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Anyone who’s had to search for a job in the last few years knows that the market is tough right now. A huge number of applicants are competing for a dwindling number of open positions, and you have to find a way to sell yourself. You simply can’t afford to do anything that would make yourself look bad or jeopardize your chance at employment. That’s why, even though the door in my stomach leads to Hell, I always tell job interviewers that it actually leads to Madison Square Garden.
Now, this is not entirely honest. If you open up the door in my stomach, you would find yourself looking at the twisted inferno of Hell, the fiery kingdom of the fallen angel Lucifer, now known as Satan. But when an employment opportunity is on the line, I lift up my shirt, point right at the big oaken door in my stomach, and say to my job interviewer, “This door right here leads straight to Madison Square Garden, the world’s most famous arena and the home of the New York Rangers.” When I tell them that, their eyes light up. It might not be the deciding factor in their decision to hire me, but I would imagine it scores me some bonus points.
Obviously, I feel a little bit guilty about this, but I’m only doing whatever is necessary to secure my future. I use the same strategy whenever interviewers ask me about my previous jobs. I often tell them that one time, the legendary singer-songwriter Neil Diamond left a performance he was giving at Madison Square Garden and entered the office through the door in my stomach.
I tell them that Neil Diamond sang “Sweet Caroline” for the whole office three times in a row before opening up the door in my stomach and returning to Madison Square Garden to finish his big concert. When I say this in job interviews, my interviewer stares right at my stomach and mutters to themselves, “Neil Diamond, huh?”
If you open up the door in my stomach, you would find yourself looking at the twisted inferno of Hell, the fiery kingdom of the fallen angel Lucifer…
I know that when I tell this story I’m stretching the truth a little bit, but consider the alternative: If I told a job interviewer the true version of that story, I would never get hired, because in the true version of that story, the being that emerged from the beautiful oaken door in my stomach was not the singer Neil Diamond, but rather the necrotic demon Mulciber, the architect of Pandemonium. In the true version of that story, it was a quiet day at the office, when all of a sudden the door in my stomach burst open and the foul Mulciber sprinted out of it, grabbed as many of the office computers as he could hold, and then sprinted right back through the door, returning to the stygian planes of damnation from which he had come.
The wretched Mulciber stole about seven computers. He almost got eight, but he dropped one on the way back through the door in my stomach because he had grabbed more computers than he could realistically carry back into Hell at one time.
I just can’t help thinking that if I told that version of the story in an interview, it would hurt my chances of getting the job. In this unforgiving job market, I need to present myself in the best possible light at all times. That’s why I always tell potential employers that the exquisite door in my stomach leads straight to Madison Square Garden, even though it really leads to Hell. It’s a cutthroat world out there, and I’m going to do whatever I have to in order to get by.
