Hot Chicks Room

When I first got out of college, I spent a few months doing practically nothing—my parents own a swimming pool, so I would use that pretty much every day—but practically nothing. Then one day a job recruiter called me out of nowhere to ask if I was still available for hire. (She said she found my résumé on Monster, which was strange because although I did post it on Monster several months earlier, I had since pulled it.) I decided I had waited long enough for a job, so I told her I was able to go in for an interview.

The interview was my first in over a year but it went really well. I guess they had vetted a lot of people out of the process because they asked me to come back for a second interview with the boss. I don’t remember what level of boss he was but busy enough that he only saw the candidates they were ready to hire.

Since the second interview was more of a formality, my recruiter let me know what I’d be looking at for a salary. After that, I decided to look up online how much I should get paid for the kind of job they were offering me. I realized the offer was for much less than what my research showed I deserved to make. This left me with a tough decision but I went on the second interview anyways.

The boss loved me. We didn’t even talk much about the job. (The one thing I remember talking about was him asking me if I liked the Red Sox—to which I said I did—and he revealed to me that he was a Yankees fan. I don’t remember his name or job title but I know his baseball allegiance.) He showed me around the office as if it was my first day. He was basically selling me on the place because he wanted me there that much. Then we went back to his office.

He offered me the job and told me how much I’d make. My gut told me that I needed to haggle with him to get the fairer salary but my brain isn’t good at negotiations, so I just gave him the figure that I read online as an ultimatum. That figure was 50% higher than the one he gave me. He then went through the five stages of grief.

First, denial; a quick “what?” on his face as the shock of me letting him down hit him.

Second, anger; telling me there’s no way I’d make that much money doing what I do (more on that in a minute).

Then there was bargaining. The saddest, most transparent bargaining possible. He tells me that we should take another walk around the office. I obliged. This walk took us to a different part of the office than before. It was a room where only attractive, 20-something girls worked (plus one guy, who was also admittedly handsome). I’m not even sure they actually worked in there or if the boss just corralled them in there to impress me. He had brought me to the hot chicks room (and there was also a ping-pong table in it). Strait out of the first episode of the Upright Citizens Brigade TV show:

I’m sure the boss went through the steps of depression and acceptance after I left but not before returning to anger briefly. On my ride home I got an angry phone call from the recruiter asking me what went wrong. I told her about the salary thing (though sadly, not about the hot chicks room) and she told me the same thing the boss did, that I’d never get the offer I was looking for. As it turns out I didn’t get the money I was asking for, instead of 50% higher than they were offering me, I got to 33% more and I was pretty happy with that.