Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me_ (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling [24]
Anyway, I got called in for an interview with the program. I wore a pin-striped skirt suit I ordered from the clothing section of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. You know that section, where they can make a woman modeling a pair of overalls look slutty? Yeah, it’s amazing.
I thought I looked pretty awesome—like one of Ally McBeal’s friends in cheaper material.
I arrived fifteen minutes early for my interview, which was the first of my three mistakes. I was interviewed by a paunchy and balding man name Leon. He was one of the guys who managed the page program, and it was obvious that lunchtime was his thirty-minute respite from this hell job of interviewing an assembly line of ambitious, obnoxious liberal arts school grads. He didn’t have an assistant to tell me to wait outside. There was no “outside” to his tiny office. Or a waiting area, as I thought there would be. It wasn’t a posh enough job to have earned him all these extra rooms. My early arrival meant that either he would have to interview me or I would have to wander around Midtown for a while. Unfortunately, he chose the former. He reluctantly shoved his Quiznos sub aside and told me to have a seat. Strike one.
Life had been hard on Leon, his portliness and baldness obscuring his relative youth. Looking at a photo on his desk of him with two little kids, I asked, “Oh, are those your kids? They’re so cute.”
He looked aghast. “I’m twenty-five. Those are my nephews. You think I have kids?”
I was unable to conceal my surprise. “Oh! It’s just that, you don’t look, um, you seem more mature than that.”
Leon gestured to me. “We’re basically the same age.”
Without thinking, I immediately responded, “Well, I’m actually three years younger than you.” Why on earth did I correct him on his point? Oh, because I was a snotty little idiot.
Strike two.
Leon asked me, while eyeing his Quiznos sandwich longingly, why I wanted to be a TBN page. I answered honestly, saying that I would be honored to work for a terrific company that had been host to all my favorite shows growing up, and that the opportunities that came from the page program seemed amazing.
“Hold on.” Leon stopped me. “So you only want this job for the opportunities it affords?”
I was puzzled. “I mean, that’s part of why I’m applying, yes.”
“This job is more than just a stepping-stone.” Leon jotted down a short word on my résumé that could only have been hate or yuck. Strike three.
Leon was now openly disgusted. What had he wanted? For me to say that all I wanted to do into my twilight years was give people backstage tours of morning talk shows? Oh, yeah. Yes. That’s exactly what he wanted me say. I left knowing with certainty that I had not gotten the job. It was hard to be devastated, because it had been such a top-to-bottom disaster.
Now when I watch my friend Jack McBrayer excellently portray Kenneth, the career NBC page on 30 Rock, I understand what kind of commitment Leon wanted from me. I wonder if Leon is a consultant for the show. Or still a page.
I WORK FOR A TV PSYCHIC
Still babysitting, with no health insurance, I began to become a germaphobe, because I could not afford to get sick and go to the hospital. From a friend of a friend, I landed an interview for an entry-level job as a production assistant on a show I’ll call Bridging the Underworld with Mac Teegarden. This was a cable program featuring the psychic Mac Teegarden, who relayed messages to members of the studio audience from their dead friends and relatives.
The morning I interviewed for the job, I had an enormous pimple on my face. A giant pimple is bad news for everyone, but if you have dark brown skin and a huge whitehead in the center of your forehead, it is especially disgusting. It wasn’t even one of those stoic pimples that goes quietly when you pop it; this one was cystic and painful and had roots that seemed to extend into my brain. I wanted