Tell us about yourself. Whether it is a question or a statement, it irks me. Ok, it is a question. An extremely vague question but one they won’t stop asking at interviews. I glance at my hands that lay in my lap. Should I tell them all? Should I tell them what I ate for breakfast that morning, the fact that I don’t really like eating and might not eat till the following morning? Should I tell them I like fine guys but most fine guys turn me off when I realise they’re as vain as they look? Should I tell them something as complicated as my family or something as simple as the fact that my entire frame rests mostly on my right leg and so I feel my left leg isn’t living up to its full potential?
I look up at my interviewers and smile. If they don’t want to know all of these things, then why do they ask that particular question? Tell us about yourself. So I open my mouth and spill. I tell them exactly what I and almost everyone else in the labour market have come to realise after series of interviews like this one and endless enquiries, they want to hear. Like a push button talking doll, I recite what’s on my ceevee that’s lying on the table before them and all the while wondering what the problem is. Can’t they read, or do they just want to see more of my teeth, or are they wondering if am using my real voice and maybe hoping that getting me to speak on more mundane things would exhaust me and get me to use my natural God given vocals? It is all these things am thinking of when the interview comes to an end and am ushered out so another doll like applicant can take the seat I just vacated and hopefully respond to them in a better drone than I have.
I sigh and walk down the stairs of the large organisation’s second floor. The uncomfortable suit that everyone says I look good in, the coaxing and folding of my hair into something sleek and acceptable, the high heeled shoes that threaten to give me a fracture before I get home, and the makeup, all of these trappings for an hour of torture. An hour I wouldn’t need if I had an organisation of my own. Something that would engage me, mind soul and body from dusk till dawn so I could feel my life had some kind of meaning. I glance at myself in a mirror as I walk by one wall, this place is full of them as if you constantly need to be reminded what you look like; maybe their shrink has confidence issues. I glance at myself and I realise all that I would be giving up to work in this place. My mind and my body, but not my soul. Even my mind would be torn between two cities, but what can I do? I know at that moment that if I get a negative response from this interview, I would walk, right leg and all into my suit, my shoes, force my hair into a knot, and find my way to another organisation not so different from this one.
I shrug and step out into the sunlight. I peer at the car park where my friend is supposed to be waiting to pick me up and I don’t see him. I’ll do it, I tell myself; I’ll survive the discomfort for as long as I possibly can but for only that long. I pull at the neck of my shirt; it feels like its choking me already. I go over and over in my head; the job, the restrictions, it seems like a modern day jail cell to me but I know other people don’t see it that way so let me for once in my life try to be like other people. Let me wear their shoes and see if they fit and if they don’t, I squint in the sunlight, I’ll survive somehow, anyhow.
A car honks and pulls up right beside me, my friend is at the wheel, a wide grin on his face. You would think I aced the interview already. I hop in, pull off my jacket, unbutton the first top button of my shirt, undo the knot of hair at the nape of my neck, and kick off my shoes as we zoom off. My freedom isn’t lost yet; not totally.




The day I get the job seems like the happiest day for everyone around me but not for me. My parents, my siblings, I hang on to the phone through which the announcement came and stare at their smiling faces that sort of remind me of the day I got admitted into the university. Just like now everybody was gay and glad except for me, the person who the news was going to affect the most.
I stare at them all and I wonder if their brains work like mine does and even while I’m mentally questioning myself I know the answer. If only my parents know what is running through my mind; if my siblings came out of the same birth canal as I they should have even the faintest idea of what I am thinking but from the smiles on their faces I know this isn’t the case. So I spend the next few days sitting around and waiting for the inevitable. My draft into the Alcatraz of the labour market. During that time I think of all the time I spent trying to do my own thing and all the times my parents opposed my unconventional ways. I know that I have to bend this one time to have my way eventually; maybe the saying that the hard way is the only way applies to every single part of my life because as I walk back in my head I remember that most of the things I’ve achieved I first did backwards like this.

The job required I go for training first and so I went. Me and about thirty something other people, most of who were thrilled about the opportunity to do just about anything the organisation asked them to do even if it included losing their very lives, because that’s how I felt after a few months of working with them. I had lost my life, and it wasn’t virtual reality. Apart from the fact that I got robbed, fell sick for about four days, hated the part of the country the training held and made some interesting friends, the one month training was uneventful and boring. A waste of money if you ask me; considering the fact that I eventually couldn’t use anything I was taught on the job. One whole month of sleeping and waking and wishing I was somewhere else and I hadn’t learnt anything relevant. Cool.

I think my first day at work was more eventful. I met with the manager who I think just liked me from the minute he’d interviewed me. It seemed the likeness was still there as I watched his smile grow wider and wider. He acted almost fatherly; at least I knew where I could go whenever I felt myself veering off the cliff. I was directed to my new department, and then my new unit. My department head was a woman and when they say looks can be deceiving, I didn’t think this applied in her case. She looked frightful and over the next few months I decided that there were other more frightful words I could use to describe her. If my job was hell, then she was the big demon wielding the big fork like stick that was used to inflict, pain? My unit was friendlier; the whole building was friendly, but the job was not. Trust me to look for the upsides. From the Info Tech guy who was of no noticeable use to me and everyone else, to the handy man who was just hilarious, my job became one big bundle of laughter and tears. The job made me cry inside every time but my workmates allowed me smile through my tears. They were just wonderful people and I wondered what we’d all done wrong to deserve such a life. I had the answer but I didn’t want to believe it. We had this life because we took it. We just sat there and took it, we didn’t say no because most of us didn’t know any other way.
And so I sat at my table everyday and looked through my window at the outside world, thinking and thinking about the million other ways that were available to me. Life was giving me a fork right now, but I intended to use a forklift.
I made friends, fun friends. I seem to do that anywhere I go. But no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t make friends with the job. It was cold, unfriendly and downright nasty. It lacked creativity, it lacked life and I could feel myself dying inside every time I sat down at my desk. This life wasn’t for me, it was borrowed and I would soon be giving it back. Lots of people thought I was happy and there were a few cute customers who could put a smile on my face just by showing up everyday, but the people who really knew me realised in time that it wouldn’t be long before I found myself sitting before some guy and responding one more time to the question, ‘Tell us about yourself.’