TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE
A recession had gripped the country in 1950, and jobs were very scarce. Even some of my school’s best students had not found work as graduation loomed just weeks ahead. Nothing came of the few on-campus job interviews I had been granted. My outlook for employment as a mechanical engineer seemed bleak.
However, my hopes for employment rose when a friend called me to say his company, Beckman Instruments, located in Brooklyn , had a job opening. He arranged an interview for me with the manager of their Industrial Engineering Department. I jumped at the chance, even though the idea of commuting from Hoboken Brooklyn seemed very unappealing.
On the appointed day, the receptionist required me to complete a lengthy questionnaire and job application form. This made me bristle.
“This isn’t necessary. I have a scheduled appointment.”
“Fill out the forms,” she replied with a practiced sneer.
Once inside, the interviewer asked me but one question: “Can you read a stopwatch?”
Are you kidding me? Are you joking?
“I think so.”
With that said, he thrust one into my hands. It was far from an ordinary run-of-the-mill stopwatch. It had numerous knobs and dials. I looked at it with faint recognition.
“Apparently not,” said the man, who snatched the watch back from my hands and walked me through the machine shop on my way out the door.
On the subway going home, laughter rocked my frame, almost to the point of tears. After all my years of study and effort, my inability to push buttons on a stopwatch would doom me to remain unemployed, perhaps forever. This can happen to people like me who have too much time on their hands. It made me recall my high school years when time was endless.
▀
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment