• Harold sat, legs crossed, in a chair by the fish tank. They were saltwater fish and quite flashy. Most likely expensive, something he himself could never afford. Perhaps one day, if he got the job, stayed with the company, his boss died suddenly, and the company was forced to promote him because the janitor wasn't available.

    It'd been two hours now; the secretary had mentioned it would be a long wait. The boss was leaving the next day for an important business golfing trip in Europe and so all the interviews had to be conducted today. She'd mentioned to Harold that he could leave and she'd call him when it was almost his turn, but he didn't have anything else to do.

    At first he took to reading the magazines. Mostly boring stuff about celebrities he'd neither heard of or cared about. Then he finished off his book; Nietzsche, but he took off the jacket so as not to look pretentious or to get asked a lot of questions.

    He'd let his mind wonder for a little while, but that only server to heighten his anxiety. The last thing he needed was to visualize life if he didn't manage to find a job. So he'd failed two interviews before. He wasn't really that qualified for the positions anyway. If he wanted to deal with people he wouldn't have gotten an engineering degree. Perhaps, "I'd tell him to put his oven in the garage, start the car and bake himself at four hundred degrees for fifteen minutes. Oh and don't forget to preheat," was not the best answer to what he would tell a customer who obviously didn't read the manual. At least he was honest.

    After about an hour, and having tried to solve an infinite resistor problem he took notice of the fact that nobody had yet to leave the office. Plenty had gone in, at least twenty; most of them skinny college grads. Still, it seemed odd. He hadn't noticed any other exit on his way in. There must be one somewhere that he had missed since he highly doubted that there were twenty people in the office playing rock paper scissors for the job. It hadn't even looked big enough to fit twenty people from the outside, unless there was a distortion field involved. It was theoretically possible, but it's the kind of thing that made the news when scientists develop it (or use it to wipe out an entire city).

    Two more hours later the problem had Harold even more vexed. Ten more people had gone in and he hadn't even heard screaming. Still, none of them came out. The conclusion was obvious. There was a trap door that led to an incinerator. It explain why they hadn't left and why the police had never been able to arrest the boss. And it's hard to hear a scream muffled by four thousand degrees.

    Finally the secretary nodded to him and motioned him towards the office door. He went through and noticed that there was a long hall with an exit sign posted at the end and on the back of the door. He breathed a sigh of relief and preceded into the actual office.

    "Take a seat," the boss said as he grabbed a manila folder off the desk. "It says here that you hate people."

    "That would be correct sir."

    "And your references can confirm this?" The boss paced behind Harold.

    Harold hesitated, "yes."

    "Well then, you're hired."

    Harold was elated, he also noticed the button on the desk marked "incinerate."