"I want to begin by stating that the call center I work at is seriously top notch. We pay extremely well, we have crazy flexible hours and we pride ourselves on our local reputation.

Part of this is because of our extremely deliberate hiring process. We get about 100 applicants every week, of whom we will end up hiring 3 to 5.

We really don't hire just anyone, and as a company, we take a great deal of pride in that.

So do our clients, all of whom are really high-profile, on a national scale.

So, this morning, my boss, Al, called me into his office and asked me to conduct my very first interview.

Now, I'd very recently accepted a promotion to being a trainer - so recently, in fact, that I'm not even done with my training - but interviews are the purview of managers and shift supervisors. I mentioned as such, but Al told me that this was a 'special case.'

'We are counting on you,' Al said with tremendous, tremendous gravity. '[OurCompany]'s reputation depends on our hires. I expect a great deal from you.'

With that, he handed me a clipboard with a list of questions and a pen and ushered me into another manager's office to wait for my very first-ever interviewee.

About three minutes later, the kid walked in.

Oh my, did he ever walk in!

I am going to take my time about describing this kid because I do not want to leave a single thing out.

(And please, keep in mind, like everywhere else, we require business casual and there is no way this kid got this far in the hiring process without being told at least three times.)

He was wearing:
_Skinny blue jeans that were so tight I could easily see tendons and bone structure, pulled down around the hips and crotch to avoid mashing his balls into paste. _
Beat-up old Converse sneakers covered with what appeared to be homemade Rageface patches.
_A red, hooded sweatshirt over a freaking My Little Pony t-shirt. _
Black, lensless eyeglass frames, and about six facial piercings
* A damned Naruto headband.

A damned Naruto Headband.

'You're wearing a Naruto headband,' I said.
Now, to me, my tone said, and quite clearly, 'How the f--- did you make it past the first two stages of the vetting process, you ridiculous child?'

He, however, assumed that my tone meant 'Gosh, how completely appropriate!' and said, with an expression of such sheer smuggery I wish I could adequately describe it, 'Oh, you recognize my headband. Plus one to you! I was almost worried I'd have to deal with some lame-a-- suit!'

And then, he handed me his 'resume.'

I want you to understand how very loose I am being with that word, here, because what he actually handed me was about four pages of prose beginning with the sentence, 'I was born on [Date], 1988, in the small town of [suburb].'

I stared at this f------ Facebook-profile-styled autobiography in numb shock for about five minutes while he rambled on about 'suits' and how they just don't 'get' anything about anything and I don't even f---ing know.

As I flipped through the pages, I noticed two really important things about it:

1) I had initially assumed the kid was about 18, 19 tops, but he was actually twenty-five.

2) There was no work experience in it.

Anywhere at all.

He'd gone to college and that was it, that was his entire resume, everything else was random musings on the books, TV shows and bands he liked and what they'd taught him and how he basically felt that college was completely beneath him.
He'd never even held a f------ paper route.

I looked up at this kid and I said, 'Do you think, maybe, you'd like to reschedule this interview for another time?'

'No. Why? Is there a problem?'

'Yes,' I said, 'Several.'

I asked him if he'd received the multiple calls setting up and confirming the interview, all of which had stated, very clearly that we expected him to be dressed 'business casual', and, in fact, had very carefully defined what was meant by 'business casual'.

He said, 'Oh, were you serious about that?'

I had no damned words.

'Well,' he continued, in that very same ludicrously smug tone, 'I figured, you know, this is me. This is who I am. If you can't 'deal' with that, then maybe I don't even want this job.'

'That's extremely convenient,' I said. 'Because I don't see any reason to continue this interview.'

'Well great!' he said with a gigantic smirk. 'When do I start?'

What. Holy unbelievable f---ing almighty, what the explosive f---, what. I am staring at this ridiculous man-child and there is zero irony on his pierced, fake-glasses-wearing face, he is patiently waiting for me to tell him when his first day of work will be and I still cannot stop staring at that f---ing Naruto headband.

'You don't,' I managed to say. 'You don't start here. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. When I said 'this interview is over', I did not mean that in a good way.'

He is still not understanding. 'But you didn't even ask me anything,' he says. 'There wasn't even an interview.'

'Yes,' I said and explained to him that our request for him to dress like a professional adult was one hundred percent mandatory, and by failing to do so, so very flippantly, had told me everything I needed to know about him.

'You don't know s--- about me,' this kid says and his face goes beet red. 'You don't know me, you don't know anything about me. You need to give me an interview. I know my rights, give me my f------ interview.'

For the sake of not causing a physical incident, I did not explain that I knew more than enough about him already to warrant never ever hiring him ever in the world, forever. Instead, I carefully explained that his 'rights' here consisted entirely of leaving the building before I had him removed for trespassing.

And now this kid starts shouting at me, screaming that I am a fascist nazi a--hole, that I don't know s--- about anything, that he's a billion times better than me and when he's a millionaire he'll buy this company just so he can fire me.

When that somehow fails to procure immediate employment, he then, with tears in his eyes, begs me for a job.

His mother, he says, will boot him out onto the street if he doesn't get this job.
If I don't give him this job, he will be homeless, he shouts at me, and it will be my fault.

'I'll cope,' I tell him as security finally arrives to escort him the f--- out.

So there's me, sitting in the empty office, with this kid's ridiculous 'resume' in my lap, chairs all knocked over, staring off into space and wondering what the f--- just happened.

And then Al, my boss Al, pokes his head in. His face is stony-serious as he asks me, 'What did you think?'

'You know,' I said, 'I don't think he'll be a good fit.'

'Okay,' Al says and nods with the kind of gravitas you don't see outside of Shakespeare. 'Keep up the good work.'