The waiting room draped with light pink colored curtains that touched the 2 pm sunlight, the pink touched everything that was magnified by the light, either by the sunlight outside or the fluorescent lights in the interior of the room. Magazines were piled neatly before the potential employees in order to pass the time, or to at least keep their anxieties at a minimum. Whether it worked or not was another question. One such potential employee sat with her arms crossed, observing her fellow job seekers. Her neutral face said she had seen this before, and that she had been here before. A faint cough came, followed by someone clearing her throat.
“Looking to be a CSA too?” asked the woman next to her, lips forming a smile.
“Yeah,” she replied in a neutral tone.
“I hear that they’re not looking to hire you unless you’ve been trained for six months and then handpicked by the company.”
“A friend of mine said the same thing,” she said, regretting it later since it made her sound like she had a backer. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Animal! There are too many requirements needed these days to get a decent job! She wanted to say it out loud but decided not to. She did not want her father to hear what got her kicked out of a job interview since she already had enough of his nagging. What’s worse is that she had no idea what a CSA is or what it stands for. She only went into this job interview due to her friend; a VASCORP employee who told her that they were hiring, and she was desperate to find a job. Almost any job.
She sat beside herself, but she did smile every now and again at her fellow job seekers whose glances she met with a surface level of pleasantries. In the five years, she had been on a job hunt, she had gotten used to the formality of the process, and if she were to have any say in the matter, she would say that she had about enough. The disappointment at never getting the job had been too much, that she had to settle for job openings that had nothing to do with the major that she took at the college.
Her mother passed on ten years before, and so she was stuck with her father Sam - a caring yet distant figure in her life, but he had not always been that way. She could recall then that her father had been at his happiest when he was with her mother, Mary. Now he was stuck with a daughter who had been a mediocre student with no clear plans for her future. Sometimes, she wondered if her father had ever thought of marrying her off to a white man thirty years her senior just to get rid of her, but no one knew what went on in Samuel –
“Valiente,” the receptionist called.
Returning to reality, Allegra collected her thoughts, placed them in the back of her mind, and rose from where she sat in order to face another job interviewer head-on.
“That’s me,”
She walked over to the receptionist’s desk.
“You may go in now,”
She successively knocked on the door three times in order to get the attention of the interviewer just to announce that she was coming in. Allegra opened the door swiftly, closed it behind her, and walked over to the empty chair before the woman who had half-moon glasses on, graying dark hair, and folds of wrinkles hanging from her neck. She would say that the woman was in her early sixties give or take, nearing retirement age.
“Please, sit,” the woman said with an expressionless face while pointing out the chair before her.
“Thank you,”
Allegra did as she was told and placed her arms on the armrests of the chair to show that she was relaxed.
“It says here on your resume that you graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, ma’am,”
“Hmmm,” said the interviewer with an inquisitive look on her face.
Oh, great! Another one who’ll tell me that I’m overqualified. She thought, but her expression said otherwise. She smiled the entire time and used hand gestures to emphasize what she was saying but these were all empty words and empty gestures to her, the promise of a job and a stable salary was tempting but asked too much of her. Had she had a talent for the arts or the sciences she would have borne it like a champion, but she was neither of those things, in fact, she was average at best. At least I’m not mediocre, she would mentally tell herself whenever she needed the encouragement.
“Why would you like to become a CSA?” asked the interviewer, looking up at her from the resume.
Allegra searched her thoughts for an answer.
“I like helping people arrive to their destination,” she replied as quickly as the thought came to her. “And I like interacting with others, so I thought, why not put that to good use?”
“Hmmm.” The interviewer repeated and pulled out her Transcript of Records making Allegra frown.
Her heart began pounding, she could feel it pound on her throat and on her abdomen, a sensation she had only felt while doing a workout.
“What experience do you have to be considered for this position?”
She searched her thoughts again and began.
“Well, I’ve worked on the job at the airport for my internship, so I know my way around the airport.”
Allegra hoped the answer was enough, but the interviewer only studied and possibly scrutinized her grades from six years ago.
As the woman before her took her time in studying her records, Allegra’s mind went over to the time she cross-enrolled at one of the local universities for the math subjects she failed to take during the five years she had been at the Cebu Institute of Aeronautics. One of her professors, an uptight man with a stick up his ass had scolded her for asking help from an ex-professor of the university who taught the same class he did a few years before he took over. These days, she remembered what the scolding was about but not the actual words that went out of his mouth that ended up going in from her right ear and out of the left.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“What do you think of a no-pay six-month training program to become a CSA? We’ll be selecting candidates to become employees after the training.”
“I would be glad to be one of the candidates for training,” she thought she sounded so fake with that reply.
“Alright, we’ll call you if you’ve been selected.”
“Thank you,” Allegra rose up from her chair.
“And oh, please call the next interviewee inside.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The red Volkswagen beetle that she and her father called ‘The Turtle’ was a rusty old car that she had inherited from her paternal grandfather. She drove everywhere in it, but for reasons only known to her, she had mainly used it as a service car to drive and pick up her father from work. They lived on the island of Mactan and so it was easy to get around the place in around thirty minutes without traffic give or take.
Allegra closed the car door, and sighed heavily, placing her folder on the passenger seat as well as her handbag that once belonged to her mother. She took her time, relieving herself from the stress of yet another failed attempt at getting hired. She knew that when interviewers said they would call that it meant she did not make the cut. Allegra shook her head sideways as if to say, ‘Better luck next time.’ Fishing out the car keys from her handbag, she then inserted it into the ignition, turning on the car. The Turtle was a manual car, so she checked that the gear was on neutral, and then lowered the emergency brake. Allegra selected first gear and slowly let go of the brake pedal she had been stepping on the entire time. She knew where she was going.
The car radio’s static scratched as she listened in on the 3 o’clock prayer of the station she had tuned in to. Afterward, she turned the ignition off and took out the key, got out of the car, and walked over to the vintage shop called Spencer’s Trading a few feet away from where she had parked.
“Oy! Ally!” a voice said coming from behind.
Allegra turned and there stood Spencer - the shop's owner. He was a bulky man, medium in height, an athlete during his years at the College of the Visayas, and a varsity student but seeing him before her, no one would not recognize him as one. They had known each other since Spencer was also a personal trainer, and he got her younger brother Ace into bodybuilding.
“Spence,” Allegra acknowledged.
“Still job hunting?”
“Yes,”
“How can you afford all the stuff you buy here if you don’t have a job?” he asked jokingly.
“I have an allowance and Christmas money,” she replied in a serious tone.
Silence fell between them, and when Spencer recognized it as a joke he started laughing and so did she.
“You got me there,” he said. “Kumusta? How are you?”
“As usual,” she said somberly. “Do you have anything new?”
“Not right now, but there’ll be new stuff coming in from Japan in the next few days.” He said, placing an arm on her shoulder. “Have you had snacks yet?”
“No,”
“Let’s talk a little bit, Lyn Jie wants to know how you’ve been.”
Allegra sighed, relieved after the day she’s had.
“I’m fine with that.”
***
She said her goodbyes to Spencer and Lyn Jie as if for the last time, but she knew she would see them again. Her cousin Jenna had her ups and downs but was at least stable financially, and Joanne her best friend had different ideas as to what being successful looks like and Nica, her friend since kindergarten had gone through a major life change after getting engaged to a seaman. One could say that Spencer, Lyn Jie and Nica were her only friends whom she’s maintained communication with that were also stable in their lives. After their goodbyes, the couple showed her to her car.
“Thanks again for hearing me out,” Allegra said.
“No problem, talk to us anytime,”
Allegra got in the car, placed the keys in the ignition, turned the engine on and began her journey back to Mactan Island where she would pick up her father from work. The drive was neither slow nor fast, she had her gear on second for the most part so it would be easy to go on neutral then first gear if ever she were met with traffic or an oncoming car. The thought of getting into a car crash occupied her mind, and so the worry of not being picked for the program left her.
Arriving at the parking lot of the hangar, she parked the car on the same lot she always did; near the building itself. Allegra exited the car after making sure all the doors were locked and made her way to the hangar.
Upon entering the building, she was greeted with nods by the mechanics on duty.
“Your dad’s going to be out late today, he’s in a meeting with the owners.” One of the older mechanics said. “It’s nice seeing you again, Ally.”
“If he goes looking for me, tell him I’ll be at the doctor’s office.”
“Will do,”
The doctor’s office located at the very end of the hangar gave the impression of being small at first but upon entry, it was spacious and while the paint had curled and flaked there was a homeliness to it. She knocked thrice and was abruptly given permission to enter.
“Doc,” she said, catching the doctor’s attention. “Good afternoon,”
“Ally, it’s nice to see you again!” said the doctor who looked up from her desk. “How are you?”
“The usual,” Allegra said, nonchalant. “Job hunting here and there.”
“Keep at it and it’ll find you soon,”
“Right,” Allegra replied, turning away from the doctor.
A silence came over them, unexpected with just the hum of the air-conditioning making the only sound in the room.
“I know you’ve had a rough time these past few years, but it wouldn’t hurt if you’d share that burden with others.” The doctor said, recommending her method to make things easier but never pushing it to Allegra.
In someways, Dr. Eliza Flores became a second mother after her own mother had passed away ten years ago when Allegra was fifteen years old. Dr. Eliza always found a way to get an answer out of her…for the most part.
“It wouldn’t.” The younger woman finally replied, breaking the silence.
“Make me a coffee, no sugar.” The doctor instructed. “Then we can talk.”
“I got the overqualified reason again today, but there might be a chance that they’ll call me for the CSA training program.” Allegra began the session, anyway, taking a styro cup from the cabinet next to the water dispenser and a sachet of coffee. “Overqualified, under-qualified, what’s the difference?” she asked. “They’re never going to hire me anyway.” Allegra sighed heavily then turned to the doctor as though all her burdens have been carried over elsewhere. “I got asked if I was his kid though."
“What did you say?”
“That I was,” Allegra replied without a beat. “It seems like a lot of these employers don’t think I deserve the job because of who my father is.” She poured the sachet of coffee onto the styro cup, poured in the hot water and stirred.
“You know, he does worry about you,” Dr. Flores remarked.
“I suppose that’s enough.”