"Hey there... you must be..."
"Oscar. I'm here for the two p.m. interview."
"Do I know you from somewhere? Your face looks familiar. I never forget a face, but because of my synesthesia, I see résumés as colors."
"I'm Oscar. Your company recruited me pretty aggressively last month."
"Hi, good to meet you, Orson. I'm Bill, VP of... something. Growth? Decline? Who knows. Anyway, have a seat."
"Thanks. I've actually been sitting here for the past 20 minutes."
"Interesting. Why are you even interviewing for this job, Ottoman?"
"Well, you recruited me on LinkedIn."
"Are you sure about that? Could’ve been one of those ghost jobs I’m hearing about."
"Yeah, I got contacted by one of your AI recruiters. I truly have no idea what this place even does. AI recruiter Cheryl couldn’t explain it, either. Makes value or something?"
"It doesn't NOT do that, Ovuh. Say, what is this call for again? Is this about my medication?"
"It's an interview, Bill."
"No shit. Am I up for a promotion?"
"You're... conducting my interview. For a position here."
"A position? Is that what this is?"
"I guess so."
"I'm not comfortable with the term 'position.' That puts a lot of pressure on me."
"I agree. Let's call it an opportunity."
"No, I don't like that, either. Let's just call it nothing."
"Okay, Bill, then it's nothing. We're discussing nothing."
"I like that. I like discussing nothing with you."
"Yeah, I suppose it beats discussing something."
"Does it? I like staying proactive. You know, discussing stuff."
"So do I, Bill. I'm a big fan of discussing stuff, especially when I’m being proactive in professional settings."
"Well, there are also times when it's good to not discuss anything, Ohvuh. Silence is golden and whatnot. Squeaky wheel gets lubed and greased before it gets the shaft, am I right?"
"My name is still Oscar, but otherwise you're right. Most workdays, I'd just like to focus on deliverables while staying productive from nine to nine. It's a jungle out there in the job market."
"Well, Elrond, I hope you're not one of those candidates who just wants to come in and collect a paycheck. I want someone for this position who comes up with interesting ideas for synergy."
"Oscar. And I thought you weren't comfortable calling this a position."
"This? No way—definitely not a position, definitely not for you. I mean a position when I’m talking to a good fit for this position who isn't you."
"I see. So what are you looking for in a candidate, Bill?"
"Candidates? Ugh, those are so 2024. I want a disruptor."
"I'm all for that. Disruption is best."
"I don't agree. See, I want you to want to work here, but I don't want to hire you."
"What? That's confusing!"
"No, I need your interest. But I'm definitely not going to reciprocate. Not your interest, anyway. I'm going to reciprocate someone else's interest, except that'll be a one-way street, too. What I want, I guess, is at least two one-way streets: One where you're needing us and one where we're needing some other, better candidate."
“If you need a better candidate and/or disruptor, why are we having this interview?"
"Interview? I thought we were doing nothing."
"Excuse me, why are we doing nothing?"
"You applied for this job, right?"
"Huh? Like I said, your AI head of talent acquisition emailed me asking if I wanted to explore opportunities here."
"AI Cheryl clearly didn't mean it. I think you totally misinterpreted that."
"Did I?"
"When a company’s AI-scraping LinkedIn bots say they want to explore opportunities with you, they're trying to tell you that they don't want to explore opportunities with you. We were being nice, Oliver."
"Once again, my name is Oscar. And I didn't want to switch jobs. However, I did want to after you reached out, because I thought you were interested in my skills."
"Why on earth would you think that?"
"AI Cheryl wrote that you were interested in my background and wanted to schedule an interview!"
"We weren't, though. That's just what we wrote. You're so silly, Oman."
"Oman? Where are you getting these names? Okay, whatever. Let me see if I understand: Right now we're doing nothing, and this isn't an interview, and you didn't want to conduct it, even though your company asked me to come in because you’re all about the culture of sitting around all day in the office."
"Exactly. How hard is it to understand that?"
"What about this other, better candidate? Why don't you interview them?"
"If I interviewed them, they might learn that I liked them. I want to hire them, but I don't want them to know that. Besides, I have a natural fear of making hiring decisions. Also a fear of interviews."
"But not a fear of doing nothing."
"No, doing nothing is okay. Anyway, you're harmless. Like a cute intern or a best workplace friend. I can say anything to you and it won't bother you at all."
"Yeah, I'm glad you can, Bill. Lucky for you, I'm a professional doormat who prides himself on doing the work. I don't have any career aspirations. I'm the perfect guy to do nothing with, and I certainly won't challenge your ossified corporate culture in any way."
"Just don't pressure me, Edmund. I don't like being pressured about headcount."
"Have I pressured you, Bill?"
"I can't shake the feeling that you're trying to turn this nothing into an actual job. This nothing will never be something, Ove, Uve... uh, candidate I met."
"I don't expect it to be. In fact, given your struggles with my first name, I have no expectations at all. Your company matters, but I don't. I'm happy to sit here and listen to you ramble about your organizational doubts, hopes, and dreams. I won't even point out how contradictory they are."
"Great! So I can tell you how we want an employee who will give 110 percent to the company, except they'll work remotely—while still on site, meaning in a remote building we rent down the street—most of the time. Salary won't matter, but they'll be very experienced and will bring lots of valuable skills. They'll be qualified but not really, not enough that they'll ever make the rest of the team feel insecure about their abilities, and I'll always be able to manage them, even though they're an expert. We'll have meetings, and I'll care about them so much that I'll never attend because I'm always in other meetings or grabbing a coffee or getting my LinkedIn profile updated or whatever."
"That sounds so wonderful, Bill. It sure does. My career’s of no consequence, and I'll die unemployed and forgotten, but I'm happy that you have it figured out."
"Thanks, Erwin. I'm glad you're participating in this nothing. You should be, too. Now, do you have any final questions for me about the role that doesn't exist in a company that’s planning to replace all the employees with AI Cheryls, including me?"
"Actually, yes. Could you tell me more about the responsibilities?"
"Oh god, you're one of those candidates who asks about 'responsibilities.' Listen, Ozymandias, we're looking for someone who can wear multiple hats."
"What kind of hats?"
"Invisible ones, mostly. The role is very dynamic. Sometimes you'll be doing everything, sometimes nothing, sometimes negative work where you undo what other people have done."
"I see. And what's the reporting structure?"
"Well, you'll report to me, except when you don't. And I report to AI Stuart, unless it's Tuesday, then I report to AI Janet, our AI middle manager. But Janet might be leaving, or she might have already left six months ago. We're not sure. She's still in meetings but her video is always off."
"I know you keep saying that being on site is part of your culture, but since you’re not paying me, could this be a hybrid role?"
"We're very flexible. You can work from anywhere as long as you're in the office. We're remote-first but in-person-only. We believe in work-life integration, which means work is life and life is work and neither really exists. You are, however, able to work from home during holidays and whichever weekends you’re not here working."
"What about the team structure?"
"Ah yes, the team. We're implementing a holacracy within a hierarchy inside an agile waterfall methodology. Imagine a triangle, but circular, and also it's a square. You'll be part of the purple team, which used to be the green team before we rebranded, but might now be the null team since the last reorganization, which may or may not have happened."
"And the projects?"
"Listen here, Odysseus. We don't call them 'projects' anymore. They're 'journey initiatives.' We're currently in the middle of an AI transformation of our digital transformation of our analog transformation. I suppose you could say it’s very transformative."
"What metrics would I be evaluated on?"
"Oh, you'll be measured on everything and nothing simultaneously. We use a 360-degree feedback loop that's actually more like an M.C. Escher drawing. Your KPIs will be determined retroactively based on goals that haven't been set yet. We're very data-driven, especially about data we don't have and data we manufacture."
"And the company culture?"
"We're like a family here. A dysfunctional family where nobody knows who anybody is and we're all competing for Dad's inheritance, but Dad might be a deepfake that lives inside a server farm. We have unlimited PTO, which means you're permanently on vacation but also never not working. Every day is casual Friday, including Saturday and Sunday."
"I noticed the job posting mentioned 'competitive salary.'"
"Did it? That posting might have been for a different role. Or this role. Or no role. We like to keep all our job postings up permanently, even for positions that were filled in 2019. Or will be filled in 2026. Time is a flat circle in HR, and those ghost jobs really help us build up our LinkedIn following."
"But this is a real position for someone, right?"
"Define 'real.' Define 'position.' Define 'is.' We exist in a quantum state of perpetual recruitment. Schrödinger's job, if you will. The position both exists and doesn't exist until you observe the offer letter, which may or may not be forthcoming."
"I have to ask—why is recruitment occurring at all? I’ll ask again: Why was I contacted?"
"Did we? I mean, did we really? Think about it. Real talk: You recruited us. Maybe this whole interview is just a simulation being run by our AI middle manager, AI Janet. Maybe we're all just LinkedIn profiles in a vast digital void."
"That's... not very reassuring."
"Reassurance is not one of our Core Four values, Oliver. Our Core Four values are Disruption, Innovation, Synergy, Resilience, Understanding, Passion, Transparency, Integrity, Originality, and Nimbleness—which conveniently spells out DISRUPTION when you ignore most of the letters and overlook the fact that there are more than four of them in DISRUPTION."
"Always Oscar here, Bill. Always.."
"Always, though? Is anything always anything? Everything changes, even if nothing is truly lost. That's the kind of disruptive thinking we need here at... what's our company called again?"
"You don't remember your company's name?"
"Names are so Web 3.0, so ChatGPT 3.5. We rebranded last week to just a feeling—specifically, the feeling you get when you're in an elevator and can't remember if you pressed the button. We're living in a post-name, pure-vibe economy."
"Right. Well, thank you for your time..."
"Time is a Eurocentric construct, Orlando. But speaking of constructs, want to see my NFT collection of motivational posters? I’ve got a lot of these ape posters, and they’re worth less and less every single day, just like the two of us will be when AI Janet gets through with us. "