EPT
And special thanks to awesome man SirJolt for injecting some awesome wordage to it, without further ado:The Hiring
James wanted the job with TeamLiquid.net more than anything in his life (or at least more than anything in the last few months). He approached the job with a feeling of spartan heritage, as if it would bring great honor and glory to his lineage. Sure he sat in a room at 6am, watching Koreans play a video game, watching a few ants crawl through the small crack beneath a window. But the situation was not that to him, it was glorious work, toiling in the name of E-Sports!
As James worked on his latest post on the discussion board, he heard the guitar squeal that signified the beginning of his heavy metal ring tone. Already knowing that it would be his father on the other end of the line, he thought to himself, America's past is so drowned, drenched, and diluted in nostalgia that it's nearly impossible to determine what life was really like even fifty years ago. His father didn't seem to make that connection, “back when I was a kid” his father told him in his fired up, near yelling voice, “you had to get a real job, work your ass off just for food to eat. I also talked to my family more often than...” He had long since stopped listening to the mad ramblings of his father. It's debatable if his mother should have ever taught him her old trick: putting the phone down on the coffee table and picking it up every five minutes to let out a grunt of understanding. Still, he did not have a heart of stone, and he felt bad for his dad every time that he got on such a rant that the phone had to be put down.
His father's rant was this time ignited by James' decision to spend his summer off school at his friend's apartment in the beautiful Boca Raton Florida (not that they would be going outside) rather than with him. James was visiting his best friend while his girlfriend was on a mission trip in Germany. He originally thought that the idea of a mission trip to Germany was just a dull ploy by members of the Christian community who thought of a good excuse, but it turned out to be a legitimate attempt to convert Catholics to Baptists. Regardless, since he had only a few friends in Tallahassee, he decided to go visit his dead beat best friend, Nathan. Together their voids would form a black hole of sorts, an inescapable mass consuming all semblance of a normal “life,” swelling them both, never to be seen again.
Nathan's apartment was suited for the laziest of college students: no food in the fridge, no furniture in the living room, and only a bed to make a bedroom. Ants slowly made their way through a crack in the wall and a few flies made lazy circles about in the kitchen. The insect situation wasn't quite bad enough that it demanded immediate attention, but it was noticeable. Upon going outside of the place, the faint scent of illicit greenery could be made out from downstairs, and there was usually a person or two lingering in the parking lot at all hours of the night. If James and Nathan managed to make it outside during the day, there were usually large numbers of Hispanic children playing in the parking lot as a pregnant, smoking mother yelled at them every once in a while. It wasn't the best place, nor was it the worst, but either way he probably would have been better off at home if it wasn't for his father's obsessiveness.
James' best friend was only a little more hopeless than he was, because not only did he sit all day at a flickering white-blue screen, but he smoked and drank as he did so. He was worried at the time about passing his drug test to go work at the YMCA as a camp counselor. Despite that it had necessitated “further sampling,” his urine barely made the cut, and he was deemed worthy of taking care of your children for the day.
For James this was no ordinary day of nothingness in the beat up apartment, he turned on his computer as if waking up a temporarily paralyzed body part. He had been posting long pieces of analysis on the website Teamliquid.net, spending his copious amounts of free time analyzing a video game rather than something more productive like...well, anything.
This time when he logged on, he went to the job section of the website, which was finally flashing the “new” tag; it was like a neon sign advertising free heroin to a drug addict, it had a call. This website had been dominating his attention for the last few months. He had been writing post after post on the discussion board analyzing the video game Starcraft 2, hoping to impress the website's staff. It all came down to this, a new job posting was available and he could have the dream of the “x” or “y” or “fat and lazy” generation: getting paid to write about a video game.
He clicked the link to apply for the job, but he was so excited that his words began drooling all over each other. His email read like the retarded ramblings of a 4 year old, squealing about wanting the latest action figure (or whatever those lazy-good for nothing kids these days are into). After he clicked send, he re-read the poorly written application (for a writing job) and quickly realized that his months of posts may have been for nothing (although considering what he was writing about it already was essentially for nothing).
With haste, he burped a burp of leftover pizza and typed his second attempt at an application, being sure to start it with “I'm sorry for having such an inadequate first application, I'm just so excited about the position opening up.” In case that wasn't enough to make up for his terrible first application, he wrote the subject as “Disregard last email.” Nathan and his boyfriend were awoken by the .70 wpm (words per minute) caliber machine gun firing to their right.
They didn't say anything at first, too busy enjoying their breakfast of champions; Camel Menthol's and Mountain Dew. Then, Nathan's boyfriend, Levi, got up with a groan, sensible enough to find it reprehensible that they were waking up at 6pm. Levi pranced out of bed in his hot pink boxer-briefs and put on a pair of grey sweat pants. They asked, “Buddy, what the hell are you so excited about?” stomping out their cigarettes in the process. James continued to stare at his white-blue salvation, re-reading his application more than he had any school paper in his life. “Buddy...Buddy, Buddy!” yelled Nathan, as he lit up another cigarette and the cloying smell of it filled the room.“Huh, oh what?” James replied in a daze. “What on earth are you doing?” James glanced down one last time at his computer, clicked once, sighed, and leaned back (as if he had just accomplished something difficult). “Nothing, just applied for a Teamliquid thingy,” he vaguely said, always wanting to ignore how obsessed he was over a video game for the last few months (he was unsure whether or not it was something to be proud of).
They spent the next few hours as they had spent the last month: worrying if they'd wake up in time to get dinner or would have to order in, deciding between going to Denny's for breakfast or waiting for Dunkin Donuts to open, smoking, and lubricating it all with Mountain Dew; James had received a new email. Timidly, he clicked the in-box option on his Google mail, and saw that Books a Million had some fantastic new offers that he just couldn't miss. He nearly canceled his Books a million account in frustration at their poorly timed advertisement, his mouse hovered over the “x” button, when there was a new email. It read, “Alright, you're hired. Send me your information for Gchat and we'll talk more.”
He thought about getting out of the chair, but there wasn't a clean spot on the floor between paper plates, cigarette filled glasses, and pizza boxes from which to get a solid footing. Instead he squealed like a preteen seeing the Beatles and yelled to Nathan, “I got the job, I got the job! I can't believe it dude, I got it!” Nathan replied, “Oh buddy congratulations, let's go get some Five Guys and celebrate.”
After they had made their great pilgrimage to Five Guys Burger and Fries, James began boasting the 21st century way, facebooking and texting. He felt that he had to make the position seem significant, and told everyone that the position was paid, just so it didn't sound so childish to be so excited over what was essentially free work.
but actual advice would be very helpful, as I may be work shopping this piece later in the semester. Thank you all for you thoughts so far 
