25 May 2013
Quote of the Day: "Mark Watches"
In a post about the Dead Like Me episode "In Escrow", Mark tells his favorite stories from when he was a hiring manager at Hot Topic:
The winner, though? A frequent customer of the store who we all suspected of being a shoplifter applied for a job, and surprisingly, he had good references and a decent amount of experience. My boss thought it was worth a shot to at least see what he was like. He was personable and kind, and he had fantastic knowledge of what Hot Topic sold. I kind of liked him, despite that I went into the interview not wanting to like him.
I finally asked him what he thought he’d bring to our store if we hired him. He smiled confidently, leaned forward, and said that it would be totally worth it for us to hire him because then he could stop stealing from us. Confused (but slightly curious), I did my best not to react much to what he’d just said, so I asked him what he meant by that. And he told me that if he got a job at our store, he’d take advantage of the employee discount so he wouldn’t feel so bad about spending money at the store. “You know,” he said, “so I don’t go broke buying stuff there.” When I asked for clarification about what exactly he would buy, he opened his backpack to show me a collection of t-shirts and Lord of the Rings merchandise that he had stolen just before his interview, and he explained that we’d make so much more money from him if we just hired him.
I excitedly told him that this seemed like a great idea and excused myself, telling him that I would go get my other manager to interview him right then, as he clearly was the right candidate for us. So, as he sat there, smug and pleased with his chances, I walked straight to mall security, explained what was going on, and then the Downey police showed up, and he got arrested in the food court, and the guy didn’t say a single word to me.
I cannot make this shit up, y’all. I can’t.
The winner, though? A frequent customer of the store who we all suspected of being a shoplifter applied for a job, and surprisingly, he had good references and a decent amount of experience. My boss thought it was worth a shot to at least see what he was like. He was personable and kind, and he had fantastic knowledge of what Hot Topic sold. I kind of liked him, despite that I went into the interview not wanting to like him.
I finally asked him what he thought he’d bring to our store if we hired him. He smiled confidently, leaned forward, and said that it would be totally worth it for us to hire him because then he could stop stealing from us. Confused (but slightly curious), I did my best not to react much to what he’d just said, so I asked him what he meant by that. And he told me that if he got a job at our store, he’d take advantage of the employee discount so he wouldn’t feel so bad about spending money at the store. “You know,” he said, “so I don’t go broke buying stuff there.” When I asked for clarification about what exactly he would buy, he opened his backpack to show me a collection of t-shirts and Lord of the Rings merchandise that he had stolen just before his interview, and he explained that we’d make so much more money from him if we just hired him.
I excitedly told him that this seemed like a great idea and excused myself, telling him that I would go get my other manager to interview him right then, as he clearly was the right candidate for us. So, as he sat there, smug and pleased with his chances, I walked straight to mall security, explained what was going on, and then the Downey police showed up, and he got arrested in the food court, and the guy didn’t say a single word to me.
I cannot make this shit up, y’all. I can’t.
Labels: random weirdness
# posted by mamurd @ 9:02 PM 
