Dead at 27: Warning #1

Perhaps this book should be named Dead at 23, because I took up a “career” in banking at that age. I was right out of college and totally depressed because I couldn’t find a full-time job as a copyeditor or novelist.

There were warnings that I was making a mistake.
Warning #1
My third interview with the bank took place in a small office set inside of the grocery store. The manager was young, my age, and for the sake of being humorous and at the same time completely honest, I’ll call him Dick.

Dick: “So tell me a bit about yourself, Holly.”
So I told him what I was: a recent college grad.

Dick: “Just so you know” (here he looks at my resume because he can’t remember my name to save his life and really all that he knows is that his branch needs help and I look like help. He should have called me Help) “Holly, college graduates think they are worth a lot more money than they actually are.”

Hmph! Earth to Holly!
If I could go back, I would walk out of that office right at that moment.

But I didn’t. I stayed and by staying a part of me died in that office. I needed money. Soon enough, my old car would go and the student loans would start demanding money. I felt as if it was my only option, and this feeling of mine was probably the only reason why the bank hired me. I mean, I majored in English! I had no business dealing with numbers. They wanted me because they knew I needed a paycheck. They wanted me to fear.

Dick hated me from the start because I questioned everything he did. Actually, I corrected his language. He said IGNORANT all the time and I told him that by definition, he was ignorant in using ignorant the wrong way. When he said it (Them people are ignorant), the skin around my ear would shove itself into my ear drum. To this day, I can’t hear well. Even my body hated him.