NOW HIRING! No Experience Needed!

JONATHAN HINTERNISH

NOW HIRING!

No Experience Needed!

On a cold day, down a dark street lays a business with a sign in the window that reads, “NOW HIRING!” Always eager for new arrivals to come in. One new arrival is about to find out that at this store, you get more than just savings....

Meet Elaina. Elaina is a High School graduate with a 4.0 in all her classes. She even graduated with honors, top of her class. Class of 2005 that is. Since Elaina’s graduation, she has had to stay home and care for her ill parents. Both of them came down with cancer, and since then she has been caring for them around the clock.

One day Elaina got the mail from the mailbox. They had received a notice from the bank that if they didn’t make their last payment that the bank was going to foreclose on their home and they would have to move! Elaina didn’t know what to do. She called up her sister who lived an hour away and explained the situation. Elaina said that she would have to go out and get a job just to pay off the rest of what they owed to the bank before the deadline, or they were going to lose their home! Elaina’s sister headed over to the house as quickly as she could.

When Elaina’s sister got there she told Elaina that things were going to be okay. Elaina didn’t know what to say. She didn’t waste any time however. After her sister got there Elaina headed out to find a job as quickly as she could. Elaina came across this old street. She never walked it as a child because it scared her. She knew it was part of the business district and she would have to be brave and walk it. What did she have to lose?

Elaina walked down the odd street. It was dark, cold, hardly anyone around at all. She wondered if there were actually any businesses open at all. Then out of the corner of her right eye she spotted a faint glowing light in a window. As if someone had just turned it on to grab her attention! She walked toward the sign. It said, “NOW HIRING!”. Elaina walked inside.

She looked around to see if anyone was around. She saw clothes, items of which she had never seen before. She also noticed how everywhere around the store was adorned in Candle Light. Not a single electric light at all! She wondered how long the old Shoppe had been there. Suddenly, Elaina heard a small voice from the back of the room ask who was there. Elaina said in a shy and squeaking voice that she was looking for a job and she stumbled across the sign in the window, and she wondered if the disembodied voice was still hiring. Then, Elaina stepped back a bit when she saw a small woman come out. She looked like she might had been no more than ten years old! Elaina asked if she was lost. The little lady said, “I’m not lost. I’m the Shoppe keeper! My name is Victoria, and if you wanted to know my actual age you’ll have to earn that dear. It doesn’t come cheap.”

Elaina apologized and asked if Victoria would hire her on the spot. Victoria agreed. Elaina was told to come back the next night and do stock. She went back home for the night and told her family all about it. She could not wait to get started.

The next few nights went great. Elaina was paid every night that she worked. And she was paid well. So well in fact that she thought that she would never have to work again! She and the Shoppe keeper got along wonderfully. Elaina finished up her work and she bid the Shoppe keeper goodnight. On her way home, Elaina remembered that she forgot to pick up her payment. She thought she would go home, get some rest, and come back in the morning and pick up her money. When Elaina got there she noticed that the Shoppe was dark, and the Shoppe keeper was not around. She called out for Victoria but she was not around. She went deeper into the shoppe. Then, she called out for Victoria again. There was still no answer. Maybe, she thought, Victoria was home asleep. That maybe she rested during the night, and came to open the Shoppe during the night. Elaina thought that it made sense. She went back home to wait for night to come. Then things would be back to normal, she thought.

Elaina made it home. Her grandfather had come to visit. She was excited to see him. He had heard that his granddaughter got a new job, but was unsure of the details. As Elaina explained it all to him, her grandfather looked at her and laughed. She wondered what was so funny. Her grandfather said to her that when he was a child he use to live down the very block where she said she was working. The year was 1922, and he had been packing up all of his belongings because him and his family were heading to Ireland to be with family. It wasn’t long after that her grandfather received a letter from family and friends in the states that there had been a massive explosion on his old city block. A factory had blown up two blocks over killing almost everyone in a six block radius. It was all over the newspapers. Elaina could not believe it! She then asked what else happened. Her grandfather went on to say that the girl that he had a crush on apparently was in the blast. Her grandfather cried, “Poor Victoria, how I miss ye”.

Elaina was kind of taken aback by the name. She then asked, “What did Victoria look like?” Elaina’s mouth dropped when she saw the picture. It was.... her boss!

Moral of the story, “Be careful who you work for.”