July 29–September 14, 2002 — Death and Taxes

After returning from Ottawa, only a couple of days passed before my next road trip. This time, Shawn Scallen was on his way to see the Promise Ring and Jimmy Eat World in Hamilton, and he offered to pick me up on the way. Not one to pass on a free show (or an opportunity to experience the staggering beauty of the city of Hamilton), I tagged along.

The show was fun, and we were able to watch from the side of the stage. Jimmy Eat World are different than they were the last time I saw them; they seem much more fashionable, and a lot more like a stadium rock band. Though it’s a bit more than that.

We stayed the night in Hamilton. This was less terrifying than I’d made it out to be in my mind. Hamilton always struck me as being a bit like Canada’s answer to Buffalo, but now I know that I was selling Hamilton short with that assessment.

When I arrived home, there was a note from Andrew saying that IKEA had called. This news and the resulting interview, training, and full-time schedule swallowed the next five weeks.

All of this is especially ironic given my condemnation of the résumé shed at my now-employer all of two journal entries ago. I didn’t come right out and say it then, but it seemed possible to me that the résumé shed might also include a miniature incinerator in its base to dispense of unneeded résumés and to provide low-cost heating for the customer service department at the same time. Such was my rather dim view of IKEA’s hiring policies.

As it turns out, though, they do empty the shed, and they do eventually look at each of the résumés inside. In my case, it took seven months: My cover letter was dated January 7, 2002.

And to continue the trend of me eating my words, my praise for The Gap was a bit misplaced. They promised to call within two weeks, telling the group interviewees that we didn’t have a job with them if we hadn’t heard from them within fourteen days. So by the time IKEA called, I had given up.

Six weeks later, The Gap finally called. They left a message on the machine for Andrew, having forgotten my name in the space of reading it on my application and hearing Andrew say, “You’ve reached Andrew, Greg, and Johnston,” on the machine. I was unimpressed. I tried returning the call, planning to say that I had a job and that they had missed their chance. I was put on hold twice and hung up on once without speaking to the manager I was supposed to speak with. So I gave up.

But yes. Seven months (almost to the day) from when I dropped off my résumé, I was being interviewed for a job at IKEA.

I was nervous for the first thirty minutes of my interview. Then another hour went by, and I decided that managers, even those of the assistant variety, don’t waste that kind of time and then not hire someone. I thought the question about whether I liked children might’ve been a trick, but it turns out that, “Oh yeah, kids are great!” was answer enough. After my sister’s joking about how terrible an idea it would be for me to request to work in the ball room (“They just love it when twenty-year-old males specifically ask to work with pre-school children. Really.”), I had been a bit worried...

I was hired. I would be part of the returns department, and I started the very next day. The interview was a Thursday, and I worked the next three days, received formal training and a uniform on Monday, and then worked the next two days after that. I was not used to working so much.

On top of the many consecutive days of work, spending entire days dealing with disgruntled customers takes some getting used to.

It wasn’t until mid-September that I had enough time off to take a break and to think about things unrelated to Scandinavian-designed solutions for living. (Or, more specifically, about people trying to return or exchange said solutions for living.)

All of this is a very compressed account of things. But it at least gives a short summary of the last six weeks. And rest assured that there’s much more to come on the joys of being verbally abused by strangers on a regular basis...