“Next please,” said the lady in a grey suit.

“Thank you,” I said breathing heavily.

I said a little prayer as I opened the door gently, with my heart skipping fast. ll that was playing in my mind was my best friend Lizo’s voice telling me everything was going to be alright.

“You can take your seat,” the gentleman said.

“Thank you,” I said.

They all looked at me as if I was lost or something before one of them broke the ice and asked a question I did not expect.

“Are you alright miss?”

“Yes…yes, I am okay,” I replied.

“So, in your resume it shows that you have no work experience, what makes you think you should be considered as the best candidate for this job?” the lady asked.

I took a deep breath because this was it, the moment I’d been looking forward to for months and months, my first ever interview.

“I believe that in life, if you have enthusiasm nothing is impossible, yes I do not have the type of experience your company is looking for, but to end up here I had to go school. Which means I had to learn, which is the reason why I am here willing to learn and put what I have learned in school into action.” I gave them my crooked smile.

“That was unexpected…what came to your mind when you received a call for this interview?” the young man asked.

“To be honest I was not that excited, thinking about the poor candidates that would go home because this job is already mine.”

They all laughed but I did not, I just stared at them.

“That was a good joke there young lady…where do you see yourself in five years considering you are among the shortlisted candidates?” another man asked.

“Well, that will depend on how the company is operating, I may be the CEO in two years’ time. I don’t want to lie and make false promises. Let’s just wait, after two years you’ll see,” I said.

“I’ve been conducting interviews for a long time and I have never experienced such an attitude…so if I said change this attitude of yours and the job will be yours would you do that?” the older guy asked.

“No, I would keep this attitude and I guess you would keep your work too,” I said with a smile.

“Thank you very much miss. You will hear from us in about a week,” the last lady spoke.

I stood up from the chair and went out leaving them whispering.

I got into the house and phoned Lizo and told him I did exactly what he warned me not to do.

“Did you at least say something positive or normal in there?” he asked sounding disappointed on the other end.

“I said nothing you told me to say,” I said as chilled as I could sound.

“Did they would call you or something?” he said, worriedly.

“Something like that, in two days…look I have to rest okay?”

I hung up because I was not ready for a lecture, plus I was tired and I needed some rest. The days passed by, the weeks passed and no call, I wasn’t sad. Life goes on and I focused more on my writing since it was my passion after all and my novel was stressing me.

I was staring at my laptop as if it was going to give me the climax I was looking for when my phone rang and I knew it was Lizo wanting to ask me about the job interview, so I ignored it. But it rang again for the second time, so I picked it up without looking at the screen.

“What?”

“Hello sorry if I got you on a wrong time but after conducting an interview with you we realised you were a suitable candidate, so can you make it tomorrow?”

From that moment I realised that the clock is always sticking

Tell us: Do you think people should act like that during job interviews?