I applied for a job with Another Government Department about four months ago and had heard nothing since making a follow-up call last month.

The recruitment manager called to say I’d been selected for a phone interview the day after I resigned from This Government Department. Ha, good timing.

She said she had already e-mailed my referees for written reference reports even though I wrote that no one is to be contacted without my permission. I specified that condition because The Real Boss is on extended leave and Referee Two is generally away for work, fishing trips and school holidays. I couldn’t get hold of either and had 24 hours to submit reports so I decided to demonstrate problem solving skills and e-mailed her alternate contacts who were prepared to write crap on my behalf.

The second problem with her contacting my previously selected referees was that The Real Boss hadn’t been told of my resignation and I was avoiding any kind of contact with him until The Stand-in Boss got out of denial and started telling people. (Almost a fortnight later The Real Boss has been told and not even called me even though we’ve worked together for five years, but that’s bitterness for another day.)

The interviewer didn’t contact my back-up referees and I thought she had changed her mind about obtaining written reports before the interview. Wrong. The day before the interview she e-mailed me to say my referee reports were overdue and issued a thinly-veiled threat that I’d be stuffed without them. She didn’t backtrack when I told her she never sent anyone (including me) the template so there was no possibility of meeting her deadline without ESP and a fucking time machine.

I was about to withdraw my application because potentially reporting to this disorganised clown was becoming hard work but I’m not exactly holding the position of power right now. I managed to scrape together two written reports (I wrote both and got them signed by real people which is another puzzling part of the process as she hasn’t verified the validity of the reports. I could have indeed written and signed both myself under assumed names — perhaps I should have indulged in some forgery initially to have met the first deadline).

The next day she issued the instruction for the phone interview. I had to call a 1800 number at 10am and at the same time I’d receive the questions at my work e-mail account and have 15 minutes to prepare and at 10:15 I’d fax my written notes back to her. All while being interviewed. I was confused but thought I’d sort it out on the day as we were already annoyed with each other and I was trying not to push my luck any further.

At 9.15 on the day I opened up a spare office with a computer and phone so I could spread out my notes and tackle the e-mail before running to the fax machine with my completed questions while doing the interview.

At 9.30 I got the munchies and decided to toast a leftover cheese and chive scone from the local baker so I was all carbed up for the interview.

At 9.50 the computer was still installing 11 updates and shutting down after each one and I was also waiting for the toaster to cool enough to try cleaning it. The inside of the scone contained chunks of semi-raw dough which had stuck to the elements and created almost enough smoke to activate the fire alarm. Our fire protection systems are wired to the most enthusiastic fire brigade on the planet and calling them off from attendance and evacuation is impossible. Luckily I managed to shove open a window and avoided the potential inconvenience of being shuffled en masse to the car park at the interview time. The toaster was only about 80 per cent clean before I ran out of time and the plastic fork I used to scrape the elements had melted on the metal components.

I ran into the office and made the call. The three panellists were in different states and couldn’t see each other so half the time was spent waiting for them to stop talking over each other while I was wondering where my e-mail was. She hadn’t sent it. Of course. I must’ve been the first interviewee as they hadn’t understood the logistical problem of trying to fill out notes on the interview questions while being interviewed on questions I was going to be given beforehand. We agreed I hang up the phone to answer the questions and call them back in 15 minutes.

I spent nine minutes of the fifteen writing and running to the fax machine, three minutes scraping gunge off the toaster, one minute snapping at the person who asked what the burning smell was, one minute gathering my thoughts and one minute trying to shed the guilt that perhaps the toaster wasn’t clean enough because we have no budget and someone bought it with his own cash and it’s not mine to leave cheese and chive scunge on it that might burn if it’s used again and I’ll be evacuated during the interview. If it wasn’t still too hot, I probably would have tucked it under my arm to the interview office so no one could use it.

The interview was pedestrian enough and a good opportunity to practice the smooth expulsion of verbal diarrhoea. They are in no hurry to make a selection, which wasn’t a surprise considering the past four months of inaction. But the best part of the day was seeing the true owner of the toaster make his lunch and seeing that nothing caught fire. Bonus.

Crank-o-meter: hungry