i'm parking my stories on this album. no need to comment, but if you do, i thank you a lot.
The Good Book
The recruiter, Mr. Javier, an elderly lawyer who spoke so slow I felt like being lulled to sleep, kept turning the results of my IQ and English tests. Every turn merited a “Wow!” or “Excellent!” Then he would look at me and say “Impressive!” Did that mean I got the job, I asked. He said he needed to send the results along with the other applicants’ to the President of the company who would pare the fifty candidates chosen from the five hundred they received. A long shot, I thought.
In March of 1985, Trans-World Oil had advertised for an executive secretary for the President of its branch office in Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman.
I had been unemployed for almost a year. Of the two hundred-some resumés I sent out, I received a reply from ten companies and only four called me for actual interviews. The Oman job was the last to call and, before my initial interview, I was sent to a third party office to test my mettle in English, written and spoken, and a personality test which included the IQ test. After a week, the recruiter called again advising the office in Oman, however impressed they were with the results of my tests, sent a sealed test combining American and European aptitude tests, for me to open and answer on the spot. It was a 100-item questionnaire consisting of English spelling and grammar and “what would you do?” scenarios. I was ushered in to a small boardroom with no windows and given two hours to complete the tests. In less than 40 minutes, I came out and handed the results to Mr. Javier who told me to take my time and review my answers carefully and thoroughly. The English tests were peanuts, and I bullshitted my answers to the what-would-you-do questions. I told Mr. Javier that I have reviewed them three times already. Right then and there, the questionnaires were faxed back to Oman and after half an hour, the Oman branch called: I passed.
Three weeks later, the President of the Oman office, Mr. Benstead, came to Manila to interview the five final candidates and I was one of them. The other four candidates went to exclusive colleges and universities and came from “important families” and lived in condominiums or elite addresses. Two of them had their drivers sitting in the ante-room of the suite. The girls looked like models -- tall, lean and held their chins up. They oozed with self-confidence in their colourful silk dresses and signature bags. I, on the other hand, wore a light purple suit and a jaunty summer hat.
Mr. Benstead was an old British man with big stomach and wore too much cologne. He didn't seem impressed with me until we shook hands. “That’s a good grip you had there, Ms. Summerfield, I’m impressed," he said. It also did not escape his notice that while the other girls were reading fashion and entertainment magazines, I was reading the day’s edition of USA Today.
He said he was not impressed with the schools I had attended – public elementary school, local private college for high school, a lesser-known university run by Vincentian priests for my college degree -- even though, in addition, I had four years of law which of course didn’t count since I didn’t actually graduate. While I could not compete with the other candidates’ pedigrees and the kind of education they had, I knew I had solid working experience and I didn't have the heavy Filipino accent when I spoke English. And while their experience in travelling was for leisure, mine was for scholarship and work.
Two weeks more passed and the recruiter called me to tell me to get my passport ready as I was being hired, but on the condition that I pass the required medical tests. He said that I was only Mr. Benstead’s fourth choice even though my tests were much better than the other girls. The first choice wanted to bring her parents as part of the employment package; the second and third demanded too many vacations. I, on the other hand, was ready to start anytime.
I had my medical tests and I was asked to pick up the results after a week. When I went back to the hospital, the nurse told me that my hepatitis tests came back positive and they needed a second test to re-confirm. But, she said, if I really wanted the job, we can ‘discuss’ it. I knew what she meant. I told her that as a matter of principle, I do not believe in nor tolerate bribery and I would prefer to have a second test.
I left the hospital resigned to the fact that I would not get the job. When I got home, I called Mr. Javier to give him the information. Then I locked myself in my bedroom and cried. I had no job and probably sick. My apartment had been robbed the previous month and all my jewelry, some of which I had started to sell to meet household expenses were taken; my savings had been steadily dwindling. I sat on my bed, holding my Bible. I opened it and through eyes blurred by tears, I started to read whatever was on the page. As I read through the psalm, I cried so hard not because of my problem but because I was profoundly affected by the passage I was reading:
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
When I finished, I felt very relaxed and I had stopped crying.
The next morning, Mr. Javier called to say that the hospital had sent him the results of the medical tests and that everything came out negative. There was a mix up in the laboratory with the hepatitis result, he was told, but as a precaution, he arranged for me to go to another hospital for another hepatitis test where, eventually, I was given the all-clear.
In the middle of June of that year, I arrived in Muscat, Oman. Despite repeated advice to not bring my Bible with me, I had it in my handcarry. When I checked through Omani Customs, it was the first thing the officer saw. He took it out of my bag, then he sifted through the rest of the bag’s contents piece by piece, all the while holding the Bible with his other hand. When he had put back all my things, he nodded and let me through, I held out my hand and asked for my Bible. He leafed through it, hesitated for a few seconds, then as he handed it back to me, he said “It’s a good book.”
Note: this is a re-telling of a previously posted story (see tag "summerfield-selfstories) -- edited for a more cohesive reading.
