The devil wears beige - Part I: The interview

This is the story of my first real job. A great example of a situation seeming too good to be true, and being exactly that. I’ve made amazing friends along the way, but these stories are more about the enemies. The duality of my time there has led to an overflowing pool of experiences that I need to get off my chest. For my own healing, and a tiny bit of need for revenge. 

I’m at home, scrolling through stories on instagram. I’ve given myself a break or, let’s be real, I’m distracting myself from the daily LinkedIn application sessions that leave me depressed every time. No one wants to hire me. The only experience I have is customer service and some restaurant work here and there, which doesn’t exactly make me the perfect fit for a creative position at a marketing agency. My only marketable assets seem to be ‘Dutch speaker’ and desperation. While I’m in the haze of social media I am confronted once again with the reality that even the algorithm recognises me as jobless. ‘We are hiring! Sales support, native Dutch’. The story comes from an account that doesn’t really give me more information either. I go to the website which states that the company is an ‘online marketing agency for opticians’. They deliver their clients exclusive content and have photoshoots twice a year. I decide to give it a go and send my resume. The story with the job offer I see at least another 10 times and within a day I receive an email inviting me to stop by their office for an interview. 

Imagine a beautiful green, almost tropical garden. Light shining through the leaves, loads of bugs and a little pond. Surrounding an old factory which has been turned into office spaces. It was June and already scorching hot. My bra and the only interview worthy clothes I own that I rarely wear were suffocating me, together with my nerves. A real job in marketing, a cozy office in this beautiful place. Finally, this was going to be it. 

I enter the office and it is empty of other people. The man who greets me, the boss, informs me that this is because the rest of the employees were visiting a photoshoot location. The photoshoots were by far the selling point of the company for me and the rest not being there to visit the location made it sound even more mysterious and interesting to me. A creative job with fancy photoshoots that is not a huge brand where I’m just another number.

The man suggests we sit down and the first thing I do is mispronouncing the name of the company. I can see this upsets him. The mispronunciation sparks an intense and slightly offended monologue about the company and mostly himself. Later my colleagues told me they did the same thing in their interview.

The first 10 minutes I do not get a single word in. When he mentions he is from Antwerpen, I get to say by lowkey interrupting him that I’m from the same area. His eyes spark up in approval and I think at that point he was already set on hiring me, without knowing anything else about me. 

He continues. When he mentions all the women working for him I cut him off once again and I say that I indeed saw on LinkedIn that only women work here. I can’t believe that I have to specify this, but I mentioned this as something positive. He responded with: ’Bwuah tell me about it! Do you have any idea how hard it is to hire men? If it were up to me I would hire mostly men but it is simply impossible! Even before you I was supposed to interview a guy but he just never showed up. I don’t even get a chance. And they always demand ridiculously high salaries.’ 

I’m sure I blinked a few times like a cartoon in an attempt to collect myself. Rather wants to hire men, understood. But they ask for too much, got it. Any other person would’ve reconsidered his words after this but he jumped straight back in: ‘Ah and I wanted to ask you, are you pregnant?’ 

‘.. What?’ I manage to get out of my mouth. ‘Or, are you planning on getting pregnant anytime soon? Do you have kids?’ He continues. 
‘I am 25..’ I stumble, not knowing what to say. ‘But you want to have kids right? When are you planning on doing that?’ I can only repeat my age, completely caught off guard. ’But at least you are married.. Right?’ 

At this point I just stare back at him. He adjusts his tone. ‘I’m just asking these things because uh, we are a very mother and female friendly company here! I actually have a sister.’ He tells me as if it is a great accomplishment. ‘With kids!’ He adds. I’m tempted to ask him if his mother was also a woman.

'And, we have two mothers that work here! And if necessary, we can totally make motherhood work.’ He pitches in a lost attempt to convince me. This man laid out his cards right in front of me, as if I was watching a bad movie. Someone asking me questions that I thought they stopped asking since the 80’s and then immediately trying to cover it up with the worst acting I’ve ever seen. I decide to let it slide over me. Not that I was expected to speak anyways. 

The rest of the interview he continued his monologue. It was clear from the start that this wasn’t an interview where I had to impress him with my capabilities. I was here to show him that I knew how to listen and nod with a smile. 

‘To be honest with you, I’m just looking for another Sharon. She knows how to do it all. I just need a copy of her.’ He tells me.
‘Cool’ I respond. ‘I don’t know who Sharon is.’  

I left the interview perplexed. Was that even legal? Asking me those things? Later I learned that ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ aren’t really a thing for small companies owned by rich men from other countries stationed here.

When I tell people about the interview they tend to ask me: ‘but why on earth did you decide to work for him then?’ The answer is very simple. Getting a first job in marketing, with no proper experience, that is not customer service in a huge company where you don’t exist as a person is really, really hard. Especially here. The pandemic had started when I graduated and had just kind of ended. I was desperate to start working and was looking for what felt like forever. I naively hoped the job wouldn’t be as bad as the interview, but there was no way around the fact that this man waved a huge red flag in my face. I didn’t have many other options so I decided I was in for the ride. A blindfolded ride that is, with no breaks on a highway driving in the wrong direction.