APA

The interviewer looked at me expectantly as she waited for a response. I’d come in prepared for a standard interview… the usual questions: Tell me about a time when you had to resolve a conflict with a coworker. Where do you see yourself in five years? Why should we hire you?

What I wasn’t expecting was for the incredibly attractive goth girl who was sitting across from me to ask “What experience do you have with poltergeists?”

COVID had done a number on the job market, that’s for sure. After the work from home and The Great Resignation, you could email your resume to any place you wanted, and if you were willing to work on-site, you got bumped to the top of the pile. Salaries were higher, especially for commission work, so after what amounted to a two year windfall of basically free sales in healthcare insurance and watching the entire health insurance industry devolve into a gigantic scam as money grubbing executives tried to sew together golden parachutes before the SJW socialists came and lynched them, I decided that it was time to branch out and turn my back on a toxic industry that was holding the country in a stranglehold.

Now don’t get me wrong. Insurance is all about playing on people’s fears of the future, and selling them false security. It’s about selling someone a product that they never see, never touch, and pray to God that they’ll never have to use, and as a guy who’s been working in the field for more than twenty years I’ve gotten pretty good at preying on those fears. But health insurance has gotten to the point that it makes even my stomach turn.

So I started shopping my resume around. I had enough socked away that I could be picky and enough experience that the offers rolled in, but there was always some kind of deal breaker. Location was bad. There was a quota. In one case, the owner was apparently actually running a protection racket. But this one, A. P. Agency, really caught my eye.

The really weird thing about them was that I only noticed them when I was reading through the Personal ads in the newspaper (a guilty pleasure of mine, and the only reason to still buy a newspaper other than the Sunday comics). The personals are right next to the Classifieds in the Duluth News Tribune, so after reading through Missed Connections (“You were walking a brindle Great Dane puppy. I was flashing people in a taupe trench coat. As the police dragged me away I caught your eye. Look me up in five to ten. Perverted in Piedmont.”) I glanced at the next page out of habit and there it was. Commission plus salary. Bonuses for after sales service. No health care sales. Must be an avid reader. Fluency in Latin preferred. Only serious applicants.

I mean, I had to check it out, right?

So that’s how I ended up in this office sitting across from this girl (she claimed her name was Anwyn and to be fair she was young enough that her parents may have been Pete Jackson fans) who I literally owned shoes older than and wondering just how serious that last question was.

Fuck it. When in doubt, lie your ass off.

“I experienced my first haunting when I was twelve.” Not a total lie, but the best ones always have some truth to them. Just turns out that the house was haunted by mice that were bothered by the too-close high voltage towers. I just wanted to see where this was going.

That one oddity in the middle of the interview was sandwiched in between reviewing my career, and quizzing me on my Latin, which being raised Catholic and being a curious sonovabitch I wasn’t exactly fluent in but I could get by. (Would you believe I once wanted to be a priest? I’d done a year of seminary before deciding that John Paul II wasn’t going to lift the celibacy rule, and then spent the next two in serious debauchery making up for lost time.) I was a little rusty but she seemed duly impressed.

“… so if you don’t have any more questions for me, Mr. Donne (she pronounced it correct right from the start… “dun”, like the poet, who she probably studied last year in high school), I think I can say honestly that you are the best candidate for the position we’re likely to see. I’ll have to kick it up the chain to the Boss Lady, but I’m pretty sure that if you’re interested, within a couple days you’ll receive a formal offer from our HR department. I look forward to working with you.”

“I’m definitely interested, Anwyn. But call me Miles. Mr. Donne is my late father.”

She extended her hand, taking mine in a surprisingly firm grip. “Then welcome to the Aetherial Protection Agency. Your father wouldn’t be interested in a position too, would he?”