I needed to find a second job. I had been working at the gas station for years, but they were cutting back my hours. My landlord also raised my rent again, and I know that I should really be putting my energy into looking for another place. I live in an old low-rise made mostly of concrete, and my place bakes in the summer sun. At night people stumble home drunk and scream at each other in the hall outside. I don't mind that so much, as the noise actually helps wake me up for when I'm working an overnight shift. But I'm getting old. I shouldn't be living in places where there are drunk people in the hallways anymore.

But I wanted to take care of the job situation first. I figured I'd see if I could get something that paid well and maybe I could move into a slightly nicer kind of place, rather than just settling for something similar to my present situation. So I went to the library in my spare time and looked at a bunch of staffing places online. I settled for one called Encadria Staffing Solutions. It was close by.

I phoned the place up right away and they told me to just drop by and they could fix me up for a pre-interview kind of a thing. "Do you have any jobs for someone like me?" I asked the person on the phone.

"That's what the initial interview is meant to determine, " was the woman's reply on the other end.

It took me maybe a week to actually get down there. I go slow with these kinds of things. I figured that I'd be too worked up if I headed off right away, my head full of expectations. You learn these kinds of tricks as you get older. When you're young and foolish, any seemingly reasonable prospect can send you into a frenzy of excitement, and you almost always come away disappointed.

In any event, I did show up there about a week after I phoned, as I said. There was a woman at the counter who was the same one from the phone. "I spoke to you a while back about getting an interview, " I said.

She looked at me like she would have looked at a complete stranger. I suppose that's exactly what I was, but I was expecting a friendlier welcome.

"I should have come earlier, I know, " I said.

"I'm sorry, " the woman said. "We get a lot of walk-ins. It's fine. What I mean is, we can get going."

She handed me a form to fill out and then pointed to a door across the way. "You can wait in there for one of our agents, " she told me.

I took my form and went off where she told me. It was a small meeting room, with a table in the middle with a phone on it. There were chairs on either side. It was windowless, but I could feel cool air coming in front the vent above me.

After about ten minutes, an older gentleman wearing a navy blue suit stepped into the room. He stuck out his hand. "Mr. Hathway?" he said.

"Yes, " I said standing up and extending my own hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Sorry to keep you waiting, " he told me. We both sat down, facing one another from either side of the small table.

"It's no problem at all, " I said. "I was just finishing this up."

"Right, right, " he said. "My name's Benton, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Benton, " I said.

He reached over and pulled the form towards him. "So let's see what you've got here, " he said.

"I'm already working, " I told him. "But, you know, the way the cost of living is now."

"Of course, " Benton said. He studied the form for a moment. "We get clients like yourself here quite a bit."

"My hours are flexible, " I told him. "What I mean is that I would have to clear any changes with my manager. But I've been working at that place for years, so it shouldn't be too difficult."

"What do you expect from us?" Benton asked me.

"What's that?" I said.

"You came here today expecting something from us, I'm sure, " he went on.

"Well, I'm not looking for something specific. What I mean is, I'd be curious to know what kind of work is available."

Benton nodded slowly as he continued to peruse my form. "It would be a good idea to get a bit more specific than that, " he said. "So we can proceed along a certain path."

"I didn't know that there were paths, " I said.

Benton put the form down, finally. "Well, you see, if you tell me that you're looking for one kind of word, I'll find out what category we put that under. So say that you say 'data entry', for example. We consider that clerical work. So now I'll be proceeding with this interview as if you are looking for clerical work."

"Data entry sounds fine to me, " I told him.

"It doesn't have to be that, though, " he said. "I only gave you an example."

"But that's exactly what I'm looking for, " I said. "Some kind of work like that. Where I sit down at a desk."

"There's more to it than that, " Benton told me. "What I mean is that you can't just tell me that you like this kind of work because of the setting."

"Well, what do you want me to say?" I asked him.

"It's not about what I want you to say, " he told me. "You have to come up with something. What I mean is that you were supposed to come in here and talk about your likes and dislikes. Give me a bit of substance to work with. And then we would follow one of the prescribed paths."

"But you told me that I should tell you that I like data entry, " I said.

"Did I say that?" Benton said. "Perhaps that was a mistake on my part. I didn't mean that you were supposed to tell me that you wanted to work in data entry. That would be too specific. That was an example I gave to show you, well, I don't know. But we don't work quite that way."

"I'm a bit lost, " I told him.

"Maybe this is my fault, " Benton said. "But you have to admit that you didn't come in here with any kind of a strategy."

"Nobody told me to do that, " I said.

"But you should have known, " he told me. "That's what everyone should be telling you. Or, at least, you should be reading up on these things. You make a plan, and then you set out to achieve it."

"Maybe we can start from the beginning, " I said.

"I'll need some time, I think, " Benton said. "Perhaps a fresh start would be ideal, though. Why don't you think about what I've told you and come back when you're ready?"

"I'll do that, " I told him. "Whatever you say."