Job Interviews

"Yeah, well... we'll call you."

Let's hope you have a long-sleeve to cover up that regrettable ink, because it's interview time. The suits over at Costco are looking for some new blood, ever since their last stock boy was caught using in the break room. They have received your online application, and as such, only have your previous work experience and a creepily intrusive psychological evaluation to go on. (What's the difference between "agreeing" and "strongly agreeing" anyway?) They are completely oblivious to the strict opposer of acceptable social norms and personal hygiene that is about to walk in to their office.

The job interview is the sworn nemesis to a metalhead's pursuit of success. In the professional environment, first impressions are everything. Unfortunately, the first impression you would give someone as a true metalhead is "I'm going to eat your children". That kind of message doesn't go over well anywhere else in life, and the job market is certainly no exception. Believe it or not, some people actually like their kids. Even if you dress your funeral best, years of the world's angriest music has taken its toll on your personality, attitude and outside appearance in some way or another. They can just see it in your face. You are almost guaranteed to not get the job based on the fact that the 10-100 other applicants just don't look as creepy. Here is the decision making process for the person recruiting potential new employees:

Choice one: The clean-cut, healthy-looking gentleman who seemed friendly, confident, outgoing and had the necessary customer service experience to do the job right and well. He would make a great addition as a team player, and would be a representative of our company's image and quality that we would be proud of.

Choice two: You.

The odds are severely stacked against us from the get go. It's nothing short of a miracle that any metalheads ever get hired at all. The ones that do are either doomed to minimum wage, put as far out of the public eye as possible in some backroom or warehouse, or in one of the few jobs where your alternative appearance would be appreciated. (i.e, snobby record stores, tattoo parlors, Starbucks, etc.) The lack of work can be so frustrating, that one might go as far as to shave their face, cut their hair, and dress a little more socially acceptable. Don't do that.

Don't be a Metallica.

The day that metalheads find prosperity will be the same day that tattoos are freely acceptable in the workplace and nobody has to go to church anymore: When all the old people are dead. It only takes a few minutes of boring yourself with C-Span to realize that these stupid, close-minded old farts run the entire planet and all the major corporations. As such, the world runs the way that they think it should be run, with confused, ignorant, decades-old ideologies and standards. If you don't go to a job interview with Dick Van Dyke hair, it's enough to make them crap their depends. They just can't handle it. When considering the senior generation, anything that happened to the world or the human thought process after the year they graduated High School completely horrifies and baffles them. Try watching anyone over the age of 52 effectively operate a cell phone and you'll get my picture.

So I'm assuming they had you wear hair nets at this "Marty's Meat Market" you used to work at, right?

If you are one of the few metalheads lucky enough to be hired for the job, your next step is to make them immediately regret their poor decision-making. Be as lazy, egotistical, unreliable, and rude as you act in every other environment, but still do the bare minimum amount of work required to keep them from firing you. If you last long enough to be the first to get laid off, you can go collect unemployment checks and look as Metal as you want.

P.S,
You will never be a rock star.