#26 CRAIGSLIST CAPER

Rob Schiller had been managing his uncle's furniture store for a year when he came up with his most brilliant idea--a way to meet girls. He would post an ad on craigslist for a job as an office manager and wait for his e-mail box to overflow with potential candidates, the city suffering double-digit unemployment. The idea came when he was told to hire a receptionist because there was going to be an influx of catalog orders coming in due to some odd advertising special his uncle had signed up for. Rob interviewed all week and did not find a candidate his uncle would hire but his idea was born after a week less boring than usual with a string of young women coming by each day in hopes of employment.

Rob would post the ad, peruse the resumes, read the cover letters for possible insight and carefully select those he wished to interview. He would make a call to each applicant, hear how pleased her voice would sound, how happy his call would seem to make her and then suggest an immediate interview. She would be so grateful and tell him how she looked forward to meeting him to discuss her qualification for the position. They exuded charm. Rob would then try to imagine how the potential candidate looked, how old she might be and what she might be willing to do to get this job. This all made Rob feel powerful, on top of his game.

His Uncle Adler owned this rather rundown store in a less than desirable block and it did not make a profit. It was one of several businesses his uncle owned in the city and this one was strictly a tax write-off. It is the loser, his uncle would say and my loser nephew reaps the benefit, he'd often add. His wife Lil begged him to stop putting Rob down but Adler, who came from the old country and knew the meaning of tough, felt Rob had been coddled by his wife's sister and wanted no part in any delusion. Rob would have to grow up, he'd say but until then, he could manage the loser business; what else could he do?

Rob began to interview job applicants, study their relevant features and then rate them accordingly, based on his own point system. He did not bother to check references or previous workplaces other than to see who they might be connected to. He noted where they came from; in this city of transients, he was always interested in what sort of shit hole people deserted. Sometimes he'd ask about skills but then admit the skill level of this job wasn't high. If the girl was attractive to Rob, he would e-mail back and forth with her for a few days, implying that she was in the running and that he would soon start doing second interviews.

The girls, meanwhile were thrilled with any job possibility and kept up a running flattery that Rob found thrilling. The things they would say, he thought. Sometimes he felt sorry for them having to suck up to someone for this non-existent job. Sometimes he felt guilty as he did the time a single mother cried on the phone saying how hard it was to find a job and that her little girl couldn't go to daycare with the other children. Other times he felt disdain for girls all dolled up but with no real skills who lied about themselves with every sentence they uttered. He could tell when they were lying by the way they shifted their legs on the couch he always had them sit on, a couch that was a little too low for a comfortable one-on-one. They could not quite find a way to sit with any poise and became nervous or indignant. All of these things Rob learned in the course of the three months he'd been practicing this deceit.

After the first month, Rob got lucky. A beautiful model came in and Rob was so taken with her he kept the communication going for a week before he asked her in for another interview. When she cancelled the day before, pleading another engagement he suggested they meet for a drink instead. Why she accepted he did not know but he found himself in a rather trendy bar during happy hour with a girl who honestly earned all the attention she received in that place. Rob felt terribly proud to be seen with such a girl and hoped it would lead to other dates. He did not dream she would get so drunk and take him to her apartment in a high rise building with a view of the city, a fortunate outcome. The next morning, he left saying he had to get to work and would be calling her about the job soon. She kept calling, he kept putting her off and eventually said his accountant would not let him hire anyone at this time due to the recession. She sent him a couple of brief but none too friendly e-mails calling him a slew of names and that was the end of her.

But Rob's idea, an idea for his own amusement, was ingenious. He had no end of girls to call, and in fact was inundated with calls and e-mails from prospective office managers. Many of them had fantastic credentials, highly overqualified, many had no credentials but most had middling office, retail or restaurant experience that would have worked out fine if there was actually a job. Rob eventually got over his guilt and everyday looked forward to what the next interview would bring.

He didn't often get as lucky as he did with the model, but he did get invited to a couple of parties that were fun, he took two applicants for lunch and tried to get them drunk but they were onto him: what potential boss would hire someone drunk at noon? He then began to schedule late interviews that could lead to dinner or drinks. A Hispanic woman somewhat older than Rob went home with him and couldn't believe she didn't get the job "after all that," she shrieked into the phone.

He also had a week of charming e-mails from a Parisian woman who couldn't seem to make the time to interview but Rob was so enthralled with her persona via e-mail he talked her into meeting him in a restaurant near the store. She had told him she would be the one with red hat and a French accent. When he got there he found a woman at least 65 years old, with a hunched back, frazzled hair and a cigarette dangling from her greasy red mouth. He pretended to not know who she was and sat at a different table and watched her watch everyone who came in. Eventually his guilt and disappointment made him leave the place and afterward never returned any of her e-mails. After this episode he thought he would give up this pantomime, but instead decided to screen more carefully. It was a few weeks before he was ready to place his ad on craigslist again when boredom got the better of him.

The next interview was off to a good start with a Peruvian girl who was soft-spoken, wearing a flowered skirt, a low cut blouse and open-toed shoes that excited Rob. She was young and bashful and he kept her on the string for a couple of weeks before asking her out. She accepted and they had a fine time eating in a new Peruvian restaurant in the Mission and later caught a show at Slim's. She mentioned he looked a little like Seinfeld but then ruined things by saying "though I have never found him attractive...oh, sorry that doesn't sound good, does it?" Later she kissed him goodnight and again apologized for the Seinfeld faux pas. She disappointed him when he asked for a second date, she asked for the job, he stalled and then she mentioned a boyfriend and dropped him shortly thereafter.

His most gnarly experience was with a woman named Reva who was around 40, aggressively bawdy, and asked him out. He took her for a drink at a nearby pub and she kept putting her hand on his thigh as he asked about her skills, her ability to type and other mundane, uninteresting facts. He drank a little too much, went home with her and found Reva was really Ronald and fled for his life. He was thoroughly disgusted and ready to curtail his postings wondering who else would be out there ready to cause him trouble. His uncle would kill him if he knew what was going on and for a month Rob did not post a position on craigslist.

It was his Aunt Lil, helping out in the store one day who busted him. She couldn't help but notice all the payments to craigslist and knew they had not been in hiring for some time. When she mentioned it, Rob blushed, averted his eyes and said he thought he would be able to hire someone to help out as the orders were starting to come in again. He bumbled and blustered and Aunt Lil, no fool she, demanded to know what the real story was and promised not to tell Uncle Adler.

Rob had to come clean and relayed his various experiences to her and she at first was appalled and then realize that it wasn't such a bad idea after all. The boy was cooped up in this store with no co-workers, no office patter, no water cooler gossip, missing all the socializing that comes from an honest workplace. She felt sorry for him and decided that she would help him with his pursuit of women. It was actually a better method than an online dating site but recognized that her nephew would not be able to screen the applicants the way she could with her eagle eye for detail and knowledge of how women operate. Thus they became a team.

Rob again posted the ad with a few changes suggested by his aunt and the resumes began arriving in the e-mail box. His aunt took charge and started combing through them and sorting the wheat from the chaff so to speak. She could read a lot more into them than Rob was able to. She could tell how old a candidate was by what they left out. She understood the origin of most names and could detect race and class all by reading what was in the resumes and cover letters. She was an expert at detail and Rob could only stand in admiration of his aunt. His powers of divination on women were scant compared to her. Each day she went over the details with Rob and they sent a reply to those she deemed appropriate. In this Rob was somewhat in the dark: Who was appropriate? He was just looking for someone attractive, with a good figure and not especially smart. His aunt was looking for a marriage prospect but she kept that under the radar.

Within the first week of his aunt's installation in the office, she interviewed a woman named Tina. She had a good feeling about Tina. She impressed Lil with her upbeat attitude, knowledge of furniture, her sharp business suit and ability to maneuver around the Internet with ease, something that Aunt Lil, not exactly computer literate, was impressed with. She hired Tina on the spot even though she supposed the store could not really afford another employee. But she wanted to do something for her nephew who she felt was lagging behind the other men in the family.

Rob, to his dismay, found himself with a new office manager that he not only did not hire, but did not find all that compelling. She bossed him around, brought food to the store he was not particularly fond of, was aggressive with the customers and had a mop of red hair that intimidated Rob. This is not what he signed on for and had no compunction about telling his aunt.

"Nonsense," she said. "The girl is perfect." Why she thought so Rob could not quite ascertain but he had no choice but to go along with her. Tina overrode everything Rob tried to do and he sulked mightily in the back office. But she made a big impression on his uncle who was more than happy to see the store doing more business since she came on board. He had been thinking of getting rid of it but now he was having second thoughts.

"That girl, Tina, has really turned this place around," he would say to Rob on his now regular visits. "I'm going to have to start thinking of the ramifications of profit instead of loss," he joked. Rob just muttered something about liking things the way they were and regretting the loss of his freedom. He had nothing to look forward to now and as added misery, Tina ordered him around like he was her slave. He even had to go to dinner with her mother once a week.

Rob and Tina were married after her six-month anniversary on the job. After one year she was expecting a baby and six months after that she decided to stay at home and await her child. Rob was back to being alone in the store which seemed a little dismal after Tina's high energy and brash personality. But he adapted and when his uncle told him that business was good, he could hire a new office manager to replace Tina, Rob brightened. He placed the old familiar ad on craigslist and watched the resumes come in. He spent some time looking them over carefully and a few days fantasizing over the possible candidates. He had made a file of his likely choices and began to e-mail them. He could barely contain his excitement but it was quelled when the first candidate turned up looking like a refugee from Ghana, Rob knew because he'd seen a picture of them in the newspaper. She had buck teeth, scruffy hair, huge feet and wore an exotic wrap made of some sort of woven mud. She made jokes that were incomprehensible and then laughed hysterically. Rob was about to blow her off when Tina came through the door. Tina, as usual, took over the interview and to Rob's utter horror, he heard Tina hiring her. What in God's name was she thinking? The woman could barely speak English! How could he be expected to sit around this dismal store with that creature? He was indignant. He was exasperated. He would have to get Uncle Adler to put an end to it. "Tina, what can you be thinking?" he shrieked after his new employee left.

Tina only gave him her bemused smile. "Well, Rob, I saw the applicants who responded to your ad and I thought maybe I should help you find your new assistant. Who better than me, to hire my successor? I'm sure she'll work out fine once she gets the hang of things. Meanwhile, you will have the satisfaction of hiring a true minority."

Tina sat in the office thinking of all the good times she and Rob had in there. They'd had more than a few romps on the sample sofa in the office. She wasn't ignorant; she knew all about Rob's little ploy. Her college roommate had been the model Rob once took out. They plotted a sort of revenge scenario but Tina instead was hired and decided she would be the catalyst for change in Rob's way of doing business.

"From now on I'll do the hiring," said Tina, "I know it's an arduous process." Rob hung his head in despair. Oh, for the good old days when he was bored and out of sorts. He would never have anything to look forward to again. His new assistant proved to be mostly useless but he couldn't fire her, he was stuck.

The store quickly went back to its old status as "loser," his uncle decided to sell it and Rob himself was looking for a job on craigslist, going to many pointless interviews, trying to shine. Eventually he was hired as the assistant manager of a carpet center. He blamed his Aunt Lil for everything but took a lot of his frustration out on Tina, not quite certain she was as blameless as she professed to be. Her only reaction was to threaten him with more children, which he knew he would be unable to support having no chance of promotion in his dead-end job. Oh for the good old days in the furniture store, he'd often think, then look on craigslist, hoping for any kind of salvation.