The Interview

Once, I received an interview invitation directing me to the sixteenth floor of a certain office building. Upon reaching there, I was to call her, and she would meet me from the work area.

I arrived at the office building in the morning and headed straight for the seventeenth floor via the elevator.

Stepping out on the seventeenth floor, it seemed as if it was under construction. The ceiling was unfinished, with many wires exposed.

I dialed the number from earlier, and the voice on the other end asked me to wait.

After a short while, a woman emerged to usher me in.

She appeared to be in her thirties, her voice thin and delicate.

I followed her through a winding maze of office spaces until we reached the company's working area.

The workspace was not large, air conditioning blasting, with employees at their stations, heads down, working diligently.

I was led by the woman into a private office, and soon, a rotund man who introduced himself as the hiring manager walked in.

The interview process was pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary.

After the interview, the woman led me back to the elevator, assuring me they would get in touch if I was chosen.

With that, I left the building and headed home to wait for their call.

Approximately three days later, I received a call from them, expressing interest in hiring me and inviting me to discuss the job offer and compensation package.

As agreed, I returned to the office, but upon reaching the seventeenth floor, I found it entirely unrecognizable from my previous visit.

It wasn't that the renovations were complete, rather, there was no evidence that any work had ever begun.

The area was a mess of bare concrete and construction debris. I tried to find the office I had visited just days before, but there was no trace of it. The entire floor was nothing more than an empty shell.

Feeling dejected, I went down to the first floor to question an older security guard. He informed me that the seventeenth floor had been vacant for over a year.

"But I was here just three days ago. There was an office here," I protested.

The old security guard looked at me as though I was insane, insisting that it was impossible.

Feeling a cold chill run down my spine, I considered the possibility of having encountered a fraudulent company, and decided to head home.

As I stepped out of the building, my phone rang. It was the woman from before, wondering where I was and why I was late. She said the boss was waiting and instructed me to hurry, as she was waiting for me at the seventeenth-floor elevator.

Thoroughly confused, I examined the caller ID which showed a landline number. Deciding to verify it with the security guard, I asked him if it was their number.

Looking at the phone, the security guard's face took on a strange expression. He adamantly denied it was theirs and advised me to go home, assuring me there was no such company in the building.

Cautious by nature and sensing the peculiarity of the situation, I decided to head home.

Chillingly enough, that evening, around nine o'clock, I received another call from the same number. The woman on the other end was livid, accusing me of missing the appointment and berating me for my lack of professionalism.

Feeling a spark of anger, I retorted, "I spoke to the security guard at your building. He says there's no such company there! You're nothing but scammers!"

The woman seemed taken aback. "Which security guard told you this?"

Without thinking, I described him as an older man, immediately regretting my words, fearing they might retaliate against him.

She seemed to pause for a moment, before muttering under her breath, "We don't have any old security guards in our building... that's strange."

And then she hung up.