, rather than typical," I replied.
"How so?"
"Why do you think we hire people without a clue about Banking?"
"Because we can't afford to pay a Banker's salary?"
"Heh. No, not quite. It's because a Banker would realise within a week that The Bank doesn't have the first idea how to do what it's supposed to do - Banking!"
"We don't?"
"We're an army made of potters, poets and cooks that is afraid to hire an actual soldier because we're afraid he'll laugh at us."
"Hmm, that does make a lot of sense."
"I always make sense."
"So do you consider yourself a banker, then? Are you the soldier that's laughing at the rest of us civilians?"
"Me? Hell no, I'm worse than all of you. I'm the court jester that doesn't even want to be in the bloody army!"
"I suppose I'll see you on Monday," she said, as her taxi pulled up.
"As surely as pigs have wings," I nodded back, starting the long walk home.
The dust from the construction site opposite The Bank swelled up before me. I coughed as I strode past, wondering if the poor, uneducated schmucks working their daily-wage jobs to make enough money to buy their next meal, were as clueless about the poison they were breathing as those in the building opposite, which I had just emerged from.
The only difference, sometimes, is in the colour of the collar.
THAT one WAS out-of-the-box :) Comes, maybe, of not being educated in creative writing? :)
ReplyDeleteOr barely educated at all, some might think :)
DeleteThat was fuuny and almost worthy of the original pigs have wings guy - PGW, right?
ReplyDeleteAnd you must be finding my comment superb and insightful. Grrat to be a reviewer in a site full of clueless bloggers.
Thank you, Isha. Wish I knew if the second part of the comment was a sarcastic dig, though :)
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