The interview - how did it go?

Dear Diary,

I perhaps shouldn't have said quite so much about my time as a musician abroad (fifteen years, both in England [busking/begging] and abroad [gigging]) but the questions were what they said they were, and I had to think of something relevant. I perhaps, too, should not have mentioned my ex-fiancée, but I think about her every day, and her long shadow over casts my soul, being ever present, glimpsing at me, almost not seeming to notice. I had to think on my feet, so needed to come up with examples of when I had 'taken the lead', and these seemed appropriate enough. I'm pretty sure my new boss is a stoner, because she rocked up in her pyjamas with bleary eyes. If nothing else she will be easy going - that's if I get the job. Of course I'll get the job. Who in the hell else around here has over three decades experience of customer service and holds a master's degree? Besides, this is Dark Age Britain, not Renaissance Italy during the heyday of Cosimo d'Medici in the fifteenth century: that's what you do with your master's degree in Classical Latin in Dark Age Britain - stack shelves.

During the evening I was at that... place, and although things went quite well, for the most part, there was this one moment when the younger thug became quite short with me. He was gassing about speeding in cars (some driver floors it), and I mentioned something relevant, only to be told to shut up and get on with my work. I go around to put labels on boxes. He says again, "Stop, go do this, go do that, you ask somebody, you not put labels on boxes." Then, a customer phones up. I answer the phone, and the lady on the other end of the line is very polite and friendly, and me being me, am equally polite and friendly, just as amicable. The lady had placed an order from this store meant for another store. I got clearance from the younger thug, then politely told the lady on the other end of the line that she has a full refund on the way. She was very glad, and smiled and laughed, it was polite, amicable, pleasant, agreeable. It ended on such a note. Then, the younger thug says, "You take too long on phone. What you say is, 'Refund on way' then put phone down. Done." I felt like saying, "Listen to me you uneducated barbarian hoodlum. Maybe in the wasteland of Eastern Europe it is perfectly okay to be curt with people and hang up on them, but here, in England, manners maketh the man." The next time he had a go at me over nothing, I told him straight, "Easy." He kept laying in, so I said, more assertively, "Easy." (in other words, you shut the fuck up now, or I walk home two hours in the dark through the forest - as I have done before and will do again). He didn't say anything bad to me further.

The very instant that I get this new job (which I will, in all probability - for there seems to be only one other candidate), you can be absolutely goddamn sure that I will be walking straight out of having to put up with all that shit on a daily basis.

Besides, the old ball and chain reached out recently. After I did a good job editing one book, I'm soon to be advanced on the next three books (that's six hundred bucks USD), so I won't have to worry for a little while.

Max.