Light the Torch for the Library

The trick to interviewing is to make sure you are not being interviewed. Sitting there, the person on the other side of the table or screen wants to know why they should work with you. You, on the other hand, just want to fill a hole with the least incompetent person you can find.

     Someone who will not burn the building down at the first sign of stress.

     Our first applicant to the children's librarian position walked in with a torch already lit. 

     "It's my coping torch," he said sitting in the library conference room holding a flaming stick.

     The circulation librarian said, "That's about all I need to know."

     "We accept your need and hope you feel supported," I said. "Are you ready to begin?"

     "I've been waiting for an hour," First said.

     Circ looked at her watch. "It's early for the interview."

     "I was waiting," First said.

     "Let's get started," I said. "What do you feel you would bring to the position?"

     "I don't understand," First said.

     Circ said, "What the director means is, why are you here?"

     "I want a job."

     "Can you elaborate?" I said.

     "What does that mean?"

     "Just tell us about the torch," Circ said.

     First cleared his throat and looked to the burning flame. "When I was a boy, I found joy in the flames. The way they lick and spit. The way they dance in the darkness. My mother would hand me a torch every night and say, 'Edgar, don't you let this light go out or Satan will find us.' That was before she left. I would never let it go out as a boy. Then I grew up. Mother and sister and other sister left. But the torch. The fire. They stayed."

     "Well, shit," Circ said. 

     "Do you require the torch at all times?" I said.

     First said, "I do not."

     "Do you think you would be comfortable not having it while walking around the stacks?" I said.

     "The stacks?" First said.

     "The rows and rows of paper on hundred year old wooden shelves that would go up like kindling if you ate Flaming Hot Cheetos in them."

     "Oh, no, that sounds very stressful. I would need my torch among the books to scare away the snorts."

     "The snorts?" Circ said.

     "Satan's friends."

     "Of course. Well, I don't have any more questions. Director Harker?"

     I glanced at the list of six questions. We were supposed to each take three. By the light of the torch, they seemed so small and worthless. "I'm good. Thank you for coming in, Edgar."

     The torchbearer left us. 

     I said, "That was one of the emails."

     "Think he typed it one handed?"