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==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
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Following on from [[1032: Networking|his attempts at networking]], [[Beret Guy]], the oddball of the xkcd cast, conducts an interview for a position at his mysterious company.
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Following on from [[1032: Networking|his attempts at networking]], [[Beret Guy]], the oddball of the xkcd cast, conducts an interview for a programmer position at his mysteriously successful company.
  
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Much like most of Beret Guy's interactions with people, Beret Guy is cheerful and upbeat, yet indicates that he has at best a scrambled understanding of how people in this situation normally act. Because of this, the job interview becomes increasingly bizarre, starting with Beret Guy's assertion that the company headquarters is a "real building [he] found", implying that the building's reality might be in question. In addition, "finding" the building may imply that he does not own or rent it, but simply found it empty and moved in. He says his company makes "stuff for phones", but then adds, "like apps and stickers," two wildly different products in terms of both production and profitability. He is strangely vague about both the position ("someone to write on our computers") and the salary ("a bunch of paychecks"). Then he mentions ghosts, which is either a powerful disincentive from joining the company, yet another sign that Beret Guy is mentally unsound, or both.
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Much like most of Beret Guy's interactions with people, Beret Guy is cheerful and upbeat, yet indicates that he has at best a scrambled understanding of how people in this situation normally act. Because of this, the job interview becomes increasingly bizarre, starting with Beret Guy's assertion that the company headquarters is a "real building [he] found." He says his company makes phone accessories, but then adds, "like apps and stickers," two wildly different products in terms of both production and profitability. He is strangely vague about both the position ("someone to write on our computers") and the salary ("a bunch of paychecks"). Then he mentions ghosts, which is either a powerful disincentive from joining the company, yet another sign that Beret Guy is mentally unsound, or both.  
  
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The strip finishes with Beret Guy plugging a cord into what appears to be an electrical outlet clumsily labeled "Soup," which then, implausibly, actually starts dispensing soup. Most electrical outlets do not function like this.{{Citation needed}} However, this is a typical behaviour of Beret Guy - see a similar example in: [[1395: Power Cord]]. It is possible that the electrical outlet is connected to a pipe which supplies soup from a soup reservoir or kitchen elsewhere in the facility, which would require the fixture to have a specialist valve-connector and the 'cable' to involve a pipe with a self-sealing end that 'keys' the valve open. It may even be more likely, given Beret Guy's 'abilities', that the outlet is taking electricity from a suitable power supply and the cord ultimately uses mass-energy conversion to turn it into soup; this would be in line with the possible operating mechanism of Beret Guy's water-creating dam in [[2710: Hydropower Breakthrough]].
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The strip finishes with Beret Guy plugging a cord into an electrical outlet clumsily labeled "Soup," which then, implausibly, actually starts dispensing soup. This is clearly not a normal business.  
  
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The title text may be a reference to the biblical story of {{w|Job (biblical figure)|Job}} (pronounced with a long O to rhyme with globe), who was put through many horrendous ordeals to test his faith in God. This suggests that the interviewee will be taking on not a "job experience" but rather a "Job experience" (i.e. the job will be a horrendous ordeal).
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The title text makes reference to the biblical story of [[wikipedia:Job (biblical figure)|Job]] (pronounced with a long O to rhyme with globe), who was put through several horrendous ordeals by Satan to test and prove Job's faith in God. This suggests that the interviewee will be taking on not a "job experience" but rather a "Job experience" (i.e. the job will be a horrendous ordeal).
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Other job interviews were portrayed in [[1094: Interview]] and [[1088: Five Years]].
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
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:[Beret Guy walks in, followed by a...'prospective hire'.]
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:[Beret Guy walks in, followed by a..."prospective hire".]
 
:Beret Guy: Welcome to our company! We're headquartered here, in this real building I found!
 
:Beret Guy: Welcome to our company! We're headquartered here, in this real building I found!
  
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:[Both people sit down at a table. The 'hire' has a tray with food and a beverage. Beret Guy has a bowl. In the adjacent wall, there is a power outlet with a paper label taped to it marked "Soup". A small roll of wire sits next to Beret Guy's chair.]
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:[Both people sit down at a table. "Hire" has a tray with food and a beverage. Beret Guy has a bowl. There is a power outlet labeled "Soup" in the adjacent wall. A small roll of wire sits next to Beret Guy's chair.]
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:'Hire': What do you.. ''do''?
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:"Hire": What do you.. ''do''?
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:Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers.
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:Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers!
  
 
:[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire.]
 
:[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire.]
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:Beret Guy: We want to hire you to write on our computers. We can offer you a bunch of paychecks! <small>There are ghosts here.</small>
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:Beret Guy: We want to hire you to write on our computers. We can offer you a bunch of paychecks! There are ghosts here.
  
 
:[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall.]
 
:[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall.]
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:'Hire': ...Are you sure this is a company?
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:"Hire": ..are you sure this is a company?
 
:Beret Guy: I hope so!
 
:Beret Guy: I hope so!
  
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:[Soup streams out of the plugged-in wire into Beret Guy's bowl.]
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:[Something one can only hope is soup streams out of the wire into Beret Guy's bowl.]
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
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[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
 
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[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
 
 
[[Category:Religion]]
 
[[Category:Religion]]
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[[Category:Job interviews]]
 
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[[Category:Food]]
 

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