INDIANAPOLIS – Enjoying an orange mango smoothie at a Starbucks in downtown Indianapolis Thursday, local man Zach Needham was fairly certain that some sort of job interview – probably for a really high-end position – was taking place at the next table.
Just catching up on some emails built up over the past two days, the 32-year-old web designer couldn’t help but overhear the authoritative-sounding guy immediately to his right ask the woman sitting opposite him “what sort of experience do you have with Excel 2010?”
Though the two people in question might just as easily have been co-workers, Needham nonetheless could not rule out the possibility that he was sitting in on someone’s job screening session, a thought that made him feel both powerful and yet vaguely unimportant at the same time.
“It was kind of difficult to tell, but when the guy next to me started saying things like “profit is king” and “we’re essentially a results-oriented company,” I was pretty sure that this girl was a prospective employee of some kind.”
“Especially, since she seemed to agree with every last fucking word the guy said.”
In what may have been the biggest indication yet that this was not just some meeting between friends, the male individual – noted Needham – thanked his female counterpart for showing up and insisted that it was “really great to get a better idea of what you can bring to the table.”
“I mean no-one talks like that in real life,” said Needham, finishing off his smoothie. “At the very least, she might have been a client, or whatever. But not a friend or family member.”
“It… it was weird, I don’t know.”