Wednesday, October 29, 2003
High Fidelity
My intrepidacious brother got a second or third part-time job (he's a student too) last week. His favourite book/music store in London, the Book & Comic exchange, was hiring, so he called them up. This was his screening interview:
"Who was in The Smiths?"
"Morrissey, Johnny Marr... Andy Rourke... hmm, I can't remember the drummer's name."
"What hits did xxxxx have?" band name omitted because a) I've never heard of them and b) I don't want to destroy their screening questions
"Sadly, that's a gap in my '80s knowledge." Note: this was a bluff, he didn't know them either, but guessed at decade.
There was a third question, which my brother got partly right, and then:
"Right, do you want to come in and write our general knowledge test?"
He did very well on the books and jazz sections, decently on the pop/rock sections, so the guy had him write the comics and some other test to see if they should train him as a buyer. He only got 14% on the comics test, so for now he's just casual staff at their Pop & Rock exchange.
When he told me last night, I was all, "Hey, you're working at that store from that book that turned into the movie in Chicago with John Cusack..."
"High Fidelity," he supplied.
"That's it." (It was late, I was non-verbal. Nick Hornby, I think you're wonderful, truly.)
"I think the selection might not be quite as good," he said, but has promised to tell me wacky second hand music shop stories that I can share with the world.
