How it started...I should have known better

I was fresh out of school, bored with the daily grind of an hourly wage job, and a friend told me about this "financial" job at a local community bank.  I decided to interview for the job and that's how my story started!

I had been working after college at hourly wage jobs, not much future, no money and no fun.  I was an outgoing, friendly guy who could talk to an empty chair and enjoy myself.  I thought I was wasting my talents working for a minimum hourly wage.

So, I show up at this small community bank for "The Interview". I dressed for "The Interview" in my only blue suit...white shirt, and my power tie.  I turned off the main road into the parking lot of the manicured and impeccably landscaped bank building, suited up and sweaty palmed, wondering if I would be an acceptable candidate.  I confidently walked up to the security guard...(they had them back in 1977) smiled and asked him where Jerry's office was.  He casually pointed me in the direction of a flight of stairs leading down to the basement, and said go to the foot of the stairs, open the door and ask to speak to Jerry.

The stairway was dimly lit, paint cracked and falling off the walls, shoe marks, bag marks, could have been dead body marks all along the wall leading down the the basement.  The door at the foot of the second flight of stairs was a steel casement door, scratched and worn bare to the metal in spots.  The handle was dented and broken, the door looked as though someone had kicked it more often to open it than turned it as would normally be done.

I casually placed my ear close to the opening and I could smell the old tobacco smell and the undeniable "cellar dampness" smell of a long abandoned basement in an old dilapidated house.  I opened the door and the sound of the loud, aggressive voices hit me full force.  Hidden deep within the bowels of the bank was a world all to its own.  There must have been 30 guys in there.  All that I could see through the smoke and the haze were abandoned souls...all with a phone pressed hard to the side of their head!  The first guy I saw had an overwight smoker, with torn t-shirt and jeans.  His worn and stained tennis shoes looked like he just found them in a dumpster, he was growling at some poor victim on the other end of the line, and when I asked "Where is Jerry?", he just pointed to a monster of a man sitting in the corner about 40 feet away.

As I walked toward Jerry, I realized I was the ONLY guy wearing a suit in the place, our eyes met.  I could tell immediately, today was going to be a different day!