#megateam

Bonus :) What are you doing your thesis on?

I have always considered whatever job I was holding to be an intimate relationship of sorts. The mechanics, after all, are the same. At the beginning you put your best foot forward, and eventually settle into an agreed routine. It is often a relationship the length of which is determined by how much you agree with each other—and depends on how well one party responds to the needs of the other.

Megateam was not very different. I could not recall, exactly, what led me to its office at Global City—then still an office in the corner of the tenth floor of the Fort Legends Tower. It was still without proper desks or cubicles, but it did have a sweeping view. Only one man then occupied a separate office with a door that can be closed, while the rest of the employees, including human resources, could be seen upon standing up.

At that moment, I was not thinking about the cramped office, or the fact that an applicant has to spend an entire afternoon waiting to go through the various tests necessary to be considered for a position. I was, in fact, thinking about where to go after I finished with the tests.

They let me go after a while, and I accomplished the required essays and e-mailed them as instructed, almost mechanically. Two weeks after the initial interviews, I was called back for two more.

All in all it seemed like standard hiring procedure, although I did notice that the interview room had chairs stacked in it and had a “hey, we just moved in!” feel to it. By then the company was operating for almost a year. Besides two editors who interviewed me, I had no idea what kind of people composed the rest of the team.

What made an impression on me, however, was the man who apparently had the final word on hiring and firing. At that time I was younger and considerably more attuned to believing the best in people. That was probably why he almost looked kind and meek, and spoke in halting English that made me think of nervous bankers.

Two things struck me about the man who, by then, I only knew by his first name—Sven—and first was that he appeared to be looking over my shoulder for most of the interview. I turned to look over my shoulder at least twice in the 20 minutes I sat with him in his corner office, expecting the door to open, before I realized that there was something not quite right about his eyes.

The second thing I noticed was then he was quite insistent that I take the night shift, with an offer for a higher salary than if I opted to come in during the day. I was a little confused because I’ve been told that as a staff writer, we observed a flexible or at least semi-flexible schedule. Nevertheless, because the starting salary of a day-dweller appeared to me like a rip-off in epic proportions, I signed the contract.

It took all of six hours from the time I entered the office to when I finally signed a contract that appeared to be drawn up that same day.

Sven emerged from his office just when night fell, and all illusions and delusions of kindness I had of him dissolved when I heard the distinctly haughty tone he used on one of the drivers. The poor man was apparently confused as to what the Boss wanted first—his umbrella, the security card that opened the main door, or the vehicle parked seven floors below.