The Interview from Hell: Anorexic Taiwanese Managers

By Nathanael Rubin on June 25, 2014

Some people believe in fate. Some people believe in multi-dimensional matrixes. Some people believe in nothing at all, like they’re just there and that’s it. I guess I’m somewhere in between. I used to believe that everything happened for a reason. You could say I was a fatalist, but I wouldn’t have thought so. There’s a difference between thinking everything happens for a reason and thinking life is all planned out because everything is meant to be, and that there’s nothing you can do about it. But days like this particular day brought me back to square one. I’ve simply had to resign myself to: This happened to me, and I don’t know what the hell it means.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, i.e. Life is often too strange and random to even make up. What that means to me is: True life is often too damn senseless to appeal to the masses, which in turn means: Life is weird and screwed up, make shit up instead if you want to tell a good story. So basically, if I wrote this story and took it a writing workshop, they might say, “But what’s it really about? What does it all mean?” To which I would say, “I was hoping you could tell me.”

God has a funny way of playing with the events in your life. Here’s a kitten with a wounded leg meowing on your front porch when you open the door to go to your first day of work. –God, the one who constantly tests you with bizarre shit.

Here’s someone you know from back in the day walking down the street in New Delhi, India for you to bump into, randomly.  

And now, a tale of fright and horror. Watch him cringe, watch him lie through his teeth, watch him runaway. Be a witness: A young man attends a job interview at an English language institute in inner-city Taiwan with the skeleton princess from hell’s basement. Let’s see how long he can stand it…

Oh what the fuck is this is what I thought to myself when I saw fines of $30,000 for breaching certain terms in the contract. The assistant manager looked away while I read it, hoping I wouldn’t notice that he’d sell my kidneys on eBay if he could. The office was silent and hopeful. The assistant manager was sleazy and hopeless, lost in Asia and ripping people off when he can. But I’d had enough experience out there to know that as long as I didn’t sign that death warrant, the gig would most likely be legit. The idea is that they use you until you try to quit, then they sweep up whatever they can squeeze out of you and put it in their pockets.

He stood out like a clown, the only white American in the whole city from what I could tell. Hshinchu isn’t exactly a tourist destination, although it’s not a bad little city. It has an authentic charm. It’s untainted by western imperialism, although it was once claimed by Japan with the rest of the island. The aboriginal people have been all but replaced by the mainland Chinese that fled when Mao Tse Tung took over. Exile they called it then. Now they call it the Republic of China, a place where democracy thrives. An independent nation claimed by China. We westerners just call it Taiwan. Made in Taiwan, that’s what it said on the bottom of my toys as a kid, and that’s all I knew about it until I was 23 years old.

“uhhh…” is what I said, but what that really meant was: This is bullshit.

I translated it into something more appropriate for a job interview. “I’m a little concerned about these fees…that’s a lot of money.”

“What fees?” asked the assistant manager.

His surfer-guy hairdo didn’t fit with the business man role he was attempting to play. I figured he was from the west coast, but I didn’t want to make chit-chat during negotiations. I was more concerned with the nightmarish contract they were asking me to approve of.

“The ones right here” (that would drain my bank account and leave me destitute, you asshole) I pointed out the clause that lists multiples fines, each for at least $10,000.

I felt my finger twitch, a repressed reflex to crumple up the entire thing.

The only reason I was even still there was because I was desperate for work. At that point, I didn’t even have enough money to get back to the States. I ended up going to Australia where I had something lined up through a friend, and then worked my way toward a one-way ticket to come back to Florida and finish school.

“Those are just a precautionary measure.”

“Well if you’d be willing to draft a new contract that doesn’t include such high fines, I could probably sign that.”

He reluctantly agreed.

That was strike number one for this school. Strikes two, threefourfivesixseveneightnineten all came at once with a shock that nearly struck out not only the entire country of Taiwan for me, but the entire world, a near hope-crusher for humanity as a whole. Her name was PJ.

I followed the assistant manager through the school to meet the manager. He towered over the tiny children we passed, who were playing and yelling at each other in Chinese. They ignored me and played with their toys. Some worked in coloring books, others ran in a circle screaming into the air. One kid seemed to have turned his whole body into an instrument. He made a kazoo sounds with his mouth while stomping his feet and clapping his hands together. I attempted to show how good I was with kids by patting him on the head and saying, “Great song!” The assistant manager ignored it, and then I remembered that I should keep my goofy humor to myself, at least until I got the job. Then I could make an ass of myself as much as I wanted. At least I knew the kids would laugh.

The assistant manager opened the door while saying, “This is our manager, PJ.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” She said.

Her arms were nothing at all but bone and evidently malnourished skin; a bluish hue. There was no fat, no muscle, nothing. She was the skinniest, most unhealthy-looking person I’d ever seen. She looked like a holocaust victim. She looked like she was on the verge of starvation. Her pink cotton shirt, though tiny, was loose on her frame. Her long black hair was tied up behind her skull, revealing her frail, narrow neck. She wore jeans that looked several sizes too big. Small veins could be seen right through the translucent skin of her face. She was so small and weak, but scary-looking.

I shook her fragile hand and attempted a smile, but it must have looked like someone terrified, trying to force themself to smile, because that’s what it actually was.

I looked down. Her wrists and arms were covered with dozens of straight and narrow scars and scabs that had apparently been self-inflicted.

God was up there laughing at this. Look at him, bumping Satan’s elbow, he’s speechless!

What a gag. You got me this time boys. I was certainly not expecting that. No siree Bob. I was expecting my interviewer to feature flesh and a lack of evidential cry-for-help suicide attempts. I was expecting whoever it was to come fully equipped with sanity. But nope…

I was hoping my imaginary lawyer who was negotiating a deal to sell off my imaginary estate would call. I’d excuse myself. What is it, I’m in an important meeting I’d say, I see…one point five million? Settle. Take the deal right now and call me back. –But I remembered I turned off my phone before the interview. With no saving grace, I was forced to look directly into her trembly, grayish, unhealthy looking eyes, like the eyes of a dead fish.

“Uh huh,” I said, trying to suppress a grimace from my face.

I was not listening to anything. I was just sitting there, freaked.

“Mr. Rubin?” she asked.

Gasp, she knows my name…

“I understand you have some concerns about our contract?”

“Yeah…uhh…” Visibly cringing, “I was just hoping you might be willing to amend…it…for me.”

By then I knew there was no way in hell I was going to work there, lest I end up cut-up and starving to death.

“I think we can do that,” she said, smiling. I found it incredibly weird to see someone who is obviously suffering severely crack a seemingly genuine smile, something I doubt I will ever see again in my life.

There was something forcing my eyes down to scan over her hideous, mutilated body. I wrestled with the urge, like a kid that has to use the bathroom, but it was impossible. Every few seconds I would bat my eyes down and then back up to her eyes. It was compulsive.

“So what made you choose Taiwan?” she asked.

Don’t tell her the truth whatever you do. Don’t tell her it was a last resort because you started running out of money in Thailand and couldn’t find a decent job there, so you had to contact your long-lost cousin in Taipei and ask him to put you up for a few weeks.

“I heard Taiwan is really nice, and plus my cousin lives here and he invited me to come live with him.”

Despite this weird day, Taiwan is really nice. That I didn’t have to lie about.

“What about Taiwan do you like?”

I just looked at her for a second as it dawned on me what she was insinuating. The girls. Western guys that visit Taiwan go crazy for the girls there, and for damn good reason because they are gorgeous. But it’s a stigma that is hard to live down to those who are wise to the ways of a young, single traveling male. I really was just there to work though. While walking through the subway in Taipei, I had to stare straight ahead all the time to discipline myself. Not that Taiwan’s beautiful woman are more attractive than the beautiful woman in any other country, but just that there are so damn many of them, EVERYWHERE. Thus, I perfected the thousand-yard stare when in public.

“I mean,” she back peddled, “I’m just curious because it’s so far from home. I can’t imagine being without my family for so long.”

This is something I heard all the time from Taiwanese people when I was there. They often asked what my parents thought about my trip, to which I stumbled to explain that family is not the most important thing where I’m from, and children are encouraged to leave home when they turn 18. Some of them already know the difference between our individualistic society and their collectivism, but for some I had to explain that your goal as a member of western society is to be an egotistical, self-centered prick that has perfected pretending to be genuinely nice and to care about others when it’s socially expected.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world over there,” I’d say. But it’s funny, because we are the ones that accuse them of eating dogs, which I have never seen or heard of anyone doing in Taiwan, and believe me, I asked. I beat that dead horse, and later beat myself up over how ignorant it was to ask that. Although, they do eat horse meat there. It’s a delicacy.

“Yeah, it’s pretty hard being away from them.” I said in hopes of changing the topic quickly.

“All of our classes have a—“ Her voice faded out as I stared at her. I wondered how the hell this mangled woman was the manager of a school for kids. And how was that surfer guy not affected by it? Don’t you think that’d be worth mentioning? “Here’s our contract, and by the way, our manager is anorexic and suicidal. Welcome to the team.” At least put it in the contract under terms and conditions.

“So how does that sound?” she said.

“Let me think about it for a couple of days and I’ll let you know.”

She knew that meant no. She nodded saying, “Okay,” and trying not to sound disappointed. “We look forward to hearing from you”

“Thank you very much,” I said, slowly getting up. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” She said, turning her attention to some papers on her desk.

I walked as casually as possible to the door, and when I closed it behind me, I sighed and could breathe normally again. I shook it off, and I got the hell out of there.

A couple of days later I called them back to turn down the job. I was hoping the assistant manager would answer. He did.

“I just want to let you know I’ve decided not to take your offer for the teaching position, but thank you very much for the interview.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“I think you know why not.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, playing dumb again.

“PJ, your manager. She’s not fit to be working with children. She needs professional help, like immediately.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He claimed.

“Yes, you do.”

He paused for a moment, a kind of silent acknowledgment, then he hung up the phone.

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