mordant wit

If Stephen King ever wants to hear a really scary story, he should talk to me.

Early in 2005 I placed my résumé with several online job sites. Then, one day, my cell phone rang. “Hello,” said a man’s voice. “This is Hourly Computers. We’re an information technology organization, and we’re looking for a full-time engineer.” The next morning I met with Ben, the owner, and Maria, who identified herself as Ben’s business consultant. The interview was a little weird -- Maria kept bragging about their large technical staff, none of whom were in evidence. But it went well.

I started the next day, at a nice office building downtown. For the first week Ben drove me around and introduced me to the firm’s clients in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Whenever we visited a client, after he or she explained the problem, Ben would turn to me and say, “What do you think?” I would then suggest a solution, and fix whatever problem was occurring. Eventually I figured out that Ben didn’t know how to do anything! Once or twice, when I failed to come up with a quick fix, his only idea was to call the vendor’s tech support line.

Nor did I get much help from the other engineers, because there weren’t any. After three weeks on the job, I asked Maria where the large team of tech support staffers was. “Why are you so concerned with my engineers?” she yelled. I explained that I was driving across three states trying to keep my clients satisfied and could use some help.

She glared at me and said, “I had to fire them all.”