Explaining That I'm Worthwhile

They kept me waiting, sweating in a heated room with old magazines and forms to fill in. The people surrounding me smiled sheepishly at each other, knowing that they were in competition. A man with a huge sword tattooed on his arm looked over at me and nodded. A woman in sharp heels and some kind of ass-masking trouser suit, crossed her legs and flicked her hair. My appointment was at 9:30am, but it was twenty minutes past this time before I was summoned into a smaller room. On the desk there was dozens of cards, each with a picture, as if I were an infant about to begin my first reading lesson.
"Familiarise yourself with these," my guide said, "and I'll be back in five." She held up her hand and spread her fingers to indicate the number of minutes I had to wait. I looked at the cards. There were pictures of food and drink on them; ice-clear water being poured into a plastic cup, crisps in a simple white bowl, various fruits and vegetable glistening with appetising moisture. I studied them, looking carefully at them. The woman returned.
"Right, shall we get on with the role-play?" she asked. I spluttered.
Another woman entered the room. She was carrying an empty shopping basket and evidently enjoying her starring roll.
"Hello," she said.
"Can I help?" I asked her, perfectly fraudulent in my demeanor. The situation escalated, the role-play touching on ludicrous topics that I had to advise the woman on. She relished the game, and it went on for some time. I told her that for a party she should get white wine as well as red wine, and that she shouldn't cook raw chicken in a microwave. It was a test based on common sense, but these people's intensity made it seem as if I was being interviewed for a position as a spy hunter in MI5. I was expecting a question about my holidays to Russia before long...
Once the role-play was over, I was lead out to join the other candidates for another round of form filling. In this, I had to respond to my own responses in the previous test. It was the height of post-modern self-awareness. I couldn't think of anything that I had done wrong, and made up some waffle about being bad at maths - a benign failing in these days of machines and automatic numerators.
I was in the "assessment" for over an hour in total and I was "successful" in aquiring work. I will, for the next few months at least, be woking in a very large department store, filling shelves and processing people's purchases - and probably telling them that it's a big no-no to cook chicken in a microwave. It is a dark tunnel, and one which I will be responsible for absolutely nothing of any importance. Oh - and the hours aren't much better than the airport, and there are fewer opportunities for overindulging on coffee. I have been thrust into another sterile environment of neon and plastic. Blueprints for escape must be sketched quickly but carefully.