OLIVIA PULVER
Application What’s your name? Now, where did I put your resume? Would you like to take your jacket off? Do you want a jellybean? What flavor? Stacy, will you tell the next applicant to wait in the hall? And would you mind getting me some more coffee? Would you like some, too? Stacy, can you bring an extra mug for…what’s your name again? So, why do you want to work for our company? What makes us so appealing? Was it our net profit? Our awards? Did you see our ad in Time? Did you know one of our interns designed that ad? Can you believe how talented she is? Isn’t she unique? Speaking of unique, what makes you unique? What I mean is, why should we choose you over the thousand applicants competing for the same position? What makes your degree so different from everyone else’s? Have you always wanted to work in this field? Did your father work in this field? Did you watch him walk into the kitchen every morning wearing the same navy blue suit and red tie and kiss your mother goodbye before leaving for work in his red Sedan? I’m not being sexist, am I? Do I sound like my age? Isn’t it funny how you can change your face, but you can never change your thoughts? What about school? Were you at the top of your class? Did you ever get a bad report card? How bad was it? Where did you hide it? Under the bed? In your sock drawer? Were you brave enough to shred it? Did your teachers like you? Were you always the first kid they called on? Did they always mispronounce your last name? It’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Is it Polish? Did you ever plagiarize an essay, but never get caught? When was the first time you realized that the answers were in the back of the book? You left it out of the Works Cited page, didn’t you? 38 The Kudzu Review