Bad At Being Bad

Chapter 1: Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

Tapping his cheap biro on his equally cheap wooden veneer desk, Mr Cromwell stares intently at Steve. ‘This is not good, not good at all,’ Cromwell finally blurts out, ‘Two job interviews in two months. Not exactly packing them in, are you?’

‘I’ve been looking around, but there aren’t any jobs that take my fancy,’ Steve replies defensively. The truth being that he has found life just too easy on benefits, and has become lazy. He turned 30 last week and still lives at home. This proves to be an embarrassing factor whenever he pulls a girl and brings her back home after spending a night on the town. After she spots the Cliff Richard DVD on the coffee table or the Simply Red CD on the stereo, he has no choice other than to explain that he is still living with his parents (Steve always makes an excuse, as if it is a temporary thing while his flat in Chelsea is being renovated). There is also the consideration that having drunken, clumsy, and often wild, noisy sex in the next room to where his parents are sleeping is not exactly for the faint-hearted. On the up side, it is rent-free, his mum cooks him meals, washes and irons his clothes, and even brings him a cup of tea in the morning. Now, you don’t get that kind of service in a five-star hotel.

Steve stops staring at the desk and apprehensively looks up at Cromwell. Cromwell is a short, stocky man with dark piggy eyes sunken into a fully round and bloated head. His faded grey suit fits the establishment criteria of being utterly devoid of style, one size too small, and sporting worn and shiny elbows. Cromwell’s neck is lost in layers of fat, so his head sits on top of his buttoned-up white shirt like a retro nodding dog in the back of a Ford Cortina. Cromwell stops tapping his biro and speaks purposefully to Steve:

‘If you have not been on another job interview by this time next week, I will have no choice but to remove you from the Jobseekers Allowance scheme.’

These are the words that Steve dreads hearing; he relies on that money to have a piss-up and king-size doner kebab every Friday night with his mates.

Cromwell shuffles some of the papers on his desk, scanning the content. ‘What happened at your last job at Henry’s American Burgers? It says here that you had been promoted to kitchen supervisor and had undertaken a Health & Safety course. It sounds as if you had good prospects there.’

‘If you call good prospects working a twelve-hour shift on minimum wage that hardly pays for the bus journey home; serving quarter-pounder grease burgers to fat teenagers with faces like a sweaty Wayne Rooney jockstrap, then yeah, I wonder myself why it didn’t work out,’ Steve snaps back.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Mr Bent. Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Cromwell says in a droning, condescending voice that grates on Steve.

As Cromwell sifts through yet more paperwork and occasionally taps the keypad of his PC with heavy one-fingered jabs, Steve glances around the office. The building is a bog-standard, grey, seventies concrete block with windows, competing for blandness with the interior design. The stark look of Cromwell’s office is not helped by the bright, unforgiving glow of the large florescent light that is fixed to the cheap, polystyrene-tiled suspended ceiling. The thin carpet is battleship grey and so badly worn it is almost bare in places, while the walls offset this dullness with a splash of . . . lighter grey (what else?). Steve glances at his watch irritably, realising he will miss the beginning of Loose Women.

Cromwell finds the file he is looking for and scans through the detailed job description on the screen before taking a scrutinising look at Steve. The job description requires tall, athletic men with a good physique, and military background. Steve is about 5’8", not exactly athletic but not in too bad a shape for a thirty-year old. As for a military background, Cromwell muses that the only experience this lad would have had is a punch-up with a few squaddies on a Friday night down the local. Still, World Domination Ltd is in the process of a massive expansion drive and is desperate for new recruits.

‘I think that I have just the ticket,’ Cromwell finally says. ‘A chance for you to travel, meet new people, and learn new skills. I will print you out a copy to see what you think.’

The printer whirrs into life and noisily dispatches the printout. Cromwell slides the A4 sheet of paper over to Steve.

Steve picks it up, still warm from the printer, and starts to read. The job is for a security operative (whatever that is!) for a company called World Domination Ltd. The starting salary is a whopping £25k, double the amount he had been earning at Henry’s. ‘What’s the catch?’ Steve cynically asks as he catches Cromwell’s eye.

‘It is hardly a catch, as you so bluntly put it,’ Cromwell responds, ‘but the job location is on a small private island about two hundred miles south of the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific Ocean.’

‘Pitcairn Islands! Where the hell are they?’

‘Do I look like a Geography teacher? I’ve hardly got map co-ordinates for you,’ Cromwell snaps before calming down. ‘Look, you will be working on a private island surrounded by glorious beaches in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean; that would be most people’s idea of heaven!’

Images of sun-soaked beaches, tanned girls in scanty bikinis and surfing start forming in his mind, and the idea of the job suddenly seems very appealing. ‘I will have to learn how to surf,’ Steve thinks, ‘all surf dudes have names; I’ll call myself something like Wave Runner or Shark Tooth, though ‘shark bait’ is more likely!’

Steve’s line of thought is abruptly interrupted by Cromwell, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I don’t know. It sounds good, but I’d miss my mates after a while. I would miss Friday nights down the boozer, my curry takeaway and settling down to watch Match Of The Day accompanied by a few bottles of my good friend Stella on Saturday nights. It sounds great for a holiday but not long term.’

‘Are you mad? Are you seriously contemplating missing an opportunity like this just because you want to get rat-arsed every Friday and stare at Gary Lineker every Saturday night?’ Cromwell replies in genuine amazement. ‘You have no qualifications, no skills and no prospects here. This is a good opportunity to get away from this rat race and earn decent money. You will receive good, on-job training and will learn new skills. Just think of it as a long vacation. Just work there for a year or two, earn a few bob, and come home.’

‘I dunno.’

‘Are you in a relationship at the moment?’ Cromwell asks.

‘Only with my right hand,’ Steve replies sarcastically.

‘So what’s the problem? Go. Enjoy yourself. You can even take your right hand with you!’

Steve starts to warm to the idea of bumming around on a dessert island for a year or two, picking up a tan and hopefully a few girls. All his mates had gone to Camp America or backpacked around Australia when they were all younger, while the furthest he had been was a lad’s holiday to Kavos in Corfu. They had all claimed that their travelling was a life-changing experience and he remembered how sick he got of hearing all the stories and exploits of their travels. Looking back, he had been jealous. Even though his mates hadn’t travelled together, they had all seemed to share this weird, unspoken bond. And it wasn’t just the multi-coloured leather string wristbands, or the shark teeth on a chain that formed this unity, but a common ground of adventure that Steve never quite got, and it was a club that he felt no part of. This could be the opportunity he needed to kick start his life and escape his mundane existence in dreary Woking. What the hell, he would go for the interview. After all, he had nothing to lose.

‘Okay,’ Steve agrees, ‘send them my CV and put me down for an interview.’

‘Excellent, Mr Bent. You know it makes sense.’ Cromwell leans back in his chair and beams at Steve.

‘I will email over your CV to World Domination and request an interview.’ Cromwell says as he awkwardly pulls himself out of his chair and holds out his right hand for Steve to shake.

Steve, taking his cue to leave, stands up and shakes Cromwell’s sweaty, proffered hand; the initial contact making a repulsive squelch. ‘Thank you, Mr Cromwell,’ Steve says, before walking back to the lift lobby, wiping his right hand on his trousers.

Steve is excited, if not a little shell-shocked. He has just agreed to go for an interview at a company he has never heard of for a job with no job description. What is actually involved in being a ‘security operative’?

Steve throws his keys onto the kitchen side as soon as he gets in, and switches the kettle on before rushing upstairs to his room to turn on his trusty old Dell PC. As the computer protestingly splutters into life, making weird intergalactic noises, Steve rushes downstairs to finish making his coffee; except, there is no coffee in the cupboards. Well, not what Steve would call coffee anyway. His mum always does the shopping, and has insisted lately that they all could do without that evil little drug called caffeine, and has bought decaf instead. To Steve, decaf coffee is the equivalent to a jam doughnut without the jam – utterly pointless. Still, he makes his so-called coffee and goes upstairs to take a pew in front of the PC.

After carrying out the usual routine of cursing all the start-up ‘pop-ups’ that fill up his desktop, Steve logs onto the net and googles ‘World Domination Ltd’. If he is to get an interview, it is always a good idea to check out some basic facts about the company – it makes it look like you give a rat’s arse about who they are.

The website is full of pretty flash animations but contains precious little about the company and what they do; all bells and whistles but no tune. Apparently, the company only turned ‘limited’ ten years ago, and is in the middle of a huge expansion. The company logo is cool; the world on puppeteer’s strings, held by a hand above. The flash animation of the logo has the fingers of the hand moving gently up and down, with the world spinning slowly.

The website claims that the company is in stage two of world domination, and the projected target of complete domination within five years looks realistic.

Steve cannot find any substantial information on what the company actually does, and what do they mean by ‘world domination’? Steve thinks amusingly to himself that it sounds like he will be working for Microsoft or the US government. It may mean that they wish to hold a monopoly in their area of trade (whatever that is!), but the term world domination seems a tad excessive and overdramatic.

Armed with minimal information on the company, Steve decides to leave the site and check out what is happening in the far more interesting but artificial cyber world of Myface.

Myface, and all the other social networking websites, highlights the best and worst elements of the web to Steve. In principal, it is a great way of finding and reacquainting with old friends from school, college, or work, and sharing music, photos and videos with everyone you know. But in reality, it is a travelling circus. This social networking world is as superficial and shallow as a Big Brother love affair, bringing new meaning to the old saying ‘keeping up with the Joneses. And if we are honest about it, we are really only using these sites as an extension of our dicks (metaphorically), trying to prove how much better off we are than those sad losers we knew from school. It is all about how many ‘friends’ you have. Never mind that you have never actually liked half the people on your list and haven’t even seen the majority of them since school, the fact that you have five more friends than your old school mate is the equivalent to having cyber world bling hanging around your neck and a big, pimped-up BMW with personalised hubcaps.

It is so addictive! You can easily waste half a day on it without actually realising what you have done. These websites are the fast food of the internet. Irresistible, instantly gratifying, leaving you feeling hollow and systematically abused, but wanting more. It seems sad to Steve that some people (a lot of people) actually believe that this is interacting. It is not. Going down the pub with your mates, sinking a few pints while discussing whether Pulp Fiction or True Romance is the best Tarantino film; is Madonna too old to be doing dance music? (We all know that she looks amazing for her age and can put her leg behind her head in some weird acrobatic/yoga dance move, but it is a bit like watching your granny do the cancan at a family wedding, ‘I can still do it and I am 82 you know!’); Are Chelsea going to perform the miracle of all miracles and win the Champions League again this season? And discussing who has shagged who – that is interacting.

Chapter 2: The Interview

Two days later, Steve is brutally awoken from his beauty sleep at 11.30am by a telephone call from Cromwell. ‘Good news, Mr Bent; I have arranged an interview for you with World Domination Ltd tomorrow morning. The interview will take place at the Coddington Hotel in Leicester Square at 10.00am,’ Cromwell pauses before adding sarcastically, ‘Do you think you will manage to get up in time for it?’

His ‘already ironed’ shirt is laid out on the bed (good old mum); tie and suit hanging up. The sun is high in the sky when he leaves the house and the lack of a breeze hints that it is going to be a blisteringly hot summer’s day. The tube is rammed, and he spends the last few stops with his face pushed up into the armpit of a hairy Italian tourist with definite hygiene problems and an antipathy to soap (he knew he was Italian because of the skin-tight, two sizes too small, national football shirt that is revealing a hairy midriff that is evidently not shy of pasta). Steve glances at his watch and sighs with relief; he is only one stop away from Leicester Square, with half an hour spare.

Leicester square is already busy with tourists queuing at the half-price ticket booth for cheap West End show tickets. Men wearing swanky suits and pink ties, and women in power suits are hurrying to work, heading towards Piccadilly or Oxford Street, cursing any tourist that, heaven forbid, walks too slowly in front of them. Swarms of the now infamous Westminster traffic wardens are waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting driver of the lorries that are streaming constantly in and out of the square, loading or unloading their goods. Steve spots the hotel at the other side of the square and heads towards it, deciding to have a coffee there to steady his nerves before the interview.

The Coddington is a five-star hotel with five-star beverage prices to match. The cappuccino is £4.50 and served by a waiter with a pompous five-star attitude. Steve sits down on a large red sofa in the vast open lobby area. It is check-out time and the receptionists at their individual funky pod desks are busy checking out guests, while the porters, beads of sweat now streaming down their faces, are lugging heavy cases in and out of the luggage store. The lifts are in constant use bringing down guests. Often, well-dressed businessmen walk out of the lifts with a woman hanging off their arms like some weird fashion assessory. These women, their glances at their man too artificially affectionate, are obviously not their wives.

Steve muses that the star system designed for hotels need not be based on the level of room service, quality of food at the restaurant, or décor; but instead, could be based on the class of the hookers that frequent the premises. This can be easily sorted by the following questions, with a ‘yes’ for an answer potentially lowering the star rating of the hotel; Do they speak with a south London accent (easily spotted as the ‘th’ sound is replaced by ‘ff’ in the vocabulary)? Are they carrying a white faux leather handbag that has the remnants of an Essex nightclub’s dirty dance floor caked along the bottom of the bag? Are their skirts ‘Ally McBeal short’ (Google ‘Ally McBeal short skirt’ if you are unsure)? Do they have shoes that look as if they have just escaped from the bargain bin at Primark? Do they chew more gum than Sir Alex Ferguson (‘yes’ being almost impossible to achieve)? Do they walk like Kate Moss or Charlotte Church on a bender? Taking all these new factors into consideration, Steve decides that the Coddington should be downgraded from a five-star to a four-star hotel.

The interviewer is a tall, big, black guy with a grin as wide as the Dartford Tunnel. He approaches Steve with his hand outstretched for a handshake at least 10 yards before reaching Steve. He pumps Steve’s hand enthusiastically.

‘You must be Steve? You look like a Steve! My name is Zack and I represent World Domination Limited. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you.’

Zack is obviously American, but has that universal mid-Atlantic accent that all American salesmen have no matter where they come from. It doesn’t matter if they were born to a Jewish family in New Jersey, offspring from a hillbilly family in the Midwest, spent their youth pumping iron on Muscle Beach, or spent their youth on a council estate in Barnsley, and it doesn’t matter if they are selling bars of soap, car insurance or timeshares; they all have that overfriendly and colourfully drawn out accent that puts an emphasis on every single word like everything is amazing. Where do they all learn to talk like this? Is it taught in Harvard or Yale?

‘Wow, I love your tie. Where did you get that tie? I can tell that you are ambitious just from that tie,’ Zack says enthusiastically. ‘Come with me, Steve, let’s walk and talk. I have a small function room booked for us to have a chat.’

Have a chat? Steve is beginning to wonder if he is about to be duped into a timeshare. It is the sort of thing that you see investigated on Panorama. You know? Some poor sod walks innocently into a supposed job interview, and walks out with a signed contract for three weeks a year at a villa in the Costa Del Sol.

The interview room is small with a square glass table in the middle, and four, black leather, high- backed chairs positioned around it. Steve pulls out and sits on the nearest chair, while Zack takes a seat directly opposite, beaming at Steve. The chair is stylish, fashionably contemporary, obviously costs a few bob, but bloody uncomfortable, and it takes several bum shuffles for Steve to settle.

‘Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about World Domination Limited, because you probably have misconceptions caused by our bad press lately, which I can tell you are manipulative propaganda campaigns by the media to smear our name.’

Steve did not read newspapers (unless you call The Star a newspaper) and did not watch the news (unless you count Newsround) and didn’t have a Scooby Doo what Zack was on about, but he nods his head knowingly.

‘People like Adolf Hitler and Mussolini have given the concept of world domination a bad name but the concept is a natural progression of politics today.’

Not knowing what the hell Zack is talking about, Steve just continues to nod in agreement.

‘I mean, us Americans have been trying for world domination for decades. Wasn’t that what the Cold War and space race was all about? Suppression of other nations and extortion is part and parcel of the US government’s approach for political gain.’

Steve is nodding politely, but his mind has started to drift and he is now anxiously wondering if he had programmed Sky plus to record Neighbours.

‘You guys aren’t exactly angels are you? For centuries, you guys were obsessive in building an empire to rule the world. To give you credit, you succeeded in ruling a third of it. How does World Domination differ from these idealistic ambitions? No-one seems to complain about Mr Gates’ global monopoly. The only difference between us and them is that they are trying to achieve world domination with the use of and demand for technology and computers.’

Sensing a pause in speech, Steve snaps back to the present and nods his head in agreement, squinting his eyes as if deep in concentration and hanging off Zack’s every word.

Zack regains his composure and continues his spill. ‘World Domination Limited needs new recruits with the passion and drive to take the company forward. Do you have that drive? I don’t need to ask that question, judging by the tie, I know that you do.’

Before Steve has a chance to answer, there is a knock on the glass door and a pretty girl in a grey skirt suit enters the room. ‘Excuse me, sir, sorry to bother you. It seems that you have double booked Miss Dairy for her second interview now. She is waiting in reception.’

Zack looks amusingly stunned, the expression on his face almost cartoon-like. ‘I can’t believe that I have done that!’ Zack looks over at Steve and reassuringly nods, ‘I love that tie! That tie speaks vision and ambition in abundance. I think we can skip this part and go straight to the second interview. You and Miss Dairy can have the interview together. I will call her in.’

Miss Dairy enters the scene (‘scene’ because the strange set of events that are about to unfold makes Steve feel that he is living in some kind of weird Woody Allen movie. Actually, ‘enters the scene’ is a bit lame, more like ‘she glides into the room’). Miss Dairy is in her mid-20’s, tall, thin, pretty, and has the composure and confidence of being well educated. She is wearing a pencil-straight skirt, plain white blouse, and black-rimmed designer glasses that are sexy, but give an air of authority.

‘Hello, Miss Dairy. This is Mr Bent. You will be sitting this interview together. Please take a seat.’ Zack gestures to the seat next to Steve.

This is all happening too fast, and is swiftly becoming the strangest interview he has ever had. The alarm bells really start ringing when Zack leaves the room to get a cup of coffee. Miss Dairy seems very enthusiastic about the job and asks Steve what he thinks of it all. Before he can answer she is in mid-flow, telling him that the benefits are so much better than her previously well-paid job, and that the potential growth within this company seems extraordinary.

The interview carries on for another half an