Editing 1293: Job Interview

{{comic
| number    = 1293
| date      = November 20, 2013
| title     = Job Interview
| image     = job_interview.png
| titletext = When you talk about the job experience you'll give me, why do you pronounce 'job' with a long 'o'?
}}

==Explanation==
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.

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. 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.

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.{{Citation needed}} However, this is a typical behaviour of Beret Guy - see a similar example in: [[1395: Power Cord]].

The title text makes 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).

Other job interviews were portrayed in [[1094: Interview]] and [[1088: Five Years]].

==Transcript==
:[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!

:[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.]
:'Hire': What do you.. ''do''?
:Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers!

:[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire.]
: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>

:[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall.]
:'Hire': ...Are you sure this is a company?
:Beret Guy: I hope so!

:[Soup (or something one can only hope is soup) streams out of the plugged-in wire into Beret Guy's bowl.]

{{comic discussion}}
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[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]