The charlatan

This will be the one, Alex Milton thought as he drove down the the highway. This will be the one that I'll get that will take me out of this slump. He said that word to himself as he drove, like a mantra. The same mantra he had been repeating to himself for the past eight months. Of course it had seemed true for the last few places, he had gotten a second interview and things seemed to be going well, but then it had fallen through. Collapsed. Usually shortly after they had checked his references, either they didn't respond of they told him they weren't interested. It was hard to tell which was worse, a non-response was obviously bad, they didn't even take the time to tell him they didn't want him for the job, but telling him in some ways was just as bad. Sure they would usually say they would take him into consideration for future openings but that did him little good. For him the future was now, and as it stood right now the future looked bleak, desolate. In fact, as far
as he knew if this interview didn't go as he hoped it would he was through. Finished. His wife would leave him, she had all but said it before, and in the long run his unemployment would run out. He had heard horror stories on the new's about the long term unemployed, how the government had cut off their benefits, how they had struggled to find work. That's not going to be me, Alex thought as he looked at the highway sign reading '91' in large dark letters. This has to work, he saw 'F.R. Rogers' printed in large letters on the side of their headquarters and knew he was close. Here we go, he thought.


Dave sat at his desk looking at the resume thinking he might have struck gold. That perhaps, despite all of his thoughts to the contrary that he might have found what he was looking for. A spotty resume, sketchy reasons for leaving his previous positions, and just enough management experience to sell it to upper management. The day before had been all headaches, interviews, looking at resume's, having to evaluate every little detail, Having to tell qualified applicant's that they would let them know. A few were bad, maybe what he was looking for but not quite bad enough, not enough to bring the thing down. They had just started rebuilding the kitchen in the diner and daily and they had kept pestering him, 'When will you find a new manager?' 'What's going on with the job search?' He had been able to stall them for a bit, explaining that he had a lot of people to go over, interviews to conduct, but still they had persisted.

Dave took a percocet from his pocket and popped it in his mouth. He chased it down with coffee from his desk. He had had to pull some strings to get the prescription, claiming back pain, but it had been worth it. He still had a prescription for the Xanax but at this point it hadn't really done much good, he had developed a tolerance to it, he had 3 before coming into the office, so he needed something to combine it with. So far it seemed to work, although he caught himself nodding off a few times. The phone rang, 'Hello, Dave.' He answered. 'An Alex Milton to see you for an interview.' his secretary replied on the line. 'Send him in.' Dave responded. Fuck, he thought, I got to do another interview. He had done a few before and they had all been nauseating, all these damn over achievers talking about how great they were.

Alex had been different. He was confident, but it was obvious that it was misplaced. The door opened, and Alex walked in, Dave rose. 'Thanks for coming back for a second interview.' Dave said shaking his hand. 'Have a seat.' Dave gestured toward the seat in front of his desk. 'Now that you are here, I'm interested why do you want to work for F.R. Rogers company?' Because it's a job with a paycheck, Alex thought but he restrained himself. 'Well I am interested in the opportunity to improve you're business, improve revenue.' 'Improve how?' Dave asked, enjoying the exchange. 'Well I heard the diner burned down, and that the former manager might have been the one responsible.' Dave paused for a moment, to suppress a laugh. If only they had finished the job, he thought. 'Well that's true Alex, and I think that also the problem that we at the diner was something like a culture. A sort of acceptance of mediocrity of thing being, 'Just the way they are,' and not attempting to aim higher.' 'Absolutely,' Alex said. 'And I think as you're new manager I can bring all of that to the table. I can change the culture.'

Dave smiled, 'Alex I think you're going to have a bright future with F.R. Rogers.' He rose and shook his hand. This is the one, he thought, this is the one who can bring it all down.